Game Ontology

[...] An ontology provides a shared vocabulary, which can be used to model a domain – wikipedia

I have found this interesting Game Ontology Project which by describing different abstract aspects allows to compare different games in a higher view.

[...] the trick is getting them to decompile a game into the language of game design pattern. – Adam

The Game Ontology project distinguishes the following aspects:

• Goals (in-game objectives or conditions that the player must meet if he expects to succeed at the game)
  
  • Agent Goals
  • Game Goals
  • Goal Metrics
• Interface (the player and the game meet by means of presentation, input method, and input device)
  
  • Input
  • Presentation
• Rules (define what can or cant be done in a game)
  
  • Rules Synergies
  • Gameplay Rules
  • Gameworld Rules
• Entity Manipulation (altering the attributes or abilities of an entity in the game world)
  
  • Compound Action
  • To Collide
  • To Create
  • To Move
  • To Own
  • To Remove
  • To Rotate
  • To Select
  • To Manipulate Time
  • To Manipulate Gravity
  • To Customize

Then there is the 400 Project Rule List to list some rules to consider.

See also:

• A Logical Game Engine for Modeling Videogames (Drillbot 6000)
• Game Mechanics
• Game design as a new domain for automated discovery
• Understanding Games
• Philosophy of computer games
• Gamedev At StackExchange
• Deconstruction Game
• Metagames

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