The Establishing Shot. This is generally the shot that gives you a clue about where this is all about to take place in space or time. Sometimes it’s as simple as a camera slowly pushing in through the forest toward the log cabin, then going through the cabin window so we can see what’s happening inside.

The “Old School” Logo Treatment. Simple arcade games—puzzle games and basic platform games, for instance—still commonly follow the splash-screen-to-action sequence of the early games. There’s no story, scene, or situation to establish. You see the logo treatment just dive into the game.

The Simple Goal Setup. Some games establish the situation before the actual playing begins. Generally, this is done through a simple movie sequence, such as the beginning of the original Mario Bros. game, where the princess is kidnapped. The sequence cares more about revealing the goal—to save the princess—than just teaching you all about the characters, and at the same time it presents you with your ultimate enemy. (You know who you’re looking for!) Ghost ’n Goblins did the same kind of thing.

The History Sequence. In contrast to the Simple Goal Setup, this option presents the player with a complex movie to set up the game situation. Games such as Diablo II and the recent Final Fantasy games feature elaborate and impressive opening movies. Generally, these movies establish the events that lead up to the point where the player joins the story, though occasionally they may refer to events in the future—a portent of things to come—or to events far in the past that only become relevant after the player has spent some time in the game.

The Dialogue. Like the History Sequence, this option is all about a cinematic scene, but it’s more of a dialog between characters that establishes the plot for you. This is not the best of beginnings to an interactive story, but it can be done well with good cinematic effects and writing. For instance, it might be that two people are talking over the body of an unconscious (or seemingly unconscious) person. That person is your character, and they are talking about what they are going to do with you—or to you. When the action starts, you’ll have to deal with these people, one way or another, based on what you learned from their conversation. Perhaps, during the conversation, the camera revealed clues—a sword on the wall, or a rope, or a telephone. When the action starts, you already have some idea what resources are available to you.

The Long Flyover. The game begins with an aerial view of the world in which the events will take place. This method is commonly used when you are heading out somewhere pretty remote. Sometimes it’s used to give you glances of interesting things along the way there, such as a big war being fought just one mountain away. In any case, you get a look at a vast world, but when the game actually begins, you are limited to exploring a small area. The vast world is a promise of things to come, but you have to earn access to new areas.

The Grounded Hero. The game jumps directly into the action—probably a battle sequence. You are playing a character who, in many cases, kicks butt. You fight the battle and possibly have some scenes with NPCs that establish the situation. Eventually, this prelude ends, and through some plot point, you are stripped of your butt-kicking ability and have to recover it. This can be a way to reveal the hero’s past and ground him at the same time.

Tutorial. Many games, particularly ones that have complex interfaces and controls, offer a training “act” to teach you how to play the game. This can be more of a “bunny hill” approach—a simple and easy level of the game—or it can be a guided tour, complete with tips and instructions. When done subtly, the player doesn’t really think of it as a training session, but more of an easy level or mission. So the intro of the game is really just designed as some kind of training, such as maybe a doctor checking you out after wakening from a cryo-sleep—they want to check that your body is working, but it’s all written to hide the tutorial.

Establish Who You Are. Many games today allow you to customize your character before the game begins. You can choose facial features, hair, clothing, body type, and so on. (For more on customizing characters, see “Ways to Customize Avatars” in Chapter 12, “Character Design.”) Some games offer you a series of questions, and how you answer those questions will determine some aspect of your character’s personality or profession. For instance, some answers make you an assassin, while other answers would suggest a cleric or a basic soldier. This technique was used long ago in an early Ultima game, and more recently in BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This sort of preparation section is in some ways distinct from the actual game start, but for many people character customization can be a fun and interesting aspect of the game.

Action Central. There’s no prelude, no storyline. You’re just thrown into a battle, and the game is on. This sort of beginning is very compelling; it can culminate in a scene that establishes the story, or it may not. The story may simply unfold over time, as you play through the game—BioShock is a good example.

Time to Get a Beer. I have to add this because it has happened to us all. It’s where the designer/writer decides we need to sit through 20 to 60 minutes of intro (no real gameplay yet), usually boring talking heads and filler story, and the most offensive ones don’t even let you skip it. When you notice clichéd, boring actors waffling on about nothing interesting, I call that the “time to go get a beer” intro. I remember hearing that Joel Silver (the Hollywood producer) believes that you take the scene and chop off the start and the end, and you’d be amazed by how that improves things. Get to the point—and if you have no point, get to the gameplay! That’s the message here.

