Most modern console games and arcade games are designed so that they can be played by a single player; although 💲 many of these games have modes that allow two or more players to play (not necessarily simultaneously), very few actually 💲 require more than one player for the game to be played. The Unreal Tournament series is one example of such.[2]

The 💲 reason for this, according to Raph Koster, is down to a combination of several factors: increasingly sophisticated computers and interfaces 💲 that enabled asymmetric gameplay, cooperative gameplay and story delivery within a gaming framework, coupled with the fact that the majority 💲 of early games players had introverted personality types (according to the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator).[4]

Single-player games rely more heavily on 💲 compelling stories to draw the player into the experience and to create a sense of investment. Humans are unpredictable, so 💲 human players - allies or enemies - cannot be relied upon to carry a narrative in a particular direction, and 💲 so multiplayer games tend not to focus heavily on a linear narrative. By contrast, many single-player games are built around 💲 a compelling story.[16]

Characters [ edit ]

These game elements are not firm, fixed rules; single-player puzzle games such as Tetris or 💲 racing games focus squarely on gameplay.