About this table
Complete index of all design patterns from Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. (2004). Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. Chapters 5–15.
Patterns with a wiki page are linked. All patterns are available in full HTML format in the private authoring archive. A condensed reference card version of the pattern set is available at the private authoring archive.
See source-patterns-in-game-design for the source summary, key claims, and relevance mapping.
For the most developed current teaching route through the catalogue, see overview-bjork-patterns-balance-and-mastery.
Chapter 5 — Game Elements
Patterns describing physical and structural components that appear in games as objects, characters, or locations.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Alarms | |
| Alternative Reality | |
| Avatars | |
| Book-Keeping Tokens | |
| Boss Monsters | boss-monsters |
| Buttons | |
| Cameras | |
| Card Hands | |
| Cards | |
| Chargers | |
| Clues | |
| Consistent Reality Logic | |
| Controllers | |
| Deadly Traps | |
| Dice | |
| Discard Piles | |
| Drawing Stacks | |
| Enemies | |
| Extra-Game Information | |
| Game World | |
| Ghosts | |
| Goal Points | |
| God’s Finger | |
| Helpers | |
| High Score Lists | |
| Inaccessible Areas | |
| Invisible Walls | |
| Levels | |
| Lives | lives |
| Moveable Tiles | |
| Mule | |
| Obstacles | |
| Outstanding Features | |
| Parallel Lives | |
| Pick-Ups | |
| Power-Ups | |
| Reconfigurable Game World | |
| Resource Generators | |
| Resource Locations | |
| Safe Havens | |
| Save Points | save-points |
| Score | |
| Spawn Points | |
| Strategic Locations | |
| Tiles | |
| Tools | |
| Traces | |
| Units |
Chapter 6 — Resource and Resource Management
Patterns for how resources are created, distributed, converted, and consumed within a game’s internal economy.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Arithmetic Rewards for Investments | |
| Asymmetric Resource Distribution | |
| Closed Economies | |
| Consumers | |
| Container | |
| Converters | |
| Diminishing Returns | |
| Geometric Rewards for Investments | |
| Investments | |
| Limited Resources | |
| Non-Renewable Resources | |
| Ownership | |
| Producer-Consumer | |
| Producers | |
| Renewable Resources | |
| Resource Management | resource-management |
| Resources | |
| Secret Resources | |
| Shared Resources | |
| Symmetric Resource Distribution |
See also: internal-economy for the full framework of sources, drains, converters, and feedback loops.
Chapter 7 — Information, Communication, and Presentation
Patterns controlling what information players have access to, how it is communicated, and how the game state is presented.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Asymmetric Information | |
| Communication Channels | |
| Direct Information | |
| First-Person Views | |
| Fog of War | fog-of-war |
| Game State Overview | |
| Goal Indicators | |
| God Views | |
| Imperfect Information | |
| Indirect Information | |
| Near Miss Indicators | |
| Outcome Indicators | |
| Perfect Information | |
| Progress Indicators | |
| Public Information | |
| Red Herrings | |
| Status Indicators | |
| Symmetric Information | |
| Third-Person Views | |
| Uncertainty of Information |
See also: meaningful-decisions (information as a prerequisite for meaningful choice), game-theory-fundamentals (imperfect and asymmetric information in formal game theory).
Chapter 8 — Actions and Events
Patterns for the things players and the game system can do, and the events that result.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Ability Losses | |
| Aim & Shoot | |
| Area Control | |
| Asymmetric Abilities | |
| Attention Swapping | |
| Betting | |
| Budgeted Action Points | |
| Camping | |
| Collecting | |
| Combat | |
| Construction | |
| Damage | |
| Decreased Abilities | |
| Disruption of Focused Attention | |
| Downtime | |
| Experimenting | |
| Extended Actions | |
| Focus Loci | |
| Game World Navigation | |
| Illusionary Rewards | |
| Improved Abilities | |
| Indirect Control | |
| Interruptible Actions | |
| Irreversible Actions | |
| Leaps of Faith | |
| Limited Set of Actions | |
| Maneuvering | |
| Movement | |
| Movement Limitations | |
| New Abilities | |
| No-Ops | |
| Penalties | |
| Player-Decided Distribution of Rewards & Penalties | |
| Privileged Abilities | |
| Privileged Movement | |
| Rewards | |
| Role Reversal | |
| Save-Load Cycles | save-points |
| Shrinking Game World | |
| Spawning | |
| Tile-Laying | |
| Transfer of Control | |
| Turn Taking | |
| Ultra-Powerful Events |
See also: meaningful-decisions, risk-reward, randomness-in-games.
Chapter 9 — Narrative Structures, Predictability, and Immersion
Patterns for how games tell stories, create believable worlds, and produce states of immersion in players.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Anticipation | |
| Character Development | |
| Characters | |
| Cognitive Immersion | |
| Creative Control | |
| Cut Scenes | |
| Dedicated Game Facilitators | |
| Delayed Effects | |
| Easter Eggs | |
| Emotional Immersion | |
| Freedom of Choice | |
| Game Masters | |
| Higher-Level Closures as Gameplay Progresses | |
| Hovering Closures | |
| Identification | |
| Illusion of Influence | |
| Immersion | |
| Narrative Structures | |
| Never Ending Stories | |
| Perceived Chance to Succeed | perceived-chance-to-succeed |
| Planned Character Development | |
| Player Constructed Worlds | |
| Self-Facilitated Games | |
| Sensory-Motoric Immersion | |
| Skills | |
| Spatial Immersion | |
| Storytelling | |
| Surprises | |
| Tension | |
| Tiebreakers | |
| Tied Results |
See also: narrative-design, presence-and-immersion, interest-curves, closure-points.
