Clash Of Clans Analysis

Game Elements
Game elements are essentially a theoretical abstraction of all aspects related to a game. The game designer in a developing process specifies the game elements and their relationships to each other. A representation of a relationship between the game elements is a rule of the game. Järvinen furthermore divides the game elements to three additional categorizes (Systemic, Compound and Behavioral). In this essay I will focus on the following basic game elements: user interface, rule set, theme, game mechanics, environment, information and components. I will only refer to the game elements in relation to the Clash of Clans. More elaborated definitions of the game elements are found in Aki Järvinen’s doctoral study (Järvinen, 2008).
There are three different kinds of troops for each three barrack level plus special dark elixir troops and heroes (Clash of Clans Wiki, 2014). Troops are interesting in respect of component definition because they are not, as matter of fact, controlled by the player in any point of the game. In a case of attack, which is the principal function of the troops, they are only placed in the battlefield by the player – from that moment on, controlled by the game system. Characters in Clash of Clans are therefore mostly hybrid components-of-self and
Procedures, in the context of digital games, mean automated actions that the game system carries out. “Procedures present the rule set element in action, i.e. agent of a procedure is always the game system, even though it may delegate this agency to the players” (Järvinen, 2008). For example in Clash of Clans the behaviors of troops in a battle could be categorized as procedures. Goal rules consists of all the ‘endings’ that player is trying to reach in a game. Järvinen (2008) considers goal rule as a crucial difference between a game and a non-game, e.g. a child playing with a toy. In Clash of Clans there are several goal rules: completing the single-player campaign, triumphing in multiplayer battles, unlocking all the units etc. Goal rules are shaped trough the player’s subjective judgment: what I’m willing to achieve? As a free-to-play game, Clash of Clans has not definite ending points and it can’t be finished or won. This could be interpreted as a lack or ambiguity of goal