Week 04 - Point, Set, Match

The sport I’ll be diving into is tennis, since it’s the sport I’ve played since I was young. 

From a design standpoint, there’s a lot of tools that tennis utilizes to make a well-rounded and fun game. The sport has a clear objective and end goal- to earn points in a set and to win a certain number of sets over the other team. The reward system can be quantified by a number, and the game can be replayed over and over in casual and competitive settings with similar rulesets. This means the game is versatile enough for any skill level and all ages to play.

“When carefully designed, constraint provides more satisfying play experiences” (Macklin & Sharp, Ch. 2). The constraints of tennis are easy to comprehend, and they allow players enough freedom that no point is exactly the same each time and fun can be had. The biggest constraint is that it must be played in specially formatted space, making it much harder to set up on the spot compared to games like football and soccer that mainly only require a field to play in and goal posts. Interestingly, what isn’t restricted is how the ball and the racket can interact. So long as the player does not hit the ball twice before it passes over the net, they can hit in any way they like- even if that ends up being the slim edge of the racket or the handle.

In Sports Videogames, the quote, “the big ideas of skating are generally understood to have already happened, leaving skaters to concoct increasingly more nuanced variations on existing tricks” (Sharp Ch.8) is a great way to describe the same methods tennis players use to make the game more interesting. Inevitably, it comes down to who fails to keep a volley going. Since the rules and constraints are not extremely strict and there’s only one condition for hitting the ball, the players have many chances to strategize and apply certain skills during the game.

“The interaction of player skill and strategy are impacted by the ways the game’s designer uses chance and allows for uncertainty” (Macklin & Sharp, Ch. 2). 

Players who work best at the net and those that play deep in the back can both utilize their strengths. Those with more experience and skill know how to add spin to their strikes, and others can specialize in placement to make opponents run. On top of that, different strategies can be put in place between singles play and doubles play. For the latter, a wider court means more ground to cover, but you still have a partner to help cover so much ground. With freedom of movement, you and your partner can change your plans on the fly in response to what the opponent does. Yet, all of these circumstances lead to a lot of uncertainly. The ball might spin in an unexpected way, the player might hit it completely different to where you were expecting it, and even partners might mess up their flow during an intense match! 

One of the lasts points I’ll make is that tennis has its own form of decision making and feedback. “Games also require that players constantly evaluate what is happening while continuing to carry out their actions in the game,” (Macklin & Sharp, Ch. 2), and players have this moment between points and sets. During play, volleys can get fast and intense enough that there’s no chance to regroup until the point is over. However, there is a slim period before the next serve and after every set that players can evaluate their situation. This includes thinking of the opponent’s strength, their weakness, how to readjust positioning, and finding patterns. From there, the game evolves depending on how the teams react to the new intel.