Core term - linguistically invariant
Ludic View Structure
What it is about
The Ludic View Structure orders what is perceivable in a game: what is perceivable for whom from where - visible or hidden, near or far.
It is a coordinate structure: every game has one, at the zero point if need be - everything open, for everyone, from everywhere, as in chess. It has one or several views. A view is a place of the view structure, as a location is a place of the Spatial Structure: StarCraft shows the main view and the minimap at once, in a racing game players switch between cockpit and outside camera. The concept is the range of values, the view structure of a game the choice set within it; the values are set by Ludic Regulation. Regulation, appearance and ascription adhere to its places.
It has two sides, and both answer the same question. The viewpoint says from where perception takes place: from within the figure, behind it, above the whole. The distribution says what is perceivable for whom: open, for some, for no one. The over-the-shoulder camera is a viewpoint, the hidden hand a distribution. It is dimensional: eleven dimensions in these two groups (§10); named cameras and familiar information situations are combinations of these values (§11).
It is form-independent. The same distribution holds at the table and in digital games: hidden hand cards in Poker as in Hearthstone. The Ludic Form spans which values can be realised. At the table and in sport the viewpoint is mostly given by the form - each person sees from their seat, with their own eyes; in digital games it is designed: the camera.
What it is not. It is not appearance: how something looks and sounds is determined by Appearance, from where and for whom it is perceivable by the view structure. It is not the rule: “only whoever holds the hand cards sees them” is a rule that sets a value of the view structure. And it is not the knowledge of the agents: what someone remembers or infers lies with them; the view structure only orders what is perceivable.
Place and design access
Place on the axis: CORPUS - a coordinate structure of the corpus. Its values are determinations; what is actually seen and heard in a match happens in the process.
Design access: designable - viewpoint and distribution are determined, as are how the views appear and what the hidden counts as.
Relations on the axis:
- CORPUS: Ludic Regulation determines at it and sets its values - every view structure is set, even at the zero point; Ludic Appearance and Ludic Fiction determine at its places how a view appears and what the hidden counts as (the fog of war). It corresponds with the other coordinate structures: with the Spatial Structure, because what one perceives of the space depends on its layout - the labyrinth hides, the arena shows; with the Social Structure, because for whom means for its places - players, teams, roles, game master, spectators; with the Temporal Structure, because when something becomes known lies on its places - the night in Werewolf, the rounds in which Mister X shows himself.
- FORM: the Ludic Form spans the possibility space of view structures - the camera in digital games, the screen at the table, one’s own body in sport.
- AGENT–PROCESS: on the game side it contributes to the Ludic Fabula: every agent has their own, and how far they diverge is ordered among other things by the view structure - in Werewolf everyone knows a different part.
- AGENT: the view structure determines what is perceivable for the agents; what they perceive of it, remember and infer from it, it does not determine.
The trias at this concept
In a coordinate structure the three terms take hold at the places - at this view, this face-down pile, this screen.
Regulation - the choice set: only whoever holds the hand cards sees them; the pile lies face down; Mister X shows himself in the third, eighth and thirteenth rounds; the camera follows the figure and cannot be turned. Appearance - how the place is perceivable: the grey veil over unexplored terrain, the back of the card, the edge of the minimap, the footsteps behind the wall. Ascription - what the place counts as: in Civilization and StarCraft the hidden counts as fog of war; the closed eyes in the Werewolf night count as sleep.
The three can be set independently. Where they diverge, coherence costs arise: a fog that appears as fog but does not hide units. How clear or oppressive a game feels only follows from the whole and belongs to the derived layer.
Process formula. The determinations adhere to the places and hold for a process:
A Ludic View Structure has a Ludic Regulation for a Ludic Process. A Ludic View Structure has a Ludic Appearance for a Ludic Process. A Ludic View Structure has a Ludic Fiction for a Ludic Process.
The prepositional construction is binding; the possessive genitive is to be avoided.
Delimitations
Delimitation from Ludic Appearance
Against Ludic Appearance: from where versus how. Appearance determines how something appears on a channel - colour, sound, weight. The view structure determines from where and for whom it is perceivable. The camera is both at once: its viewpoint is view structure, its image - light, style, colour - is appearance. The screen at the table is an entity; that what lies behind it is hidden is a value of the view structure, how it looks is appearance. The view structure orders what is perceivable on all channels of appearance; the visible is the normal case, and the name follows it.
Delimitation from Ludic Entity
Against the Ludic Entity: place versus thing. Whether a card lies face up, face down or visible in only one hand is not a feature of the card but a value of the view structure at the place where it lies. The same card is hidden in the pile, private in the hand, open in the display. Visibility therefore belongs here, not to the entity.
Delimitation from Ludic Spatial Structure
Against the Ludic Spatial Structure: layout versus perception. The spatial structure determines how the space is laid out, the view structure what one perceives of it. The two are connected: the labyrinth hides because it is laid out that way, the arena shows everything. A line of sight that only determines what a figure may attack while everyone sees everything - in Warhammer 40,000 - is regulation at the spatial structure; if it determines what the players perceive - the fog of war in StarCraft - it is a value of the view structure. Whether the world is two- or three-dimensional belongs to the layout, that is, to the spatial structure.
Delimitation from Ludic Social Structure
Against the Ludic Social Structure: constellation versus perception. The social structure sets who plays with and against whom, the view structure what these places perceive. Hidden roles lie at the joint: in Werewolf the role is a place of the social structure, the fact that the others do not know it is a value of the view structure.