Misleading Beginning. Sometimes the opening scene, whether a cinematic or an interactive sequence, turns out to be nothing but an illusion or misdirection of some sort. It might be a dream sequence from which your character awakens, only to discover that everything is all right. It might be an event you took part in, but long ago or far away. It might even be something that happened to someone else, but you somehow were “inside” that person when it happened. There are always lots of fun ways to play with false beginnings.

A Disaster Unfolding. The environment has a massive problem, or something has become or is about to become a really major problem, and you’re about to be thrown into that problem. It’s the tidal wave building intro, the earthquake intro, and so on. This is usually best if the world after the disaster event is much more interesting than the world before. Fallout 3 and Half-Life 2 are good examples.

Witness. You just witnessed something—probably something bad, such as a robbery (or the planning of a robbery), a murder (or a serial killer preparing to act), or the plotting of some terrorist attack. Regardless, everyone in the story is oblivious except for you (the player). Maybe nobody will believe you.

Expect Something Different. Someone (maybe the player) is just different from everyone else, commonly spiritual. He can do something magical or mysterious, and he needs to learn why and how to control it. We generally see what happened to him or maybe just a clue that you can expect this person to be different. The intro to Spider-Man is a good example.

Observing the Character. Movies sometimes begin by “watching” a main character doing what he does in his ordinary life. It’s a way of establishing that person for the viewer. In some cases, it shows how strange or unusual the person is, or how strange the situation is that he finds himself in. Maybe he just got injected with something that will kill him in 24 hours. In other cases, it shows how absolutely normal the main character is, which generally means he is going to become embroiled in unusual events. Perhaps you watch the character up to a certain point and then, suddenly, you are in control of that character and have to complete what he started.

The Chain of Events. This is when one thing happens after another, and combined, the problem just gets worse and worse. Imagine an intro where there’s some serious terrorist activity, then an attack is launched, our response system has been completely compromised and fails, then the president drops dead giving a speech, and so on. It’s basically a chain of events so that you wonder when the chain will end. Just how bad can this situation get?!

Clueless and Lost. Your character is simply...somewhere. There’s no prelude, no establishing scene, no action. Maybe you just wake up somewhere—in a desert, on a city street, at the top of a cliff or the bottom of a well. You have no specific motivation other than “What the heck?” Because it’s a game, you can imagine that some challenge is waiting for you just around the corner—but what corner? What threat? Anything can happen from here. Who put you there? Why? How? By whose order?

Found. This is the opposite of the previous option—you’ve just been found naked in an alleyway, or found somewhere that’s impossible to get to, for example. Now you (and others helping you) need to work out what the heck happened. Most likely this will involve a lot of flashbacks, or drugs, or hypnosis to piece the puzzle together.

Freefall. You might literally be in the process of falling. For instance, suppose you start the game plummeting toward the ground from a high altitude, falling down a cliff, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, or getting sucked into the gravitational pull of a planet, and so on. You must figure out how to survive. You might have a lifesaving device, you might get saved by someone, or you might do something clever, but you are literally dropped right into a major problem.

Credits over Action. There’s no splash screen or other introduction. You launch the game and you’re in it—then the credits appear over time. I think Metal Gear Solid was probably the first game franchise I saw do this. So you begin to explore the world, and from time to time (usually in quiet moments) a credit appears. Then, when something big happens, the title of the game appears on the screen, but to be clear, the game is still playing. It’s very slick when done well.

Small to Large. Strategy games, whether real-time or turn-based, generally start your character off in a very small world, with the fog of war hiding the bigger world outside your starting point. You are weak, with maybe only one unit or building. The goal of the game is to build your empire and defeat your enemies, and slowly but surely, you’ll expand your knowledge of the world and build your infrastructures. This kind of growth also occurs, but in a different way, in Role-Playing Games, where your character is weak and must grow stronger, and is limited geographically and must explore a larger world. The gameplay is completely different between strategy games and Role-Playing Games, but the principle of small to large is often present in both, so the intro is going to place you somewhere that you know is surrounded by incredible danger.

Large to Small. This is the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids kind of situation, where you are now entering a big, dangerous, oversized world, so the intro is really all about establishing the scale and helping you get comfortable with the idea.

