Natural Mechanics

Every game has some kind of rules and mechanics that say how it works. One quality criteria of these mechanics is something that I call their naturalness. Some mechanics feel more natural than others. If a mechanic feels natural to the user it is more likely that he will accept and learn it faster than a mechanic that feels constructed and artificial. This way it is easier for him to get immersed in your game and have a more satisfying experience. The following article tries to explain the concept of natural rules, its values,risks and chances.

What is a natural mechanics?

Humans develop mental models that tell them how different things work. Take gravity as an example. When you drop an apple you’re going to expect that it is going to fall down to the ground because of your mental model that tells you how gravity works. In the same way players develop a mental model of your game. But their mental model of your game is affected by other already formed mental models that are somehow related to your game. The more your game matches their already established mental models the easier it is for them to learn and accept it. Of course not every game wants to be a simulation of the real world so you have to make decisions what things you’re going to simulate and how completely you’re going to simulate them. Therefore finding a good representation in the real world to communicate a mechanic in your game has a very high value. So you can think of a natural mechanic as a mechanic that its representation in the game matches the users already formed mental models and expectations to such a degree that it is easily learned, understood and remembered.

Sources of mental models

There can be different sources where humans develop their mental models from. One big source of mental models are physical or natural laws. Gravity pulls us down, force leads to movement, etc. Video games make a lot of use of these models. Physic based games like Cut the Rope for example rely almost completely on these kinds of mental models. This is probably a reason why Cut the Rope had such a wide user base as almost everybody could pick up the game and understood its mechanics in such a short time. The players could make use of their already developed mental models of physical laws and Zepto Lab (the developers) made great use of this advantage.

Another big source is society. Killing the king in chess leads to a win as a rule is easy to accept because based on our knowledge about how society works killing the leader of a group has such a huge impact on the group that it may lead to the decay of it. There is no real reason why all the other pieces on the board shouldn’t be able to keep fighting as soon as the king is dead. Our mental model that describes how important a king/leader in a war is lets us accept it and makes it easy to remember.

The last big source of mental models are conventions. Conventions tell us that a cross at the top right of an interface closes it and that we can manipulate the view in a first person shooter with our mouse. You can see these kinds of conventions more often at more artificial mechanics. Take the level up mechanic that a lot games have today. A lot of games teach players that having a level up means to progress in the game. This became a convention that video games formed over time. Having a level up mechanic is something that most players understand as soon as they see it because they played so many games that featured and taught them the level up mechanic.

Natural Mechanics Done Well

I love Dark Souls. It has such a deep melee combat on the one hand on the other hand its combat feels very natural. From Software did a great job in adding mechanics that make the combat deep without making it somehow artificial. Let’s take a look at the rules of the melee hit mechanic.

• Hitting an enemy deals damage
• Hitting early in the enemies hit-animation can interrupt him
• Hitting costs stamina
• Hitting costs time
• Hitting costs weapon durability
• Hitting a wall cancels the hit
• You can’t turn while hitting
• You can’t walk while hitting
• Hitting all the time keeps the player's stamina from regenerating
• Weapons that are too heavy for you are harder to handle
• Hitting with both hands costs more stamina and deals more damage
• It matters where you hit your enemy
• Different weapons have different hit animations
• Different weapons have different range

As you can see just hitting has at least 11 mechanics. Hitting enemies is an action that the player will perform a lot so having a lot of depth in it is something important and healthy when you have such a core audience like the Souls games do. But none of these rules is too artificial. It is easy to accept these rules because they are very close to the real world. The only rule that feels a little artificial in my opinion is the one that says that animations are only canceled when the enemy is hit in a specific time frame. I may be wrong but I think that it doesn't matter too much when you hit someone with a sword to keep interrupt his movement. But it adds a lot of depth by providing a risk and reward mechanic, as players can try to hit the enemy and interrupt him before his hit animation is too far to be interrupted. But when you want a mechanic like this you have to consider if it is worth it. From Software strives for depth and has a lot mechanics that are explained inside the fiction of the game in a very natural way. Holding your shield up slows down your character's stamina regeneration (risk and reward), losing all your stamina leads to an exhaustion state (resource management) etc. All these mechanics are almost self-explanatory. From time to time they make use of dialogues to explain mechanics that are more abstract or artificial but as their user group are mostly core gamers that are willing to learn and remember new stuff it isn’t a game breaker at all.

