Try to find an example of a digital game which truly takes advantage of the traits of the medium, and could not be successfully implemented in a non-digital form. In particular, think about the traits of digital/computer games as listed by Crawford. Describe the game, and identify the core gameplay mechanic. What is it about the core mechanic that makes the game truly a digital game?

http://funnyflash.com/details.php?id=146&t=1120476483 Click on the game titled H.K Café to try it out! =)

Below are the traits of digital games which I found to be unique in this game and hard to be implemented successfully in a non-digital format:

1. Computer can act as the moderator

Since the customers in this game are controlled by the computer and generates their orders randomly, it allows players to concentrate cooking the right items for the customers.

2. Responsiveness

There is an immediate feedback from the game and this will be hard to be done in a non-digital format for the sake of consistency. The player will need to cook the food and take care not to over cook the food. The computer is able to time how long each food has been cooked when we’re cooking more than 1 food at one time and accurately show the player which food has been over cooked and needs to be thrown away. This will be really hard to be implemented by human as it’s hard to keep track of too many things at one time accurately.

3. Game internalizes the rules

Players can learn the rules of the game as you play. Actually the game is not too difficult to figure out once you start as there’ll be customers giving their orders and all necessary food items/equipments that the player need are already displayed out. Just a click and the food will be cooked and when it’s done you just need to click either “off” on the stove or the “eject” button for the toaster. As the orders are shown in pictures, it is not difficult to figure out whether the food should be served in plate/bowl.

Erm… game play mechanic… I’d think speed is the core in this game as the customers will get unhappy when their orders get delivered too slowly and this will result in point deduction. Accuracy in addition to speed is crucial as well since you wouldn’t want to overcook your food all the time leading to more wastes and more point deduction. Reason for quoting this as the core mechanic is cuz I felt that it’d be very difficult to implement it in non-digital format with the pace of the game and the many simultaneous happenings which will have to take more than 1 moderator for such a game.