Ludeme

A ludeme is an element of play within a card or board game, distinct from the physical instruments used to play it. The term was coined by the French game writer Pierre Berloquin to give game scholars a way to talk about a game's rules and mechanics separately from its equipment: the L-shaped move available to a knight in chess is a ludeme, while the carved chess piece that makes the move is merely an instrument of play. The game researcher Alain Borvo, an early adopter of the concept, described a ludeme as a type rule, citing examples such as trick-taking in card games or capture-by-leaping in board games, mechanics that recur across many otherwise unrelated games. By separating ludemes from equipment, the concept lets scholars compare the abstract structure of games across cultures and eras, tracing how the same underlying rule, such as capture-by-leaping, reappears in games that use entirely different boards and pieces. The term remains chiefly a working concept within academic game studies rather than a household word among players.