On the Nature of Emergence

Today is March 1st and the start of a new month for Sheet 10!  As such we are pleased to bring you the first (of what we hope to be many!) themed months.  The themed topic for the month of March is to be the ever intriguing idea of "emergence" in games.  Now among our editorial staff we've had many discussions on this matter and have yet to come to a properly clear definition of the term but we have managed to come to several agreed upon conclusions (or at least Sean and Sergio have).  They are as follows:


Emergence is as a term used to describe scenarios in games that come about uniquely due to:

1. Independently functioning systems that interact with each other in defined or undefined ways (examples of these independent systems being: Player Characters, AI, physics engines, procedurally generated/altered levels/items, etc.)
2. The result of of these interactions result in significantly altered and unique gameplay when compared to traditional scenarios in which the systems do not interact
3. All of which occurs regardless of designer intentionality

A common example of this would be "emergent" narratives that tend to evolve from multiplayer games or open-world singleplayer experiences in which players place their own context (either in fiction or out of) onto the actions of other independent systems (read: other players or AI) to create their own story for unfolding events.  Think of times you've played an online shooter and been in an intense firefight with your teammates to take an objective and imagined it as a sort of last assault by your doomed squadmates who've been beside you the whole time and then managed to not only kill the enemy commander (read: that one guy who killed you five times in a row) but take the final objective for a well-earned if Pyhrric victory.

Beyond that there's "emergent" gameplay which comes about as a result of glitches or odd player or AI behavior.  A good example of this would be how some players in Half-Life 2 would attempt to carry the can you are told to pick up at the start all the way through the game.  Others would include climbing buildings and mountains in World of Warcraft through creative use of skills and movement.  The list goes on.

So with this admittedly vague description of emergence in mind be sure to tune in every Tuesday starting next week for our featured themed articles!  And as always feel free to leave your own thoughts on emergence in games in the comments!