Defining a game

So, let's start with a simple question: what is a game? You might have your own definition, or you might have read other people's description of it. There are a lot of definitions of what a game is by some popular figures; a few of them are listed next.

Greg Costikyan defines a game as follows:

"A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal."

According to Raph Koster, a game is defined as follows:

"Playing a game is the act of solving statistically varied challenge situations presented by an opponent who may or may not be algorithmic within a framework that is a defined systemic model."

Sid Meier defines a game as follows:

"A game is a series of interesting choices."

However, in this book, we'll use my definition of what a game is.

"A game is a continuous loop of challenges and rewards."

While the loop continues, the game will keep on giving rewards to the player. The game can...