Losing What Matters. It’s clear that something really matters to the player character, and he just lost it in the first few minutes of the game. This could be anything from people to possessions to beliefs. Something important is now gone, and this hero is going to get it back.

Something Important. You’ve found something or someone very important; maybe you don’t even know what for, but you know their protection is imperative. This is the classic E.T.-style situation.

A New Society. Everything seems fine, but you’ll soon learn that maybe it’s not. People here have a very different take on what’s acceptable. This is like the classic shipwrecked story, when you find that the indigenous people are not all that they seem. King Kong was a good example of this. Another classic version of this is when you flee somewhere bad and end up in a much more complicated, much worse situation. (Plenty of horror movies use this trick.) So the intro makes you think the biggest problem is behind you.

Everyone Knows But You. This is when the designer wants you to wonder what the heck is going on. There’s lots of discussion and lots of inside references, but because you’re not on the inside, it creates a real mystery for you.

A New Phenomenon. Take an accepted problem, such as a hurricane or a white squall, then add a twist, a new phenomenon that’s never happened before. What happens when a thunderstorm meets a tornado during heavy hail? It’s like airborne bullets. That’s just an example, but it’s going to be much cooler if you can come up with a combination of situations that creates a phenomenon that just changes everything.

A New Invention. Something we have always considered impossible just became possible. It can also be that some new invention combined with something else gives really interesting results. The movie The Fly was kind of like that.

An Accident. Something just happened. It could be a minor accident with big impact (such as Spider-Man getting bitten by a radioactive spider), or it could be just a small mistake that turns out much worse than it seemed in the intro. This is the old “leaving a vehicle unlocked” trick, when the vehicle turned out to have something incredibly dangerous in it (in the wrong hands).

Reincarnation. You or someone returns from the dead.

Start at the End. In literature and movies, a story may begin at the end and then retell the story. You show the main characters in a dire situation, then cut back to the beginning of the story to show how they got there. This idea can work in games as well. For instance, you might have the player’s character facing a defining battle—a win-all or lose-all situation. But before the battle is fought, you cut back to an earlier time and let the player experience the events that led to the battle. There are any number of variations on this theme.

Rolled-over vehicle—the old oil-tanker trick to block a street.

Military/police or parked vehicles block the way.

Police (or enemy) barricades/rolled wire, barriers, and so forth.

Construction in street. (Construction crew is working on it; street surface has been lifted.)

Damaged street (like a bomb blew a massive hole in it) with no way through.

Hazard blocking street. (Can be fire, toxic waste, exploding stuff, broken glass, and so on.)

Demolition problem. (Area is unstable, bricks and glass are falling, a building is collapsing over that area.)

Fast-flowing water. (You’ll be swept away if you cross it.)

Deep water. (You plunge into it and automatically resurface back at the edge/steps out, or you can only swim so far before you get a message that you will drown or you hit an invisible wall.)

There is a wall you can’t get past (electric or very strong, for instance).

Animals attack in that zone.

Area is slippery; you can slide back to where you came from or possibly off into a hazard, such as a waterfall, or over a cliff (with warnings).

Offer the player the chance to quit the level if they go this way.

Have warning signs clearly stating, “DESERTERS WILL BE SHOT!” You then terminate the player automatically if he continues past that point. The irony is that in many games, such a sign would be a challenge to the player—a possible clue to an area worth exploring—but in some cases it’s literally true, and if the player tries to escape the boundaries of the area, he will be shot dead on the spot.

Loop around (Pac-Man style).

Have the bridge to or from an area begin to collapse.

Area has landmines. (Note: People will think this one is a puzzle, so they need to be told that it’s a no-go area.)

Drawbridge is open/closed (like the Tower Bridge in London).

Something living underground attacks up through the ground when you enter that space.

It’s a dead end, usually surrounded by buildings or steep terrain.

It’s a turnaround (homes/buildings are in a circle around the end) or a traffic circle.

The road narrows to an alley, then it’s blocked. (Easier to block.)

There has been a catastrophe (such as a plane/helicopter crash, a building collapse, or an avalanche).

There is something very slow-moving that blocks your path.

A force field...when you walk into it, you bounce off.

There is an invisible killer down there.

There are major electric gates, and they are locked down. (Like driving around inside a prison campus.)

The area has been pedestrian-ized, meaning there are metal bollards (sticking out of the ground) that block the street. (This is for when you are in a vehicle, trying to get out of an area.)

Darkness. (This is good if the deadly stuff lives in the dark.)

