Challenge:

- Problems and conflict that create tension and provide feelings of achievement 

- Challenge must be balanced (flow) to ensure that the player is always facing new challenges that steadily increase with the player's skill. If the game is too hard the player will get frustrated and if it is too easy players will become bored

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Premise:

- The general description of the game's goal. A premise allows players to become invested in the game and contextualize their decisions. 

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Character:

- A cast of characters including protagonists, antagonists, major and minor characters.

- A mixture of well rounded and flatter characters that create agency (the player becoming a representation of their character) and allows the player to interact with the game's narrative and form emotional attachment to characters.

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Story

- Most games will require a narrative to create goals and make the player invested in the game's mechanics and its story.

- A strong narrative that is non-intrusive to gameplay can increase the player's enjoyment and investment in the game.

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Play:

- How the player plays the game in terms of seriousness.

- Games can be based on competition or a more casual experience.

- The player's experience and expression

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Comparison to Deus Ex:

- Challenge: The player is given goals with steadily increasing challenge. Enemies become tougher and levels contain more of them, the levels become more complex to navigate and require more mechanical skill to complete.

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- Premise: The game has an immediately apparent premise of a futuristic secret agent who works for the government and completes missions through infiltration, hacking and stealth. 

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- Character: The game includes a cast of characters including a player controlled protagonist, antagonists and characters that the player can become invested in. Much of the narrative is delivered through different character's dialogue. The protagonist and major character's attitudes and personalities shift as the narrative unfolds.

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- Story: The player's goals are directly related to the events of the narrative and create incentive for the player to complete these goals. The story is delivered through infrequent, short cutscenes, dialogue and events taking place during gameplay.

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- Play: The player is given a lot of opportunity for expression in terms of their choice of approach to objectives (sneaking, combat, choice of equipment/skills, route) as well as the choice to complete optional objectives and make choices in dialogue or gameplay. The game is linear in terms of progression of levels but the fate of characters and resolution of plot lines is controlled by the player.

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