\n<\/p>\n
Hey all. Okay, we\u2019re not using \u201cRandomness\u201d anymore. Or, this is a proposal to use some different terms, for different, specific things. The word \u201crandomness\u201d is really overloaded with a lot of different uses and I find that it\u2019s sometimes difficult to talk about different kinds of variance in games in a way that is both clear, and also doesn\u2019t sound like you\u2019re trying to criticize a game when you perhaps aren\u2019t. My favorite videogame is \u201cHearthstone: Battlegrounds\u201d (not\u00a0<\/em>regular Hearthstone, which I hate, but the autobattler within the Hearthstone app), and it is highly, highly \u201crandom\u201d by most definitions of this word. I think this is meant more for conversation than my last article on randomness<\/a>, which I still think is good and useful in a different way.<\/p>\n Unpredictable:<\/strong> This is the blanket term for any mechanism that the player is not meant to be able to deterministically predict. So this would include everything from card draws from a random deck, damage ranges (you deal 5-10 damage), or anything else that would normally be called \u201crandom\u201d. I would also personally include execution here as something that is unpredictable (you cannot predict that you will correctly input the dragon punch inputs this time), and also simultaneous actions as well. This is kind of our basic replacement term for \u201crandomness\u201d that I\u2019ll be using in this article.<\/p>\n Chaotic<\/strong>: I think this would be an experiential descriptor that describes the feeling of a game wherein a lot of unpredictable effects are happening frequently enough, that it feels difficult to pin down the game state in a solid-feeling way. I want to be clear that to me, a game being chaotic could be a good thing or a bad thing. I think that if you want to evoke the feeling of a fight or a battle, at least some degree of \u201cchaoticness\u201d helps. Many games that are themed as battles but lack chaoticness, end up feeling more like puzzles and losing that aesthetic feeling of chaos.<\/p>\n Volatile<\/strong>: This is a term that is used to describe high-impact unpredictable mechanisms. So, it\u2019s less about the odds of success, or the frequency of the unpredictable events, and more about the impact that the unpredictable event has. So \u201cyou deal 6-10 damage\u201d is less volatile than \u201cyou deal 0-100 damage\u201d.<\/p>\n Erratic<\/strong>: This could be a term that describes a system that is non-uniformly unpredictable, that goes from highly predictable to highly unpredictable in a way that\u00a0itself <\/em>feels somewhat unpredictable. Nothing comes to mind for me as an example of this but I\u2019m sure it exists. Think of a game that mostly feels deterministic and controlled but then suddenly there\u2019s this crazy mini game where the whole table gets flipped.<\/p>\n Luck-Based \/ Unfair<\/strong>: These would be two terms that are describing the mostly emotional experience of playing a game that has a lot of high variance unpredictable events happening. If it\u2019s a one player game, you might be more likely to use \u201cluck based\u201d, since you\u2019re playing from one player\u2019s perspective, but for multiplayer games you might see them as more \u201cunfair\u201d, given that we tend to start thinking about concepts like \u201cfairness\u201d once there are several people involved.<\/p>\n \u201cSlot Machine\u201d<\/strong>: This is for a game or system whose skill ceiling is also the skill floor, or close to it. Games or systems that are \u201ctotally random\u201d, like a coin flip. You don\u2019t really see that much of this in video games but it\u2019s worth mentioning, especially with the rise of gambling games in mobile games.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Feel free to propose some more. What do you think of these?<\/p>\nRelated<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n