The level graphics fade out gradually as you leave the controlled space. (This isn’t so interesting.)

The player enters a dark tunnel, and after a short while, you cut to them walking back out.

Protect the leader or key thing/person. (The mission fails if you wander away.)

NPCs accuse you of deserting if you keep going. You may be killed or merely relocated to another place on the map, such as the brig, your house, and so on.

Pursue an enemy. (You lose if he gets away, meaning if you bail.)

Use fog, haze, or smog to fade out the level.

Speech. Talk to yourself: “Hmm, this doesn’t look very interesting.” “There’s nothing this way.”

There is an unavoidable, immovable force. (Running down to the subway, if you run down the tracks, a train will come and kill you.)

An arrow comes on to show you to go the other way.

Invisible wall (should be combined with other ideas).

Fire wall/ice wall.

Form of dead end. Ends with something like a locked gate, razor wire, high fences, and so on.

Dead bodies. (Think of the movie 300.)

Some ethereal magic wall of energy.

Toxic spill.

Toxic spill.

Trigger a chain reaction in the core.

Cause a catastrophic explosion that clogs the atmosphere and blocks the sun for decades, killing life on the surface. (It doesn’t destroy the planet, but it kills life.)

Somehow guide an asteroid or comet to smash into the planet.

Introduce an alien plague.

Surround it with a network of weapon satellites.

Teleport it somewhere else, such as into the sun.

Convince more powerful aliens that this world is their enemy and get them to destroy it.

Set off a massive blast concentrated in one area, causing the planet to become unstable in its orbit and fall apart from shifting forces of gravity.

Use a powerful death ray (Death Star–style).

Suck the life out of it.

Peel the surface off like an orange.

Split it in half or cut through it in slices.

Push a moon or large asteroid out of orbit so it crashes into the planet.

Unleash a swarm of nanobots that eat the entire planet.

Manipulate rival superpowers until they launch a simultaneous nuclear attack, which ultimately drives the planet into nuclear winter, killing all surface life.

Find the magical power node that is the source of the planet’s life and destroy it.

Vote in the wrong president.

“Emotion” in Chapter 30, “Ways to Communicate with the Player”

Chapter 17, “Game Worlds,” particularly in the section on “Ways to Make a World Feel Alive and Real”

Chapter 9, “Storytelling Techniques”

Chapter 20, “Music and Sound”

Create situations of anticipated danger. Maybe you can even hear it or get glimpses of the impending danger. Think of Doom or Resident Evil.

Completely sell the player on an idea, then flip it. What they thought they knew was wrong, or possibly terribly wrong.

Cause the player to dramatically lose abilities or items they think are important.

Create very difficult situations. (Doing the right thing also might be the wrong thing.)

Provide high-intensity action; give them the feeling of losing control or being right on the edge of their limits. (This is like when the Nitro button was added to driving games.)

Get the player attached to an NPC in some way, then make that NPC die or leave the player. This works great in RPGs where you may have a really cool character in your party, but then, for reasons of his own, he leaves. (See Chapter 30, “Ways to Communicate with the Player,” specifically “Misdirection: Ways to Mislead the Player.”)

Put really cool items in ordinary places to pleasantly surprise the player.

Create funny scenes. (Think of Monkey Island.)

Create scenes in which characters deal with real-life situations, such as the loss of a child, a gang-related shooting or punishment, or intimidation by thugs.

Create scenes in which the player must make very difficult choices, such as saving the woman he loves or the man who could save the earth. Or he chooses to stay (and possibly die) in defense of his friend/brother/sister/wife/father/mother or leave to carry out his task of saving the world (or whatever his primary role/purpose is in the game).

Have a really evil villain do a lot of really evil things where the player can watch but can’t stop him (such as destroying things he’s worked hard to get). Finally, give the player the opportunity to pound the villain into the dust. It feels so much better when the bad guy is really, really bad, and you are helpless to stop him—until that moment of retribution comes! This is fondly known as payback time.

Create a situation with sexual tension in it. It doesn’t have to be overt. Even implied sexuality usually produces some emotion. (Or you can add implied sex, like God of War.)

Create situations in which the player has one chance—one shot to succeed—and build up the moment until he takes that shot...and succeeds or fails.

Have a trusted character betray the player in some way.

Create a game in which the player must rely on help from other people, but he never knows who to trust.

Their names.

Their faces, including hair.

Their bodies.

Items to hold (weapons, etc.).

