The Core Layer: Content and Features
Although the context defines a more material view of the game's concept, it still lacks any game-specific components. For example, the concept and context of a game could also be implemented as a movie or a book, with only minor adjustments. It is in the next layer down the line that such game-related functionality becomes clear.
Contents of a game are basically what players see and most often can touch inside the game space. The player's avatar itself is game content, together with any other characters, weapons, items, scenario objects, etc., that are there for the player to interact with, using the game system. We can think of content as the concretization of the game from the perspective of the player.
Features, on the other hand, are the mid-level description of gameplay, often represented as use cases (“squad control”, ”vehicle riding”) and broad system descriptions (“price fluctuation”, “real-time cloth physics”), which comprise the different ways in which the player can touch the game or be touched by it. They also define the nature of the player's interaction, in terms of the feedback perceived by the player from his actions in the game world (“destructible environments”, “believable emotional NPCs”).
While concept and context are the layers responsible for the player's first impression and general understanding of the game, it is the content and features that will make him want to play more and more. Content and features are the bread and butter of a game. Together, they define how the concept and context are realised as an interactive experience. Features are the blueprint onto which content is constructed, thus instantiating gameplay.
Content and features, therefore, play a major, central role in the player's experience with the game, and so we decided, for our layered approach, to bind these two components in a single layer called Core.
The most important distinction between the top-down and bottom-up cognition processes, as discussed later in this article, is exemplified in the relation between content and features with regard to the other layers. If we work down from the top, we can see features as an abstraction of content in order to create the desired game mechanics; on the other hand, if we go up from the bottom, we can see content as an abstraction of features to create the desired game context. Therefore, it is impossible to tell which of these two layers is more abstract than the other. That is the main reason why we choose to consider these two layers as an unified component of the architecture.
The relation between features and content can also be observed through a different perspective: the conflict between “open-ended” and “scripted” gameplay. Open-ended games such as Zelda or GTA rely on features to provide the desired gameplay experience, in the form of emergent behavior of the objects and characters that populate the game environment. In this case, features are more abstract and fundamental than content, because it is the behavior of things, rather than their actual colors and flavors, that generate a living game environment for the players to explore.
On the other hand, scripted games such as Half-Life or Metal Gear Solid rely on content to guarantee that the gameplay experience is exactly what the game designers have planned. In this case, content is more abstract than features, because it is the actual layout of things that will provide the desired experience; the behavior of things has to be only as complex as needed by the desired content.
Gilliard: Now this is an open-ended game! I can do things the game designer has not planned...
Rafael: And all you can think about is carrying a chicken around?
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