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Every Multiplayer Mechanic Ever Part One
There are 40 Mechanics of Multiplayer Games. THAT'S IT. No Really. No further design required Ever.
"A good game should focus entirely on it's single-player aspect first and foremost. Then if it's a simple game like a shooter or racer, use the remaining time and space to fit in a multi-player aspect to it... In other words, multi-playing should never take away from the single-player aspect of the game. Pure multi-player games really should be few and far between." -- the unfortunately named New Troll, Escapist Forums, 23 June 2009
True Single Player A game that is not played in opposition to, or in parallel with, or collaboratively with, someone else. I.E. Nothing As a computer, physics, and your body can be your opponent
Parallel Symmetric Golf Snowboarding Darts
Status Quantifying Achievement against a Systemic Opponent. Multiplayer = Relative Status Compared. Golf With A Scorecard
Races The first user to reach a given status level wins. Like... Races!
Leaderboards Asynchrnous Competition in Parallel with All Past Attempts
Parallel asymmetric Starcraft Mulitplayer Terrans play different w/different systems than Protoss; that play different w/different systems than Zerg; that play different w/different systems.
Tournaments Brackets in a Tournament are a Game outside of the Game
Flower-Picking Non-Zero-Sum Resource Consumption Compete to get Stuff But there is Always More Power-ups in Mario Kart
Dot-eating Zero-Sum Resource Consumption Compete to get Stuff What I Take is Gone for the Rest. Most RTS games
Tug of War I can Take your Stuff You can Take Mine Most games fit here
Handicapping Artificially Equalizing Status To Provide a Tighter Race. Rubber banding in Mario Kart Blue Shell!!
Secrets Imperfect Information Fog of war, Hands of Cards, etc.
Last Man Standing Multiple Instances of Tug of War Happening Concurrently
Bidding Change your Status Through Tug of War By a Zero-Sum Resource
Deception/Bluffing Secrets = goods Misinformation becomes a Tug of War
3rd Party Betting 3rd parties playing a bidding game with a zero-sum resource, based on the outcome of a multiplayer game Like Horse Race Betting!
Prisoner's Dilemma Teammates with secrets from each other must choose independently to collaborate or both lose.
Gamemaster Pattern Multiplayer Game that needs a 3rd party to direct the game Dungoen Master In D&DAI Director in Left 4 Dead
Roles Specialization into different games within one group Werewolf / Artemis / WoW
Hot Potato/Gangin Up Rotation of roles within a multiplayer game that creates ad-hoc groups Zombie Mode in Halo, Tag
Rituals Ceremonies marking significant role transitions within a social structure "Olly Olly Oxen Free" Scoreboard for a multiplayer shooter
Gifts Tranferring a resource to another player in order to increase their status
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