Clothing.

Let them change the look/colors/style/lighting/weather in the environment.

Wearable accessories.

Voices (their own or synthesized from a set of options—something I haven’t seen done).

Houses within the game.

Use their photograph to make the model.

Let them affect the environment—carve their initials in the bench, so to speak.

Make their actions affect the world, including the actions of other NPCs.

Give them titles and ranks based on attainment.

Let them design their own weapons, clothing, jewelry, and so on. Give them the tools and let them go for it.

Let them choose or invent their color, race, and/or “look.”

Personality elements—choosing different sorts of personality profiles at the beginning of the game.

Have their character (or the world they are in or other characters) change as a direct result of the player’s choices and actions in the game. For instance, in Black & White, the world itself changes. In Fable, the character’s appearance changes based on the player’s actions during the game.

Players create their own creatures and objects, which can be used in other players’ games (The Sims, Spore).

Allow players to create their own words and somehow make them part of the game world’s special language. (For example, an NPC might start to mimic the way you talk.)

Allow players to create their own special abilities, perhaps by setting different options or by adding mods to their character.

Give players the raw materials for creating items in the world, then let them experiment. If the system is dynamic enough, they might discover objects with surprising and unique characteristics.

Let players reshape the world.

Use unique reward systems so that players can obtain special prizes, items, or recognition within the game for unique accomplishments. Let them make an award that can be won by others.

Let players give their characters specific quirks and mannerisms.

Alternate Endings. Have more than one ending, based on gameplay performance or on the player’s decisions.

Unlock Characters. Completing the game unlocks new characters that will provide new experiences during replay.

Unlock Features. Completing the game unlocks new features of the game previously unavailable.

Unlock Abilities. Completing the game unlocks new abilities for your character.

Multiple Character Types. The game provides several distinct characters you can play, each of which will provide some unique aspects of the game experience. This is common in RPGs, car racing games (where the cars vary), and games like Dynasty Warriors, where you can play the same missions but with different warriors.

Same Map, New Gameplay. You complete the game, but an option to replay it is presented. Everything starts the same, but subtle elements have changed, and you get to experience the game in a new way. The original Legend of Zelda did this beautifully.

Difficulty Levels. Players who can complete a game in Easy or Normal mode might like to test themselves on Hard or even Insane modes of difficulty.

Specific Difficulty Level Rewards. Some endings, features, unlocked elements, and so on are only available to players who complete the game on a Hard setting.

Emergent Content. Many games are so open-ended that each time you play them, it is a different experience. Games such as SimCity or Spore (most of Will Wright’s games) are like that.

Different Paths. The game allows players to choose different approaches to the game, with very different results in the world and story. Games such as Black & White or Fable are good examples of this method, where your decisions and actions cause the world or the character to move toward good or evil and change actual aspects of the game.

Character Migration (Sequels or Online). The game allows your character to move directly into a sequel, keeping stats, equipment, and so on. Or the game allows you to migrate a single-player character into an online version of the game.

Too Much Content. The game is so rich in experiences and possible activities that nobody can experience everything in one game session. Often players will play through a game, but then they will see a walkthrough that mentions a lot of stuff they didn’t see or do, and they’ll want to play it again to see everything. The Different Paths option is another way of accomplishing this.

Just Too Fun. It’s so fun it’s addicting, and you just have to play again...and again.... Sid Meier’s games often had that quality. (Tetris on Gameboy and Fieldrunners, now on the iPhone, are the same. The trick is that players must blame themselves 100 percent for making the mistake that lost the game, so they will try again.)

Secrets and Codes. Some secrets (Easter Eggs, as they are known) and/or interesting cheat codes become available after the game has been released a while. Others simply make the game fun in a different way. For instance, an infinite money cheat in SimCity changed the game from one of scarce resources to one of purely building and zoning decisions. It was fun either way, but not as hard when money was no object.

Deep Strategy. The game has enough strategy and variation that no two games are exactly the same. Most good Real-Time Strategy games are like that. Even if you can win by one strategy, you may want to try again using a different approach. Or, if you lose using one approach, clearly you won’t go down in defeat so easily next time, so you try again.

Contests. Sometimes a real-world contest can inspire people to play a game over and over again, in order to win the prize.

Achievements. Sometimes people want to collect all the achievements that a game offers, so they spend time replaying to try to find all the obscure ones.

