To engage players with suspense and variety, game designers often infuse their work with elements of randomness. Randomness includes all of the unpredictable possibilities that games force upon the player. While Animal Crossing: City Folk uses a nonrandom formula to execute the protagonist’s running speed, it unpredictably generates a unique town at the start of each game. There is an important distinction to note: random game elements are not equivalent to unknown game elements to the player. Random game elements are probabilistic features that can appear in games differently from each playthrough, while unknown game elements are predetermined features that are unknown to the player, yet preset by designers. Enemy variety in Mappy, for instance, can initially appear random to the player due to their lack of exposure to said elements, but these elements’ preset nature makes them nonrandom. With that said, tactful inclusion of randomness can elevate the player’s enjoyment through both savoring and embracing for unpredictability.
Randomness enhances gameplay
While randomness can occasionally tax the player, its inclusion can largely improve gameplay. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, for instance, is built upon randomness through item blocks to aid players far from first place. These players have a higher chance to receive better items, thereby instilling them a continual chance to alter the race’s results. Conversely, players near first place do not as often get powerful items, consequently preventing them from widening the gap too far from players behind. These probabilities are unequal, yet still random. This randomness in item distribution aids gameplay by enforcing a competitive spirit throughout an entire race. With Mario Kart’s probabilistic item distribution, players stay motivated and engaged during the race because items give all players a chance at first place.
While randomness mainly affects Mario Kart’s one mechanic of item distribution, other games can be more heavily built upon unpredictability. The Mario Party series, for instance, enjoys a long and notoriously fun history with randomness. Player movement at the start of each turn in randomly decided, Chance Time spaces in Mario Party 2 swap randomly chosen assets among randomly chosen players, teams for minigames are sometimes randomly decided in Super Mario Party, two out of six bonus stars in Mario Party 8 are randomly awarded at the end of the game, etc. The beauty of these unpredictable game elements is that they directly influence gameplay, thereby making Mario Party games highly memorable from the zany situations they synthesize.
As another example, random item yields enrich gameplay in Fortnite. After hopping off the battle bus, players quickly scour the map for weapons. These weapons are randomly sewn across the map within treasure boxes, making initial seconds in each game tense to quickly develop a diverse weapon arsonal. Players are motivated to perform efficiently and open as many treasure boxes as possible because each box could result in a needed weapon. Gameplay in Fortnite would be strong if each character started with a base weapon and gained stronger weapons from the more enemies they defeated, yet this inclusion of randomness with weapon distribution makes rounds more hectic and exciting.
Randomness introduces gameplay variety
Because it creates a large set of possibilities, randomness also adds gameplay variety. A player can fight the same opponent with the same deck multiple times in Yu-Gi-Oh games, yet each battle is highly different from probabilistic game mechanics. The player’s deck is shuffled before each battle, introducing a strong sense of randomness because the player cannot predict what card he/she will draw. By battling an opponent who also randomly receives cards, in interactionist model of randomness is created where one player’s random inputs interact with another player’s random inputs to synthesize incredible amounts of gameplay variety. This diversity prevents battles from becoming dull, subsequently earning the player’s engagement and enjoyment.
While pairing core game mechanics with randomness produces robust variety in Yu-Gi-Oh games, even small randomness can vary gameplay enough to enhance player’s entertainment. Animal Crossing: Wild World mixes its gameplay by celebrating holidays and events. Staples such as Valentine’s Day and April Fool’s Day are expected, yet the game introduces new, unexpected occasions for celebration. Random fishing tournaments surprise the player and encourages fishing gameplay, an unanticipated “Festivale” enlivens players with gameplay celebrating their town’s best elements, and Bug-Offs encourage the player to hunt down the biggest insect. These additions are well-received by the player because Animal Crossing’s repetitive actions, such as checking the store and plucking weeds, can occasionally disinterest players. Random events that pour into gameplay helps keep players excited to see what each play session holds, resulting in heightened engagement and playtime.
Planning for randomness
Many games expect the player to recognize randomness, resulting in an intricate and entertaining player-game dynamic. Fire Emblem games are built upon this chancy risk-reward system as the hit and critical hit chances are randomly determined for both the player’s units and the enemy’s units. While the games clearly display the percentage that a unit will successfully strike the enemy and deal a critical hit, such odds are not guaranteed if not 100 percent. Thus, the player accepts a risk with almost every decision to engage an enemy, and an even greater risk with leaving a unit open for enemy strike. Despite the best laid strategies, poor luck can cause the player’s unit to receive a critical hit and die, forcing senses of insecurity and dread within the player that matches Fire Emblem’s themes of war’s brutal unpredictability.
While hit and critical hit chances are unavoidable gameplay elements, Fire Emblem also bestows the player with optional randomness. In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, players receive the dangerous Devil Axe, an exceedingly powerful weapon that has a random chance to sorely damage the user. Fire Emblem games notoriously incorporate permadeath, meaning that units who die in battle cannot return for the rest of the game. With these high-stakes, the randomness behind the Devil Axe introduces a tense risk-reward system. Although the weapon’s use is discretionary, it offers the player gameplay alternatives which adopt unpredictability to generate tension and engagement.
Not a novelty, randomness has existed in gameplay for decades, encouraging players to dissect semi-random - which is randomness with small variability - patterns for more effective gameplay. The original Pac-Man incorporates randomness with its ghost movement patterns. While the selection of a ghosts’ given movement pattern is random, players can learn to anticipate such randomness, if only generally. More professional players can rely upon these random elements to strategically exploit enemy ghosts by recognizing their signature patterns. By including limited randomness, players can eventually predict unpredictability to heighten their gameplay.
Unethical randomness
While the previous examples have illustrated how randomness can positively contribute to games, one paramount game became ingloriously stained from its use of randomness: Battlefront II. As one of Electronic Art’s biggest titles, Battlefront II aimed to mesmerize gamers with smooth mechanics, robust online capabilities, and Star Wars hype. Because of the company’s inclination for profit over gamer satisfaction, however, lootboxes became a core method to enjoy the game. Lootboxes require real money, as compared to in-game currency, to grant players with random power-ups and equipment. Although purchasing these lootboxes is optional, Battlefront II is designed to drive players toward these purchases. After all, to fully experience the game, a twenty hour individual campaign must first be completed. This campaign is widely regarded as boring padding, ultimately included to tempt players toward lootboxes. Players felt cheated by a $60 game expecting its players to pay more money to enjoy it. This example’s connection to randomness lies in lootbox rewards. Because of lootboxes’ random rewards, players do not know what their real money will earn them in-game. This is a risky gamble, where instead of a casino, randomness takes place upon the couch. Several governments called this game mechanic “unethical” and “predatory child gambling” because it largely targets minors to wager money for a random outcome. On ethical standards alone, randomness should not be used to suck gamer’ money, but to enhance gameplay.
Conclusion
Games frequently incorporate randomness in their mechanics, often with positive results. Uncertainty evoked from randomness can instill a sense of tension and engagement within the player, thereby elevating the gaming experience. While many games, such as Chess, attempt to remove all randomness for perfect play, most games embrace unpredictability to enhance the player-game dynamic. With the wealth of past gaming examples of intelligent randomness, it is safe to wager that future game design will embrace probabilistic mechanics to further upraise the player’s experience.
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