Beyond Game Mechanics | School of Creative Media

Welcome

“Game mechanics” is a frequently referenced yet contested term in game studies. There have been some efforts to define it, of which perhaps the most widely known is Sicart’s (2008) definition of game mechanics as “methods invoked by agents interacting with the game world.” The term has also been explored for its tangled relationship to game rules as well as narrative, while for certain game genres (e.g. MOBAs, FPSs, Soulslike) it can refer to the player’s ability to complete game tasks that involve a non-trivial amount of manual dexterity. Despite its ubiquitous usage, the question of what exactly is a game mechanic persists, yet no one is under any doubt of their importance to games: Adams and Dormans (2009) write in the opening chapter of their book that “game mechanics are the rules, processes, and data at the heart of a game” (emphasis added, p. 1).

The “Beyond Game Mechanics” Seminar seeks to bring together game researchers and practitioners to the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong for a playful and enlightening discussion of game mechanics. The seminar is free of charge and open to students and researchers interested in the study of games. However, seats are limited so pre-registration is strictly required. Please register early, latest by 6th October 2025, via this link: https://forms.gle/4A7tgtns8QDSebAC6

The seminar takes place at room M6058 (6th floor), Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, 18 Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong. If you have any questions, you can contact the organizers at gamemechanics25@gmail.com.

Program

Wednesday October 8 2025
10:00 - 10:30	Yahuai Lu	Beyond Authenticity Game Mechanics as Subtle Channels of Historical Sensibility and Indicators of Historiographical Transformation in Pentiment
10:35 - 11:05	Morgan Hao Yu	From Wuxia to Cultivation Games: The Ludic Integration of Daoist Cosmology
11:05 - 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:00	Leon Xiao	It actually doesn’t matter what a ‘game mechanic’ is? A cynical loot box policy perspective
12:05 - 12:35	Jussi Holopainen, Miikka Junnila	Survey of lockpicking game mechanics
12:40 - 2:00	Lunch
2:00 - 2:30	Dora Zhang	Beyond Replayability: Multiple Playthrough Mechanics as Narrative and Affective Devices in the Nier Series
2:35 - 3:05	Sylvain Payen	Beyond Action: Freeze Frames an Affective Grammar of Play. Historical Perspective.
3:05 - 3:30	Coffee Break
3:30 - 5:00	Paweł Grabarczyk	Should we worry about game mechanics?
Thursday October 9 2025
10:00 - 10:30	Espen Aarseth	Do Game Mechanics Exist?
10: 35 - 11:05	Yuhua Wu	The narrativization of game mechanics in videogame fanfiction
11:05 - 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 - 12:00	Mikhail Fiadotau	Where is the solitaire in Solitairica? On synecdochal mechanics in tabletop-inspired videogames.
12:05 - 12:35	Sunny Jie Yang	Witnessing the System: Devlogs as the Living Texts of Game Mechanics
12:40 - 2:00	Lunch
2:00 - 2:30	Abby Ho	External File Manipulation as Game Mechanics: Fourth Wall Breaks in Video Games
2:35 - 3:05	Xin Pan	Knowledge as mechanic: Examining the roles of game manuals in videogame play
3:10 - 3:40	Ben Horn	Everything is a Rhythm Game: The Curious Case of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Organizers

Espen Aarseth,* Jussi Holopainen,* Benjamin Horn^

The City University of Hong Kong*, The University of Hong Kong^

Bibliography

Aarseth, E., & Grabarczyk, P. (2018). An ontological meta-model for game research. In: Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message, Turin, Italy.

Adams, E., & Dormans, J. (2012). Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design (2nd ed.). New Design: USA.

Ben-Sadoun, G., & Alvarez, J. (2022). Gameplay Bricks Model, a Theoretical Framework to Match Game Mechanics and Cognitive Functions. Games and Culture, 18(1), 79-101.

Cartlidge, J. (2022). Becoming Afflicted, Becoming Virtuous: Darkest Dungeon and the Human Response to Stress. Games and Culture, 18(2), 170-188.

Donaldson, S. (2015). Mechanics and Metagame: Exploring Binary Expertise in League of Legends. Games and Culture, 12(5), 426-444.

Dubbelman T. (2016). Narrative game mechanics. In Nack F., Gordon A. S. (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10045 (pp. 39–50).

Dubbelman T. (2017). Repetition, reward and mastery: The value of game design patterns for the analysis of narrative game mechanics. In Nunes N., Oakley I., Nisi V. (Eds.), Interactive Storytelling. ICIDS 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10690 (pp. 286–289).

Järvinen A. (2008). Games without frontiers: Theories and methods for game studies and design. Tampere, Finland: University of Tampere.

Lo, P., Thue, D., Carstensdottir, E. (2021). What Is a Game Mechanic?. In: Baalsrud Hauge, J., C. S. Cardoso, J., Roque, L., Gonzalez-Calero, P.A. (eds) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2021. ICEC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 13056 (pp. 336-347).

Magnuson, J. (2010). Loneliness. PC.

Mayo, R. (2023). Ludic Mechanics, Psychic Mechanisms and Explorations of Inner Space in Mindwheel and Psychonauts. Games and Culture, 19(5), 634-649.

PlatinumGames. (2017). Nier Automata. PS4.

Rohrer, J. (2007). Passage. PC.

Sicart M. (2008). Defining game mechanics. Game Studies, 8. https://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/sicart

Vargas-Iglesias, J. J., & Navarrete-Cardero, L. (2019). Beyond Rules and Mechanics: A Different Approach for Ludology. Games and Culture, 15(6), 587-608.