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THE RULE BOOK: THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF GAMES

Jaakko Stenros, Markus Montola



 

How games are built on the foundations of rules, and how rules—of which there are only five kinds—really work.


Board games to sports, digital games to party games, gambling to role-playing games. They all share one thing in common: rules. Indeed, rules are the one and only thing game scholars agree is central to games. But what, in fact, are rules? In The Rule Book, Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola explore how different kinds of rules work as building blocks of games. Rules are constraints placed on us while we play, carving a limited possibility space for us. They also inject meaning into our play: without rules there is no queen in chess, no ball in Pong, and no hole in one in golf.


Stenros and Montola discuss how rules constitute games through five foundational types: the explicit statements listed in the official rules, the private limitations and goals players place on themselves, the social and cultural norms that guide gameplay, the external regulation the surrounding society places on playing, and the material embodiments of rules. Depending on the game, rules can be formal, internal, social, external, or material.

 

PUBLICATION DETAILS

LANGUAGE

BINDING

EDITION

ISBN

YEAR

PAGES

English

Paperback


9780262547444

2024

252

English

eBook


N/A

2024

252

 

TAGS


Authors/Illustrators: #JaakkoStenros #MarkusMontola

Publishers: #MITPress (The MIT Press)

Languages: #English

Year: #Year2024

Genres: #GameDesign


Companies:

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Games:

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