Jesper Juul distinguishes between games of emergence, where a game is specified as a small number of rules that combine and yield a large number of game variations, and games of progression, where a game presents the player with a series of puzzles or challenges which must be accomplished in a certain order. Discuss whether games of progression, which often attempt to combine a narrative structure with gameplay, are unique to computer-based games.


While thinking about this question, at first it seemed pretty unlikely that non-computer games could be a game of progression. However, using Juul’s definition of games of progression which ‘directly set up each consecutive challenge in a game’ and players have to ‘perform a predefined sequence of events’, I realised that several games, especially more traditional ones, fitted the definition.



The first game that came to my mind was finger puppets. Every Saturday, I teach five-year-olds mathematics, and during our breaks, they will insist on playing with ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ hand puppets. Basically, this involved me reading from the story out while they move the character puppets according to the story.

Another classic example of non-computer based games of progression would probably be Adventure books. Some examples of these are the ‘Mario brothers’ series and less commonly known, R.L Stine’s ‘Goosebumps’ Adventure books. These books grant the reader a very low level of interactivity by allowing them to choose from a limited amount of endings to the story.


Although games of progression often contain a strong narrative structure, this is not always the case. Five stones, a traditional South-East Asian game which I often played as a child, is one such example. This game requires players to complete a series of steps by throwing and catching the stones. If a step is performed wrongly (for example, if two stones are picked up instead of one), the player loses her turn. Although one could argue that every game is different since every throw sets the stones differently, I still consider it a game of progression (with small emergence components) since no matter how the stones are thrown the same steps still have to be performed.

To conclude, although it is not obvious, games of progression are not limited to just the computer. Progressive games may be more easily created on computers, but they can still exist regardless of medium.