Completion. Some gamers are really hardcore. If you say “Congratulations, you completed the game! 62% Discovered!” there’s a certain set of people who take that as a slap in the face. They will not stop until they get 100 percent, so they replay the game until they have found everything!

The “Experts.”. Watch some videos on YouTube to see people play DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) fast. I don’t mean fast—I mean really fast! Or check out Guitar Hero on Expert. If your game design exposes talent and lets them get rounds of applause for their “performance,” you have another hook for replayability.

The Mentor. This is when people replay to teach others, to mentor them to help them experience the game. The point is that it can be another complete level for them. First master the game, then teach the game. Check out GamerCoach.com to see what I mean.

Qualification Races. These can be in actual racing games but sometimes are used within RPGs as a test and a way to give the player more experience with the controls.

Qualification Rounds. These are used primarily in various sports games to train the player and bring him up to the level of the actual game.

Guided Tutorials. These teach and test the player’s understanding and abilities.

Logic Puzzles. These are sometimes used to require a player to solve certain puzzles before continuing the game. These puzzles often demonstrate a certain principle of the game—something the player will see more of in more complicated circumstances.

Bosses. In some ways, mid-bosses are qualification tests. If you can’t pass the mid-boss, you clearly aren’t going to get far in the game as it increases in difficulty.

Obstacle Courses. These are a great way to provide a variety of challenges and practice for players before they move into the real game. The Tomb Raider games included basic obstacle course trainers.

Special Challenges. Designers almost always include certain especially challenging obstacles that the player will have to get past in order to continue. This is similar to the mid-boss, but it may only be a particularly nasty group of thugs or muggers or an especially monster-infested area that must be navigated. This is an aspect of tuning a game and can be mostly transparent to the player who has mastered the necessary skills, but difficult for players who are not sufficiently prepared. This also works well in Role-Playing Games where a section can be tuned to be too difficult for low-level players without creating any artificial barriers to prevent them from trying it.

Talk to them.

Make them laugh.

Use sign language.

Play games with them.

Dance with them.

Bump into them or shove them out of the way (in Assassin’s Creed style).

Use different types of physical interactions, such as bowing, waving, or pointing, and get different responses to each gesture.

Mock or taunt them.

Give them a memory of what you did last time or even the time before.

Give them a rumor mill, so they respond according to the rumor or news. (For example, they hear you’re a killer, and they hide their children.)

Provide the player with more varied types of conversation options, such as telling a joke, threatening, showing empathy or compassion, showing disdain, and so forth. (The response of the NPCs is key here.)

Let them show respect, or in fact they could literally bow down in your presence.

Reveal prior relationships, such as an NPC horse is really happy to see you.

Use body language effectively to reveal more about the NPC. For instance, does he look uncomfortable or scared? Or does he look interested or even sexually attracted? Or maybe he looks bored, and you should try a different approach.

Convince them to follow you (or force them to do so).

Follow them and see where they go, who they meet, or what they do. (This can be a form of voyeurism on the go, so make it interesting, as we know the player is watching! It can also be used to reveal subplots and opportunities if the NPC leads you to something otherwise hidden or to a special character in the game who might give you information or new quests or missions.)

Reveal their emotion for each other. So, for example, one NPC drops to his knees to help another NPC who’s having a heart attack.

Communicate with them by phone, mail, or email (or through coded messages).

Give them gifts, feed them, bring them drinks, and be kind.

Insult them intentionally.

Flirt with them.

Intimidate or scare them.

Hide in shadows.

Use natural cover to stay unseen.

Use remote viewing to watch the action and time your moves.

Use magic or technology to create some kind of invisibility.

Use different types of movement options (sneak/tiptoe, peer around corners, crouch, lie prone, and so on).

Use long-distance listening and viewing devices, such as parabolic microphones and binoculars/telescopes.

Find ways to disable sensors, distract guards (sentient or non-sentient), and so on.

Use magic or technology to escape notice of sensors and guards (sentient or non-sentient).

Wear special clothing to keep quiet or unseen or to defeat technology.

Go over, under, or around the danger.

Use disguises.

Shape-shift or control something else.

Take possession of another being and use it to get where you need to go or accomplish tasks.

Races

Reaction timing

Collecting items

Aiming

Obstacle course

Breeding

Matching items

Moving and sorting items

Logic puzzles

Guessing games

Battle tournaments

Gambling

Game of wits/trivia

Series of trials

Series of tasks

Balancing items