Fundamental Challenges Part 2: Spatial Challenges

The next challenge type in our survey of fundamental game elements brings us to the Spatial Challenge. The Spatial Challenge is a fundamental component of almost all games, and is particularly important to video games due to their inherent narrative elements. Almost all video games feature a (engrossing at best, superficial at worst) storyline with characters, which implies entities, which imply space. Beyond that, even more traditional games almost always include space. The only one I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't include space is The Prisoner's Dilemma. The importance can't be understated, so without further ado:

A Spatial Challenge is a challenge involving manipulation of positional relationships between the player (or his avatar, minions, etc.) and other agents or obstacles within the game space.

What do I mean by that? Let's use Chess as an example. Chess is primarily a game of spatial relationships. Each piece owns a single point on the board (the spot its sitting on), but also controls all the spaces it can attack. The bishop for example, applies pressure on diagonals. If a pawn is diagonally aligned with a bishop, it's being threatened by the bishop through their spatial relationship. If a queen is sitting right behind the pawn however, the spatial relationship between the queen and the pawn protect it from its relationship to the bishop. Chess is an extreme example but it really highlights the complexities of spatial relationships, especially when you factor in all the pieces on the board.

Chess, however, does not cover all aspects of Spatial Challenges. I would argue there is a second component at play in spatial challenges that is particularly absent from Chess: Orientation. Chess has no real orientation factor (besides Pawn's forced forward procession), but for a First Person Shooter, orientation is critical. First Person Shooters present their players with a two level spatial challenge. Not only must you position your body/gun to be at a coordinate where it can fire on the enemy, but you must also orient your body/gun to score a head shot.

Maybe a stronger example of orientation being a factor of spatial relationships is Tetris. The spatial relationships between pieces in Tetris are defined by their orientation. The pieces need to be oriented to fit in snugly with the current set up of pieces. The magic of Tetris is how the spatial relationships of pieces are completely redefined each time the next piece is rotated.

Spatial Challenges (both involving orientation and not)exist in almost all games. Poker, for example is a game with a surprisingly important spatial component in via the dealer button. In Poker, the players farthest from the dealer button have the most information about other players (the dealer button determines turn order). They can play riskier hands because of this spatial advantage. Puzzle games, likewise, almost always involve a spatial component. From Tetris to Gunpey to Polarium.

An interesting note of Spatial Challenges is that they often dictate the Timing Challenges of a game. In Super Mario Bros. for example, the timing of Mario jumping to land on a Goomba is completely dependent on the spatial relationship between Mario and the Goomba. The Active Window in this case is a function of Mario's jump height (spatial), and the Warning Window is defined by the Goomba's distance from Mario (spatial). If a platform is a long jump away, the player must press jump right before the end of the platform he's running on. The Warning Window is essentially the distance of the platform up until the range where a jump will be successful, which begins the Action Window.

While I don't think this challenge type is as practically useful as the others (it's so essential that any game is almost guaranteed to already have one), it is helpful to have in hand. Stick around for the next post where we start getting into one of the more lacking challenges in modern game design.