Chapter 10 — Social Interaction
Patterns for how players interact with one another — cooperatively, competitively, and socially.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Alliances | |
| Betrayal | |
| Bidding | |
| Bluffing | |
| Collaborative Actions | |
| Competence Areas | |
| Competition | |
| Conflict | |
| Constructive Play | |
| Cooperation | |
| Delayed Reciprocity | |
| Dynamic Alliances | |
| Individual Penalties | |
| Individual Rewards | |
| Negotiation | |
| Player Decided Results | |
| Player Killing | |
| Red Queen Dilemmas | |
| Roleplaying | |
| Secret Alliances | |
| Shared Penalties | |
| Shared Rewards | |
| Social Dilemmas | |
| Social Interaction | |
| Social Organizations | |
| Social Statuses | |
| Team Development | |
| Team Play | |
| Trading | |
| Uncommitted Alliances |
See also: game-theory-fundamentals, bartle-taxonomy, self-determination-theory.
Chapter 11 — Goals
Patterns for the specific types of goals that games give to players — what players are trying to achieve.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Alignment | |
| Capture | |
| Collection | |
| Conceal | |
| Configuration | |
| Connection | |
| Contact | |
| Delivery | |
| Eliminate | |
| Enclosure | |
| Evade | |
| Exploration | exploration |
| Gain Competence | |
| Gain Information | |
| Gain Ownership | |
| Guard | |
| Herd | |
| King of the Hill | |
| Last Man Standing | |
| Overcome | |
| Race | |
| Reconnaissance | |
| Rescue | |
| Stealth | |
| Survive | |
| Traverse |
See also: hierarchy-of-goals, meaningful-decisions, game-loops.
Chapter 12 — Goal Structures
Patterns for how goals are organised relative to each other — the architecture of a game’s goal system.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Asymmetric Goals | |
| Committed Goals | |
| Continuous Goals | |
| Dynamic Goal Characteristics | |
| Ephemeral Goals | |
| Excluding Goals | |
| Hierarchy of Goals | hierarchy-of-goals |
| Incompatible Goals | |
| Interferable Goals | |
| Mutual Goals | |
| Optional Goals | |
| Player Defined Goals | |
| Polyathlons | |
| Predefined Goals | |
| Preventing Goals | |
| Selectable Sets of Goals | |
| Supporting Goals | |
| Symmetric Goals | |
| Tournaments | |
| Unknown Goals |
See also: closure-points, interest-curves, game-loops.
Chapter 13 — Game Sessions
Patterns for how game instances are structured over time — how play starts, continues, and ends.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Agents | |
| Analysis Paralysis | |
| Asynchronous Games | |
| Closure Points | closure-points |
| Early Elimination | |
| Game Pauses | |
| Handles | |
| Multiplayer Games | |
| Persistent Game Worlds | |
| Player Elimination | |
| Quick Games | |
| Real-Time Games | |
| Reversability | |
| Single-Player Games | |
| Synchronous Games | |
| Team Elimination | |
| The Show Must Go On | |
| Tick-Based Games | |
| Time Limits | time-limits |
| Turn-Based Games |
See also: game-loops, interest-curves, lives.
Chapter 14 — Game Mastery and Balancing
Patterns for how games maintain challenge, reward skill, and remain balanced across player ability levels.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Achilles’ Heels | |
| Balancing Effects | balancing-effects |
| Combos | |
| Dexterity-Based Actions | |
| Empowerment | |
| Game Mastery | |
| Handicaps | |
| Limited Foresight | |
| Limited Planning Ability | |
| Luck | |
| Memorizing | |
| Paper-Rock-Scissors | paper-rock-scissors |
| Perceivable Margins | perceivable-margins |
| Player Balance | |
| Predictable Consequences | |
| Puzzle Solving | |
| Randomness | |
| Rhythm-Based Actions | |
| Right Level of Complexity | |
| Right Level of Difficulty | |
| Risk/Reward | risk-reward |
| Stimulated Planning | |
| Strategic Knowledge | |
| Symmetry | |
| Team Balance | |
| Timing | |
| Tradeoffs |
See also: game-balance, smooth-learning-curves, difficulty, perceived-chance-to-succeed, flow.
Chapter 15 — Meta Games, Replayability, and Learning Curves
Patterns for what happens around and between game sessions — how games sustain engagement across multiple plays.
| Pattern | Wiki page |
|---|---|
| Meta Games | |
| Extra-Game Actions | |
| Replayability | |
| Games within Games | |
| Spectators | |
| Extra-Game Consequences | |
| Trans-Game Information | |
| Smooth Learning Curves | smooth-learning-curves |
| Orthogonal Unit Differentiation | |
| Varied Gameplay |
See also: reward-systems, game-analytics, fun-as-learning.
Coverage summary
15 of 270+ patterns have dedicated wiki pages (as of 2026-04-16):
| Chapter | Patterns with pages |
|---|---|
| 5 — Game Elements | Boss Monsters, Lives, Save Points |
| 6 — Resources | Resource Management |
| 7 — Information | Fog of War |
| 8 — Actions | (none — Save-Load Cycles redirects to Save Points) |
| 9 — Narrative / Immersion | Perceived Chance to Succeed |
| 11 — Goals | Exploration |
| 12 — Goal Structures | Hierarchy of Goals |
| 13 — Sessions | Closure Points, Time Limits |
| 14 — Mastery / Balancing | Balancing Effects, Paper-Rock-Scissors, Perceivable Margins, Risk/Reward |
| 15 — Meta Games | Smooth Learning Curves |
Related
source-patterns-in-game-design | game-balance | game-loops | hierarchy-of-goals | closure-points | meaningful-decisions | internal-economy