Playing with Memory: Embedding creativity and strategies to aid the player in memory games

Uncertainty in games is often described as key feature of play. This uncertainty could be in the roll of a die, the flip of a card, a player’s strategy coming together, not knowing an opponent’s play or the outcome at the end of the game. This paper explores one of many potential mechanics that provide that necessary uncertainty when playing a game, memory.

In general, memory mechanics challenge the player to accurately recall previously learned information. This could be remembering, the noises to make in Jazz the Singing Card Game, the details of your cards in Hanabi, a list of orders in Order Overload: Café or the details of a monster in MonsDRAWsity. The way that memory is used is varied, depending on the specific requirements of the game.

In some games the player recalls things from outside the game this is especially prevalent in quiz and general knowledge games such as Trivial Pursuit. There are games where information is uncovered through play and then remembered such as Memory or Order Overload: Café. Finally, games where the players themselves create information to be recalled such as Jazz the Singing Card Game or Dungeon in Memory. This is not to forget games where memory may strongly aid the player but is not the core mechanic for example remembering what other players have said previous in Coup.

Within all these types of games there is a possible limitation for the players, players either have a good memory or they don’t, they either succeed or fail at remembering. It is not often clear how players can do better or improve their memory from game to game. Compare this to games where making choices and seeing their outcomes is prevalent. In these choice making games, you can imagine making other choices and seeing different outcomes. How is it possible to give this same sense of mastery to players of memory games?

A game, Wilmot’s Warehouse, is proposed that uses both a memory mechanic with an encouraged story telling strategy to potentially give this sense of mastery. In the game the players are required to decide what abstract images are and how they connect with each other so that they can later remember their position in a grid. By having creative control of the items and the connections between them players can improve their memory through strategic play.