Examples
| Game | View structure |
|---|---|
| Chess | zero point: everything open, for everyone. The viewpoint is the view from above onto the board, given by the form |
| Poker | partly hidden - one’s own cards hidden, the community cards open; symmetric, since everyone knows equally little about the others |
| Werewolf | asymmetric - the werewolves know each other, the seer learns one role per night; at night hidden for the rest; revealed once on elimination |
| Scotland Yard | asymmetric and changing - Mister X is hidden and shows himself in set rounds |
| Memory | hidden and changing - whoever turns a card shows it to all, then it is turned back; remembering lies with the players |
| StarCraft | two views at once, main view and minimap; overseeing and controlled; partly hidden in the fog of war, bound to one’s own units |
| The Last of Us | one view, accompanying over the shoulder, controlled; opponents can be heard before they are seen |
| Mario Kart | in multiplayer several views at once, one per person, side by side on one screen; the others’ view is open |
Explanation
Every game determines who can see what - even one in which everyone sees everything.
Sometimes this is obvious: the camera hanging over the figure’s shoulder, the card held face down in the hand, the game master’s screen. Sometimes it is unobtrusive: in chess everything lies open, and precisely that is a decision.
Two questions are contained in it. First: from where does perception take place? Through the figure’s eyes, behind it, from above over the whole - and is there one view or several, such as a minimap alongside? Second: for whom is what perceivable? Everything for everyone, some things for some, some for no one - and does it stay that way, or is something revealed?
At the table the first question is mostly answered already: each person sees from their seat. The second is the tool there - hidden cards, screens, secret roles. In digital games it is often the other way round: the camera is built with care, and who may know what is decided in passing. Both questions belong to one concept because they order the same thing: what a person can perceive in the game.
Usage context
- Ideation: what should the players know and not know - and what tension arises from what is hidden?
- Development: setting the values of the eleven dimensions; building views; deciding what is revealed when.
- Evaluation: as a test grid - do the players see what they need in order to decide? Is the hidden experienced as tension or as arbitrariness?
- Material: the stack Ludic View Structure with eleven dimension cards (
VC-25to-35), 21 value cards of the viewpoint (VC-01to-21) and 26 value labels (VR-01to-19,VR-21to-27), plus the named combination dimension shift (VR-20). At the table, the cards of the information architecture show what is used to hide and to display: player board, scoring track, screens (IA-01,IA-02,IA-05).
Theoretical foundation
- Staffan Björk, Jussi Holopainen, Patterns in Game Design (2005): a catalogue of information situations - perfect and imperfect, symmetric and asymmetric as two mutually independent axes, together with first- and third-person viewpoints and the view from above.
- For the viewpoint: the cards of view construction draw on the vocabulary of film, shot sizes from extreme close-up to extreme wide shot.
Dimensions
Eleven dimensions in two groups. Every game takes a position on each, the zero point included. The dimensions of the viewpoint except the number of views hold per view, those of the distribution across all views.
A - Viewpoint: from where does perception take place?
- Number of views: one view → several in succession (switchable: cockpit and outside camera, the map screen) → several at once (minimap, split screen, picture in picture).
- Anchoring: subjective (from within the figure, from one’s own body) → accompanying (related to a figure, outside it) → overseeing (independent of the elements) → decentred (bound to a location, not to a figure; the figures move through the image).
- Control: fixed → guided by the game → controlled by the players.
- Elevation: low angle → eye level → slightly raised → raised → steep from above.
- Azimuth: from behind · from the side · from the front · all round - four values without ranking.
- Framing: extreme close-up → close → medium → wide → panorama.
- Projection: perspective → isometric → orthographic.
B - Distribution: what is perceivable for whom?
- Openness: open → partly hidden → fully hidden (hidden from all, the range of values known: the face-down pile).
- Symmetry: symmetric (everyone knows equally much or equally little) → asymmetric (some know more).
- Changeability: fixed → revealed once → changing (revealed and hidden again).
- Consolidation: consolidated (one place shows the state for everyone: the score track, the display at the edge of the screen) → distributed (the state lies at the elements themselves).
For whom means for the places of the Social Structure: players, teams, roles, the game master, spectators too. That information is accessible to non-players is therefore a value of the distribution, not a dimension of its own. Reliability is not a dimension: whether perceivable information is true is determined by regulation - bluff and deception are its patterns. The last seen state in the fog of war is a value of changeability.
At the table and in sport the dimensions of the viewpoint are mostly given by the form - each person sees from their seat, in perspective, at eye level -; in digital games they are designed. The dimensions of the distribution can be designed in every form.
Value labels
The named cameras and information situations of the card stock and the literature are value labels: they can be reconstructed from dimension values. As an entry point they remain useful - “over-the-shoulder” is easier to work with than “accompanying, close, from behind”.
| Value label | Reconstruction |
|---|---|
| First person | subjective · eye level · perspective |
| Over-the-shoulder, third person | accompanying · from behind · close to medium |
| Chase camera | accompanying · guided by the game |
| Free orbit camera | accompanying · controlled · all round |
| Side-scroller | accompanying · from the side · orthographic |
| Isometric | overseeing · raised · isometric |
| Strategy camera, top-down | overseeing · steep from above · controlled or fixed |
| Fixed camera angles, surveillance camera | decentred · fixed; the surveillance camera with several views in succession |
| Minimap | several views at once · overseeing · consolidated |
| Split screen | several views at once, one per person · the others’ view open |
| Perfect information | open (zero point of the distribution) |
| Hidden information | partly hidden · asymmetric |
| Unknown information | fully hidden, range of values known · symmetric |
| Memory | hidden · changing |
| Fog of war | partly hidden, bound to the position of one’s own elements · changing |
The dimension shift is not a value label - in Fez the player turns the world and the view with it, and what was separate a moment ago is connected. The shift brings regulation with it; it is a named combination of view structure and regulation.