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In this video from the Berklee Online course, Game Design Principles, instructor Lori Landay discusses what a core mechanic is in a video game. The core mechanic is the main action the player repeats during gameplay to achieve the endstate. It is usually best expressed with a verb, be it jump, run, shoot, hide, capture, fight, defend, collect, etc. In Mario platformer games, for example, the core mechanic is jumping. If there is one mechanic that the game could not be played without, that is probably the core mechanic. In Angry Birds, it's catapulting the birds. Core mechanics are combined with secondary mechanics, which occur less frequently but are still part of gameplay. In Mario platformer games, walking or ducking are secondary mechanics. In “Angry Birds,” tapping to explode a bomb bird in mid-fling is a secondary mechanic. Sometimes, secondary mechanics can turn into primary mechanics in another part of the game. In this game we created for the sake of an example in this video—where your core mechanic is to cast spells that make your spaceships fly—you will spend a lot of time upgrading your spells, but you will also have secondary mechanics like customizing your spaceship, and objectives like going to a planet and finding a desired artifact. But a core mechanic is only the beginning of your game design process, you will also have to figure out a way to make that mechanic a challenge over time to avoid having it be dull and repetitive for players.

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ABOUT LORI LANDAY:
Lori Landay is a professor of cultural studies at Berklee College of Music and an interdisciplinary scholar and new media artist exploring the making of visual meaning in twentieth- and twenty-first-century culture. She is the author of two books, the TV Milestone Series installment of “I Love Lucy” and “Madcaps, Screwballs, and Con Women: The Female Trickster in American Culture,” in addition to articles on topics such as virtual worlds, digital narrative, silent film, and television culture. Her creative work includes animation, graphic design, creative documentary, machinima, interactive virtual art installations, and music video. Landay has been awarded the Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Professional Education Division at Berklee College of Music, a Newbury Comics Faculty Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Enduring Questions Grant. She has consulted on and appeared in “Finding Lucy,” an American Masters documentary airing nationally on PBS and internationally. Landay holds a bachelor’s degree from Colby College, master’s degrees in American Studies and English from Boston College and Indiana University, respectively, and a doctoral degree in English and American Studies from Indiana University.

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Berklee Online | Online Course | Course Overview | Berklee College of Music | Video Games | Video Game Design | Core Mechanics | Secondary Mechanics | Lori Landay | Mario | Super Mario | Angry Birds