Category: games

Wittgenstein: Food Forms a Family

[This is #2 in a series of experimental writings: I am trying to write with styles and arugments that I would not normally use. Here, I take on Wittgenstein’s famous argument that “games” cannot be defined.]

[66.] Consider for example the objects we call ‘food”. I mean pork roast, waffles, pasta, lamb casseroles, and so on. What is common to them all? Don’t say, ‘There must be something common, or else they would not be all called “food”‘, but look and see whether there is anything common to all. For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to them all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don’t think, but look! Look, for example, at pork roasts, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to waffles, here you will find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to pasta, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. Are they all ‘nutritious’? Compare pig’s stomach [Saumage] with Creme Brulee. Or is there always an appetizer and a main course, or even a swallowing of the food? Think of chewing gum. In breakfast cereal there is the process of eating and the feeling of being full afterwards, but when a child throws his potato mash into the air, this feature has disappeared. Look now at the parts played by spices, and at the difference between chili in in Kashmir Lamb and chili in Tom Yum Soup. Think now of cafeteria food; here is the social element of eating, but now many other characteristic features have disappeared. And we can go through the many, many other groups of food in the same way, and we can see how similarities crop up and disappear.
And the result of this examination is this: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing, sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.
[67.] I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than ‘family resemblances’, for the various resemblances among members of the same family: build, features, color of eyes, walk, temperament, etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way. And I shall say, food forms a family.’
(Wittgenstein 1958, segment 66-67.)

Japanese Children Playing (Rules and Enjoyment)

[I am working on my book manuscript. To prevent myself from simply writing like I always do, I am going to do a series of experimental game writings. In these, it is not strictly “me” speaking – they are rather explorations of possible directions in which to work.]

4 Japanese children are playing. As far as I can see, these are the rules: One child (“the guesser”) walks away and closes his/her eyes. The remaining three perform a clapping sequences and chooses between them who is “it”. The child who walked away returns and has to guess who is “it”.
The guesser can guess as many times as he/she wants.

This is a game according to my definition.
There are rules, quantifiable outcome, valorization of outcomes, player effort, player attachment to outcome, and “negotiable consequences” of the outcome.

But this does not explain why the game would be enjoyable.
There are many things of course:
-The shared ritual.
-The rhythm.
-Playing with distinguishing between people.
-The thrill of being special.
-The relation between individuality and arbitrary distinctions.
-Exploring your emotions towards the other players.
-Examining the signals and expressions of the other players.
-Trying to conceal the signals that you send.

The consequences assigned to the game are rather weak. Also in the sense that there is no winner of a game, only an individual performance, but that the game is played multiple times. It would be possible to play 15 games and write down the performance of each player and pick a winner. However, this is not done. Overall performance rating is therefore rather imprecise. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
The game also contains strong chance element, making the skill of the individual less important.

As we can see, the formal setup of the game means a lot for how it can be used socially and what pleasures can be derived from it. But the other aspect of the setup, that the game is being played many times without the children keeping a score, also makes it a special kind of not-that-competitive game.

The game is designed collectively by human children, who pass specific rules on because they enjoy the experiences that they get from playing with them.

Why can’t we play this game as adults? Discuss.

First Person: Star Wars and the Media Ecology

Julian K?cklich has posted a fairly grumpy review of First Person on Dichtung Digital.

I’ll just pick on one thing, K?cklich writes about Henry Jenkins’ Game Design as Narrative Architecture:

Jenkins should be lauded for his attempt to mediate between the two schools. He helpfully points out points of agreement between ludologists and narratologists, but he also identifies ludology’s “conceptual blind spots” in regard to narrative. Chief among these is ludology’s failure to understand that narratives can operate across different media and do not have to be self-contained. As Jenkins usefully points out in response to Jesper Juul: “The Star Wars game may not simply retell the story of Star Wars, but it doesn?t have to in order to enrich or expand our experience of the Star Wars saga”.

