Ludic Entity

A Ludic Entity is an element that is there in a game: a piece, a card, a die, a ball, a goal; an avatar, an inventory item, an element of the interface; points, hit points, energy, money. It is one of the two element bearers - the Ludic Entity says what is there, the Ludic Action what happens. Determinations adhere to it - regulation, appearance, ascription -, and they hold for a Ludic Process.

Something becomes an entity not through its material properties but by being drawn into play with determinations adhering to it. The doll on the shelf is not an entity; the same doll in play is one. A stick becomes a sword the moment a child takes it into play - spontaneously in free play or determined in the corpus.

An entity is steered or moved by the regulation; it does not decide. The exoskeleton, the racing car, the game clock and the scripted figure are entities; whoever decides independently is a Ludic Agent (§5). Entities are not divided into fixed types but described by their values on dimensions (§10); known patterns such as avatar, pawn and static unit are prototypes - frequent profiles as reference points (§11).

Place and design access

Place on the axis: CORPUS - the entity is a bearer in the corpus: the determinations a game consists of adhere to it.

Design access: designable - what an entity can do, how it appears and what it counts as are determined. Found material - the ordinary deck of cards - carries determinations without being designed itself.

Relations on the axis:

• CORPUS: Ludic Regulation determines what an entity can do; Ludic Appearance how it appears; Ludic Fiction what it counts as. Ludic Actions act on entities. A pattern presupposes no entities: which entities can be bid for in an auction is determined by the rules that realise it. How entities stand to one another and to the agents - ownership, adjacency, belonging - is ordered by the structures: where they stand, by the Ludic Spatial Structure; when they hold, by the Ludic Temporal Structure.
• FORM: the Ludic Form conditions which entities can be realised - a game state tracking a thousand units on screen, not at the table.
• AGENT–PROCESS: entities are the bearers of the events that make up the Ludic Fabula; their economy - what becomes scarce, what grows back - helps pace the Ludic Ductus.
• AGENT: an entity can represent the agent in the game - the avatar, the playing piece. It is steered; the agent decides.
• AGENT–CORPUS: the Ludic Frame makes some entities more plausible than others - sword and shield in the Middle Ages, lasers in space.
• INTENT: the Ludic Desiderata guide which entities a game needs.

The trias at this concept

At a resource in a board game:

Regulation - what the entity can do: collectable, consumable, a numerical value, personally ownable. Appearance - how it appears: a red wooden cube, a golden metal coin, a particle effect on screen. Ascription - what it counts as: energy, blood, magic power, influence.

Each of the three can be set on its own; this is the room for design - a red wooden cube can be energy or blood. Where they diverge, coherence costs arise. An entity can hold one of the ways at the zero point: the Go stone counts as nothing.

Process formula. The determinations adhere to the entity and hold for a process:

A Ludic Entity has a Ludic Regulation for a Ludic Process. A Ludic Entity has a Ludic Appearance for a Ludic Process. A Ludic Entity has a Ludic Fiction for a Ludic Process.

The prepositional construction is binding; the possessive genitive is to be avoided: “the appearance of the entity” would suggest that appearance is a property carried along. How the determined appearance is perceived in a match - the same piece by candlelight and at the tournament table - belongs to the situation and to experience.

Delimitations

Delimitation from Ludic Agent

Against the Ludic Agent: steered and deciding. An agent decides independently between possibilities; an entity is steered, or its behaviour is set by the regulation. The human in the exoskeleton is an agent, the exoskeleton an entity; the avatar represents the agent, it is not the agent.

Delimitation from Ludic Robot

Against the Ludic Robot: the place decides, not the technology. The chess computer in a participant’s seat is a Ludic Robot - a human could sit there too. The dragon in the dungeon, the enemy wave, the scripted figure occupy a place that only the rules create: they are entities, even if the same technology is inside them.

Delimitation from Ludic Action

Against the Ludic Action: what is there and what happens. The entity is the bearer that is there; the action is the bearer that happens - and it mostly acts on entities: moving, capturing, collecting. The same piece, taken out of the game, can be called “deleted”, “killed”, “consumed” or “secured”; the ascription then attaches to the action, not to the piece.

Delimitation from Ludic Narrem

Against the Ludic Narrem: bearer and what is ascribed. The narrem is what something counts as - gold, blood, power. The entity is that to which it is ascribed: “the red cube counts as blood” - the cube is the entity, blood the narrem. The same narrem can adhere to many entities, the same entity carry a different one in another game.

Examples

• Chess: the piece counts as a knight, moves in an L, is made of wood or plastic - three determinations at one entity.
• Monopoly: the square counts as Boardwalk; the play money is a value store.
• Catan: resource cards are resources - collectable, tradeable, consumable; the robber is a piece the players move.
• Super Mario: Mario is the avatar - if he loses all lives, the game is lost; the mushroom is an entity that changes him.
• Werewolf: the role card is hidden - an entity known only to its owner.
• The Sims: the figures are steered only indirectly - the players give prompts, the game executes.
• The goal in football: its size is determined, 7.32 × 2.44 m; that a goal counts is a rule about the goal line and the ball, not about the goal.

Explanation

Everything that occurs in a game is a Ludic Entity: pieces and cards, points and hit points, dice and play money, avatars and inventory items. Even a stick can become one - the moment a child declares it a sword and lets it join the game.

At every entity you can determine three things: what it can do in the game, how it looks and what it counts as. The three can be changed independently of one another - and that is where much of the room for design lies. A red wooden cube can be energy or blood; a simple token an army or a virus.

Instead of dividing entities into fixed types, LUNA describes them by questions: can it change? Who steers it? Who can see it? Can it be owned? The answers yield each entity’s profile.

Usage context

Dimension	Classification
Phase	primarily development (which entities does your game need?); secondarily ideation (what exists in your game?) and evaluation (analysis of existing games)
Tool type	structuring: the entity sheet in the element worksheet (tabulae/worksheet/element-worksheet.md); the prototypes as reference cards (ENT-01 to ENT-08); the dimensions as cards (ED-01 to ED-08); generative questions

Dimension model

Eight dimensions - properties of the entity itself, one card each (ED-01 to ED-08):

Prototypes

Known patterns as frequent profiles on the dimensions, ordered by control (ENT-01 to ENT-08): direct controllable unit - directly steered -, with the special forms avatar (represents one agent one-to-one; if it is lost, the match is lost) and pawn (a tool without identification; if it is lost, a resource is gone); indirect controllable unit (the agent gives prompts, the game executes - The Sims); self controllable unit (its behaviour is set by the regulation - the scripted figure, the enemy wave); value container (stores or exchanges values); affected unit (gives feedback without storing values); static unit (immutable, not removable).

Prototypes are reference points, not an exhaustive taxonomy and not a division along one axis: the unsteered prototypes separate by value and interactivity, not by control. Genre prototypes - resource, equipment, terrain, obstacle, interface - form a derived layer: prototype, fixed additional axes and a colouring in appearance and ascription.