Concept of Space

A somewhat important concept. What are the rules of space in your game? Wish concept will you choose? How? Why?

Here are some concepts of space, descriptions and exemples. Nothing to big, just some guideline to, if don't already, comprehend that space is a game entity in itself. Terms used are created by me. Sorry if one of those was used somewhere else.

Linear Space
Usually used in 2D spaces. No matter what you do, you start at point A and finish at point B. Pretty simple concept. Think about Snakes and Ladders, Super Mario Bros. and Contra.

Free Gravity Space
You have complete freedom of where you go at all times. You are from no point A in particular, but there is, somewhere in the world, a point B to go to. You can't win by going where ou want. Some good exemples would be fl0w and hacky sack. In those games, going anywhere is meaningless unless it's near the point B, or "center of gravity". If you haven't guessed by now, the center of gravity in hacky sack is the sack itself, and in flow, the central mass of enemies.

Forced Gravity Space or Zone Space
Again, point A is arbitrary. This concept of space decides for the player that going in meaningless areas is pointless and thus, forbids to access them. There's two ways of doing that: loops and invisible walls. In Star Fox 64, there were loops in the battle mode and "invisible walls" in some boss battles. Pac-Man falls in this category too, the Mario Bros. game (without the "Super") as well and Indy 500 on Atari and the board games Axis and Allies or Monopoly.

World Wide Space
Complete worlds are accessible. Be careful though: a game like Super Mario World is not sticking to the World Wide Space concept. There is a world map, but it's more an interface where you choose a level to play in. The real gameplay happens in a Linear Space concept. Here, in this World Wide Space concept, the gameplay happens in a complete world where you are not only looking for point B, but for a lot more! Some researches have to be done before finding the objectives. Elder Scrolls III, Fallout 3, many MMOG are using the World Wide Space concept.

Spacelessness
A game with no space. Can't say much about it. Browser based games often fall in this category.

I'll try to depict more concepts at another time, as well as describe the ways and reasons to use them. For now, think about it yourself :P