Game System Breakdown – Elements

Elements are the building blocks of a game. To help understand elements, we can make an analogy with the human body.

The human body is made up of cells, and from a broader perspective, the body contains various organs with specific functions. On a more microscopic level, the body consists of various organic and inorganic compounds made up of chemical elements. Terms like chemical elements, cells, and organs can all be considered components of the body. Similarly, in a game, different types of elements make up the game system.

Taking Landlord as an example, the game uses a deck of playing cards, which is one of the elements of the game. Breaking it down further, each individual card in the deck can also be considered an element. If we analyse this from an even more microscopic perspective, the playing cards are made from paper and ink. However, going into such detail doesn’t add much to our understanding of the game system. Therefore, the different dimensions of elements we break down must be relevant to the game system and help us understand it.

Elements can be divided into visible and invisible elements. In Landlord, the 54 playing cards are visible elements. These are elements we can perceive with our five senses; usually, they are things we can see, touch, or hear. The various card combinations in Landlord are invisible elements. These elements, although not perceivable through our five senses, are concepts that we can understand mentally. Similar invisible elements also include the identities of the players in Landlord, the gravity in the environment of Ori and the Blind Forest, and the various abilities of characters in League of Legends, etc.

Elements can exist with overlapping or inclusive relationships. In Landlord, each individual playing card can exist as a separate element, and the player’s hand and the draw pile are made up of these cards. Therefore, the player’s hand or draw pile can be seen as a collection of these individual card elements. In the “three with one” and “three with a pair” combinations in Landlord, the “three” combination is included in both, so the intersection of the two elements, “three with one” and “three with a pair,” is the “three” combination.