Damage Avoidance, and the Final Ends

"In a perfect game, a good player can avoid taking any damage."  This was the claim made to me.  I quickly retorted that I didn't think that the perfect game necessarily had a concept of "damage".  It felt like a victory in game design talk, but it also felt cheap, after all most games have losses and gains that can roughly be equivocated to "damage".

Such a claim certainly does a good job of calling out some great games, but it also is lax in incriminating others.

Here is a short list of great games that seem to work well under this type of mantra:

• Pacman
• Punchout
• Mario Brothers
• Mega Man
• Dance Dance Revolution

Some other games seem to fit the bill as well, like Geometry Wars and Robotron, though ultimately the gig is up.  

In many of these types of games, the overall point isn't even damage avoidance, High Scores and Level Completion are the "final end".  Damage avoidance is the *immediate* goal of the game, one of the crucial skills required, but not the ultimate "point".  Losing a life or two in a game of Donkey Kong Jr won't keep you off of the leader boards.  

The damage avoidance model calls out some games as being simple or flawed, like Battleship.  Other games it fails to incriminate as simple and flawed, however, like Tic Tac Toe.  

Finally, games like Go, Chess, and Baseball thwart this model altogether.  In Go and Chess pieces may be sacrificed for the greater good.  Losing pieces does not diminish the skill of the master, many times a skillful sacrifice is a sign of maturity and mastery.  Likewise, Baseball allows for "sacrifice hits" which do not count against the player who makes the bunt.  The player is giving up their best chances at success for the good of the team.

So we see that in a game that require teamwork, or synergy between multiple pieces do not necessarily fit this model very well.

Games that are simple to master, like Tic Tac Toe, often make it too easy to avoid "damage".

So what is the overall concept that damage avoidance is trying to teach us?  What is the Final End of a great game?

Mastery.

The easy to learn, lifetime to master claim has become a cliche, but rightfully so!  In a single-player game like Pacman, after each death the player ideally is kicking themselves for eating the last power pellet too soon, or turning right instead of left.

In great games, failure to avoid damage (when appropriate) will often lead the player towards mastery.  The player is left knowing how they could do better next time.

In some very sophisticated games, we must "unlearn what we have learned" and also learn when taking losses aids the greater good.

When we feel at the whim of the designer, or the random number generator, often fall short of the mark of greatness.  Players who feel snubbed by luck give themselves a psychological out, and are not necessarily inspired to master a game after being defeated or falling short of the mark.  This is why the best "luck games" allow you to create your own luck.  This is the primary skill of Poker, in fact!

Several top Magic the Gathering players give this advice as well.  Make your own luck.  Drafting the better cards in a tournament, helps you be "lucky", more-so than the luck of the shuffle.

So, the takeaway for game designers is this:  Receiving "damage" should not be random, arbitrary, or unfair so that the player is left with a clear and pressing desire to improve and gain mastery.  Damage by random numbers, whim, or bad design allows players an easy out.  Allowing the player to choose to "take the hit" for a teammate, or for a "piece", however, encourages "big picture" thinking, and likewise encourages mastery.

The end goal is to create a desire for mastery, and for the game to have a complexity worthy of that desire.