Activity administration
This aspect deals with the experience’s application in an administrative sense. Those engaged in the game or simulation have to operate within the confines created by the experience’s designer. While the elements that make up this node may appear to be mundane and work-a-day, they define how the experience progresses for what period of time. They also indicate to the players that they are engaged in an artificial, man-made exercise and one that has constraints and opportunities of its own
Participants/relationships
This section deals with the nature of the people playing the game and the kinds of relationships they can have amongst themselves, their competitors or collaborators and potential outside advisers, coaches or observers.
Engine/model
A game or experiential exercise is a constructed and artificial system that must have some type of driving mechanism. Wilderness and survival experiences, which are conducted in natural settings by using forests and mountains as backdrops, are actually artificial. This is because their participants would not normally be in such a situation. They would also not be members of the same group of people, and they would not have the experience’s built-in safeguards that protect them from injury. At the other extreme, a haptic, or board game, is totally artificial with its driving mechanism contained in its rule book. Because of this both applications are manifestly open. At the other extreme there lies computer-driven games that use either analog or digital engines. This typology’s section deals with the nature of the engine used by a particular simulation or game.
Interface
Those participating in a game or simulation must interact both with whatever means it uses to present itself and to provide response(s) to their players. This segment deals with the nature of the interface with which players deal.
Outcomes
An exercise or game is a designed tool. Therefore it has at least one expected outcome. There may be other outcomes so this section attempts to capture the number of different outcomes that are possible, and how players are informed of the results of their decisions or choices.