Actually, I was pointing out that the old Star Wars arcade game did not reproduce the story of Star Wars (unlike what a Star Wars cartoon or novel might do). Jenkins writes that:

This is a pretty old fashioned model of the process of adaptation. Increasingly, we inhabit a world of transmedia story-telling, one which depends less on each individual work being self-sufficient than on each work contributing to a larger narrative economy.

This is one place where I believe two different things are being discussed – I am discussing whether narratives move across media to games like they do to, say, novels. And I concluded that this wasn’t the case. This does not conflict with Jenkins’ observation that such a game still plays a role in our general understanding of the Star Wars universe. A battle of words, really.

(And of course, it’s pretty strange to be criticized (by K?cklich) for not understanding how narratives can operate across media when the whole original argument was based on an examination of transmedial storytelling and how narratives can (fail to) move across media to games. Oh well.)

The Complete List of Location-based Games

Probably not quuuite complete, but Howard Rheingold has a list of “Urban Mobile Games” (which seems to be another term for location-based games):

Pac-Manhattan, by Dennis Crowley, Frank Lantz (instructor) and others
http://pacmanhattan.com
Location: Manhattan, New York, USA – 2004

Navigate the Streets, by Level 28 Brands
http://www.navigatethestreets.com
Location: Several Cities in Canada – 2004

I Like Frank in Adelaide, by Blast Theory
http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/frank/play.php
Location: Adelaide, Australia – 2004

Pirates!, by PLAY research studio, Interactive Institute
http://play.tii.se/projects/pirates/index.html
Location: HUC conference in Bristol, UK – August 2000
Continue reading “The Complete List of Location-based Games”

Should Game Mechanics match the Game Theme? (AKA Rules and Fiction)

In The [board] Games Journal, Greg Aleknevicus writes that German Games are Fraudulent.
His basic complaint is that in German board games, the game mechanic and the theme are often completely disconnected:

The point to be made is simple?the wholesale grafting of a theme onto a set of mechanics is dishonest if those mechanics have no real world connection to that theme. Can a game really be about exploring the Amazon if it can easily be re-themed to the terror of the French Revolution? Is it realistic to simply add floors to an existing skyscraper? Did ancient explorers really decide the orientation of the islands they discovered?

This, I think, is the most important aesthetic question in video games. It’s not interactivity vs. narrativity (the open vs. the predetermined). The most important question is the rules (mechanics) vs. the fiction (theme). It’s really what my Ph.D. was about, but it’s a question that pops up all the time: It’s always straightforward to assume that the fiction of a game is arbitrary and unimportant compared to the rules. However, fiction matters, but in strange ways and with different degrees to different people.
For example, the hardcore RTS players who first picked up Age of Empires would recognize the game as an RTS, and think of it in that frame (rules). But someone new to games might think of it in terms of medieval wars (fiction).

Oh, and Frank Lantz also discusses the issue in Rules of Play.

Ancient Greece: Victory at any cost

Competing for his third Olympic crown, Arrichion had found himself being choked in a stranglehold from behind. Unable to free himself from the ferocious grip, Arrichion managed to grip his opponent’s ankle and twist it until it broke.

In agony his opponent submitted, but by then the damage was done – Arrichion’s throat had been crushed and even as he was proclaimed the winner, he breathed his last.

It’s BBC News on death in ancient Greek games.

Is this a game?

It is arguably the most difficult philosophical question concerning the concept of “game”: Games are supposed to be played for fun, but sometimes players do get seriously hurt or even die. Is it still a game then?
Roger Caillois argues that professional athletes do not play, but work. It’s also part of my game definition, where games have “negotiable consequences” – and a “game” where all “players” endanger their lives is hence not a game.

It’s certainly a fuzzy aspect of what makes something a game: The difference between the process of political elections and various Idol and Popstars TV shows is not quite clear, but I think this is just the fuzzy heart of games: A game activity has to be “mostly harmless”, and then any number of consequences can be assigned to its outcome.