A game is a structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports/games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong solitaire, or some video games).[citation needed]
Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role. According to Chris Crawford, the requirement for player interaction puts activities such as jigsaw puzzles and solitaire "games" into the category of puzzles rather than games.[1]
Attested as early as 2600 BC,[2][3] games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.[4]
– Game @ Wikipedia
Beholder by Coop
Via Boing Boing.
I played many hours of Dungeons & Dragons back in my youth — enough that I feel qualified to answer the question, “Is the Beholder the coolest monster in the game?”
Yes. Yes it is. Si monumentum requiris, circumspice ….
Test Tube Baby — T-shirt design by Patrickspens.
Via Laughing Squid.
This should be a game! Won’t someone think of the children?
In the beginning was Pong. And in the beginning it stood alone. But not for long ….
In September 1972, Atari’s Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn installed the prototype Pong machine at Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California. The idea was to make a computer game that was “so simple that any drunk in any bar could play.” And boy, did they ever.
… Atari didn’t have the patent on the technology and very quickly the vast majority in the machines eating quarters around the country were knock-offs. Of course, Pong itself was “inspired” by an electronic ping pong game that was in the Magnavox Odyssey home system. To keep up, Bushnell continued to innovate, as did everyone else. Call it a volley between King Pong and his brethren, while an invasion from space was on its way.
– From Everything You Know is Pong by R. Bennett and E. Horowitz
I’m very fond of Pong. Not that I spend a lot of time playing it; but I like the idea of Pong, I’m pleased that it exists.
This looks interesting:
“There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die ….”
Frankfurt, Germany, 15 October 2010
During a glitzy ceremony at the Congress Center in Frankfurt, Belgian independent games developer Tale of Tales were awarded the Advancement Prize for Innovative Game Design by the European Innovative Games Award 2010 for their moody and mysterious Red Ridinghood-inspired exploration game The Path.
The Path turns game design conventions upside down. There is a single rule in the game, but it needs to be broken. There is a goal in the game, but when you reach it you die. There are many objects to be found in the large open environment of the game, but you need to let go of the avatar to interact. There’s 144 flowers that can be collected but no reward for doing so. And in the last part of the game, you can only move forward or stop. There are no options, no “meaningful choices”.
The Path story: http://grandmothers-house.net
The Path trailer: http://ThePath-game.com
The Path main website: http://Tale-of-Tales.com/ThePath
Will Wright, creator of The Sims, Sim City and Spore will be co-producing a new program on CurrentTV called “Bar Karma” –
Will Wright’s new TV venture makes producers out of the audience
Anchored by technology that Wright has developed exclusively for Current TV, the series, tentatively titled Bar Karma, will enlist viewers to join an online global community at a special web destination entitled, “Current TV’s Creation Studios.” At this virtual television studio, users will participate in the development of all creative and technical aspects of production and communicate directly with the producers of the show.
– Evan Narcisse @ IFC
Further evidence of what I have been saying for years: computers, games, movies, and television will merge into a new hybrid technologies involving large numbers of people, around the clock and around the world.
“The people of Bogota were more concerned about social disapproval than traffic fines, and so mimes [were hired] to playfully reproach drivers that crossed red lights …”
Traffic miming — the use of mimes to help calm and direct big-city traffic — is a kind of game design, and might prove a source of inspiration to game designers:
In 1995, the traffic in Bogota, Colombia, was so chaotic that drivers had long since given up obeying the rules of the road, resulting in a disorderly free-for-all that was a major impediment to the city’s economy. The recently elected mayor of the city, who came to prominence after dropping his trousers to silence a hall of rioting students, decided on a creative solution to this similarly vexing problem: a troop of mimes.
Antanas Mockus realised that the people of Bogota were more concerned about social disapproval than traffic fines, and so hired mimes to playfully reproach drivers that crossed red lights, blocked junctions and ignored pedestrian crossings. One cannot police by mimes alone and in a further measure to address driving behaviour, the mayor’s office brought in flashcards to allow social feedback. Each citizen was given a red card to signal to someone that their driving was poor and a white card to signal that the person who been particularly courteous or considerate.
Via Boing Boing. This dates back to 2004 … I’m digging through old bookmarks, picking out a few favorites.
Scott Steinberg asks: who says video games aren’t art?
Detractors can rightly argue that not every game technically fits the definition of art, or aspires to such lofty goals. Plenty of titles exist purely as profit-generating vehicles designed to cash in on TV shows, films and mindless pop culture artifacts.
But by letting us assume a variety of different roles, experience the world through new eyes and soak up scenarios from a fuller range of perspectives, many of the best games provide room for personal growth and individual interpretation. Capable of great import and splendor, at their best, video games can marry the aesthetic grace of painting, music and sculpture with the depth and gravity of film, literature and stagecraft.
– Scott Steinberg @ Cnn.com
I’m so pleased with myself for creating Last Supper for Pac-Man that I posted it to Facebook.
Gaming is big business — and vice versa:
Play to win: The game-based economy
Companies are realizing that “gamification” — using the same mechanics that hook gamers — is an effective way to generate business.business ….
– JP Mangalindan @ cnn.com
Via Slashdot, whence this thoughtful comment:
“Gamification” is a fuzzy description of operant conditioning. Anything with a bit of intelligence (dogs, parrots, maybe even sheep, and certainly humans) are wired to get a little jolt of pleasure after successfully negotiating a crisis situation. It’s how we learn. What games do is short-circuit this by providing lots and lots of crisis situations, and providing the player with ways to get through them and win, and get that little burst of success-feeling. Some people are seriously susceptible to this kind of shenanigans and spend all their time enjoying their imagined success at Farmville. Others do the same thing climbing the corporate ladder and running companies. In that case, of course, it’s not imagined success, it’s the intended result of how we’re wired, operating in a complex social environment. In any case, it’s an essential system for learning in humans, and while it sucks that people are getting really good at twisting it to manipulate other people, it’s still vitally important and ubiquitous.
– smellsofbikes @ Slashdot
My two cents? To borrow an old adage for a new ad age:
God sends Farmville; the Devil sends more Farmville.
The Exterminator’s Want-Ad is a wickedly clever short story by Bruce Sterling (one of my favorite writers) about a dystopian future where political prisoners are sentenced to role playing games. Here’s a taste, for inspiration:
When we weren’t planting beans in the former back yard, or digging mold out of the attic insulation, we had to do rehab therapy. This was our prisoner consciousness-building encounter scheme. The regime made us play social games. We weren’t allowed computer games in prison: just dice, graph paper, and some charcoal sticks that we made ourselves.
So, we played this elaborate paper game called “Dungeons and Decency.” Three times a week. The lady warden was our Dungeon Master.
– Link
You are currently browsing the archives for the Games category.