Natural Mechanics Done Poorly

One of the most present examples is the energy mechanic in free to play games. The usage of this mechanic is clearly obvious: pacing the content and monetising the player. But to be honest, in a lot of games, related to their theme this mechanic doesn’t even make sense. A lot of games do not even try to disguise it inside of their fiction. They just call it energy and that’s it. As energy is a pretty easy mechanic most players get it. Even more because of the time it became some kind of convention so players nowadays are not even confused when they meet an energy mechanic.

Another example is the fusing of monsters like Puzzle and Dragons did. In Puzzle and Dragons players can fuse monsters with other mothers so the first monster becomes stronger while the other monsters are lost. The mechanical benefit is clear (everything that the player get’s should have some kind of value, so even “bad” monsters that the player didn't want can be used to progress monsters the player wants to level up) but to fuse random monsters so they become stronger is very artificial and hard to understand. Especially for players that are not used to this kind of games. There is just no real world example that works this way.

The Game Setting

The setting of your game can make it harder and easier to find representations of your mechanics that make them feel natural. Blizzard always chooses settings that give them a lot of freedom when creating mechanics. This mechanical freedom comes with a cost. They have to work on their visuals so players can learn and understand what is going on. They still manage to have some kind of natural representation quite often but sometimes even Blizzard struggles with this and players just have to learn the mechanics that determine how their games work. For example the human race in World of Warcraft had a skill that gave them the possibility to see stealthed enemies even from a very far distance. This is hard to explain because it is not the first thing that comes into someone's mind when you think about race specific skills that fit to a human race.

But more casual game companies like Zynga take huge advantage of already formed mental models with their choice of setting. The very well known farm setting that was featured in Farm Ville was so intuitive that their players could learn the game very quickly as almost everybody already had some kind of idea how things work at a farm.

Graphics And Expectations

The more realistic your game looks the more simulation players expect from it. So if you have a very toony style players are more likely to accept it if things do not work in the same way as their already formed mental models of the real world. The more your game looks like the real world the more they expect that your game will work that way. Take a look at Mario Kart and the Grand Turismo games. Both games are about racing but Mario Kart looks way more abstract and cartoonish, as a result it has much more freedom for artificial mechanics like Power Ups, crazy short cuts and coins that are on the street and grant speed by collecting them. Grand Turismo on the other side looks way more realistic, so players expect that their cars and the mechanics behave in a realistic way and that’s exactly what this game is trying to accomplish.

With good intentions comes acceptance

Sometimes it is just a matter of communication. Even an unnatural representation of your mechanic can be accepted when it is a rewarding mechanic. This doesn’t make the game easier to learn but at least players won’t be mad about it. A mechanic that looks artificial but gives the players some kind of benefit or reward is something they can accept. But the opposite is harder to accept. That means that when you have mechanics that are more a restriction or some kind of punishment to your players you even have to try harder to find a good representation that makes your mechanic more authentic. A good representation can even make a mechanic feel good even if it is a restriction. In World of Warcraft Blizzard had the mechanic that let players gain less experience after playing for too long. They communicated this mechanic by saying that the avatar was exhausted and now earns only 50 percent of the rewarded experience. Players hated it and Blizzard had a hard time to justify this mechanic. So they took another approach and communicated it the other way. Now the avatar was rested when players didn’t play for some time and got bonus experience. Only after playing for too long the character state fall back to the normal amount of experience that he gained from defeating monsters and finishing quests. It was the same mechanic and even the representation was as artificial as before but now it was communicated as some kind of bonus. The feedback was much more positive and players loved it.

How to apply

Try to make use of already formed models of your players as much as you can but first you should design your mechanics. The already formed models of your target group can even work as an inspiration for these mechanics but they shouldn’t be the only source for your ideas. As long as you are able to explain your game to your target group in an enjoyable way everything is fine. Maybe the first representation of your mechanics isn’t the best, go and try to find a representation that is closer to another established mental model that explains your mechanic in a better way. If you’re not able to deliver a great representation make use of something that is as good as possible and see how if and how it works out. Sometimes chances are good that co-workers are able to come up with ideas for representations that fit your mechanics much better. At the end you have to ponder if certain mechanics feel to arbitrary and artificial to your players or if you can make use of them. Iterate and try to come closer to the best representation of your mechanics but always keep the initial desired experience and your target group in your mind. Never forget your desired experience, if you can deliver a mechanic and a representation of this mechanic that fits your desired experience you did a great job. Good luck with that!