"A Critical Vocabulary for Games"

That is what Greg Costikyan attempts to establish in his article I have no words, I must design; a critical vocabulary for games. He begins his writing by explaining that it is particularly difficult to talk intelligently about games, as in particular the term 'gameplay' has lost all real meaning. After noting that games are an immensely broad and encompassing notion, Costikyan sets out on a task to accurately define what games actually are, and what makes them good. As I recently read this particular article, below I have included the notes I made on the matter.

In a structure that I find to be particularly clear and engaging, he derives each element in his definition from various topics clearly segregated by their own titles and ending with his developed definition for games:

Interaction

• Interaction is the player's ability to alter the state of the game
• Without interaction, a game is a puzzle

Games are interactive...

Goals

• Gives the interaction a purpose
• Decisions make a difference, and matter 
• Can be explicit or implicit
• Implicit - User defined
• Explicit - Given by the game directly

Games are goal-directed interaction...

 Struggle

• There is no joy in reaching a goal without struggle
• Struggle can be created in a variety of ways:
• Competition between players is an excellent source of struggle
• Obstacles within a game creates struggle
• It is unique to games
• We don't demand difficulty in any other aspect of life.

A game requires players to struggle interactively toward a goal...

Structure

• Provides a rule set to manage the game
• It shapes player behaviour
• Good games provide a lot of freedom in their structure
• Designers must understand the structure they are creating
• Players tends to find the most efficient way to reach their goal
• It shouldn't decide player behaviour, but it should guide.

A game is an interactive structure that requires players to struggle toward a goal...

Endogenous Meaning

•  Self-Contained
• Items within the game lose the point and value outside their respective system
• The game's structure creates its own meaning 

A game is an interactive structure of endogenous meaning that requires players to struggle toward a goal.

This is the final definition to describe all games that Costikyan came up with, and I find myself in complete agreement with all the points that he made.  What is perhaps not represented in my notes given above, is that I found the sections he wrote on 'Structure' and 'Endogenous Meaning' to be particularly interesting. The previous three sections seem to be fairly self-explanatory and evident when thinking about what games are; but a few remarks that were made about 'Structure' and even just the consideration of endogenous meaning, seem to be a far more subtle analysis. 

With regards to the structure of games, Costikyan compared two graphical 'MUD's (Multi-User-Domains) specifically in their elements of controlling player behaviour. He noted that it is never ideal to force players to behave in a particular way towards one another, but that you can subtly persuade players to act as such by creating a structure that rewards players more for behaving in the way you intend. I have few things to say about Endogenous meaning other than the fact I had never really considered it before, and that I find it an intriguing notion in itself; that games might have attainable items or statistics that mean so much to a person, even though they are entirely meaningless outside of the system they are found in.

Costikyan does then go on in his article to talk about what makes particular games more engaging than others by referring to LeBlanc’s Taxonomy, but my intention with this post is to focus on the idea of creating a suitable definition for games around the points that Costikyan laid out so very eloquently.

Dicing With Destiny: Part 1

Last week I was shown episode 1 of the BBC series Games Britannia, entitled "Dicing With Destiny", presented by Benjamin Woolley. As the name implies it is a series revolving around the notion of exploring Britain’s history with regards to gaming, and as a former student of Classics (namely ancient history and archaeology); this is of particular interest to me. As such I felt the need to watch said programme again, and now that I have I would like to share what I thought to be of significance.

 The format of the programme was such that a certain amount of time was dedicated to a selected game from Britain's past; in the spirit of organization and clarity I shall here echo that notion.

The Stanway Game

From what I could gather from the programme, the 'Stanway Game' was one of the earliest examples of a game in Britain. Dated to around 45AD, the game appears to be from the Romano-British period of the country’s history, and was found at a burial site with a body on top of it. I know from experience that grave goods are a particularly important and useful source of information to find out about the actual people that lived during a particular period of history, within their respective culture. In this case, the board game was placed directly beneath the man in the burial which suggests it had particularly importance to him; but also perhaps that those who buried him had no real need or use for the board themselves, and they felt it would be better off left with the man - maybe believing that he would therefore have it with him in the afterlife. In this show they explore the notion that perhaps the board wasn't simply used as a game, but also as a spiritual tool of some sort, used for prophecy. As it seems impossible to actually determine what the rules of the game were, it is difficult to know for sure.

Alea Evangelii

 Although Woolley opens this particular section stating that the viewer 'may not have even heard of King Æthelstan', and I felt the need to cry out and defend my knowledge of the Saxon; Alea Evangelii, or the "Game of the Gospels", was probably my favourite game featured in this programme. Unlike the 'Stanway Game' we are aware of the rules for Alea Evangelii, and are entirely capable of playing it. This is no doubt due to the early medieval period that this game is from, and that this game is documented in the Gospels, hence it's name. It is one of the larger 'tafl' board games, all of which being strategy games based around the notion of protecting or capturing a kind, with two players taking the role of one perspective each. This game shows us that during this period of Britain's history, games were still seen as being pertinent to spirituality or religion.


Libro de los Juegos

Okay, so this isn't a game, it's a book. However it depicts three very well known games, and, according to Games Britannia, is responsible to their induction to European civilization: Chess, Backgammon, and Dice. Moreover, to me it sounds like a downright interesting book! Put together by King Alfonso X of Spain, the book's name translates as the "Book of Games". As part of a wide transfer of Arabic knowledge to Europe, the games described in the book were all originally Arabic. Libro de los Jeugos is effectively a debate between different philosophical viewpoints on the approach one should take to controlling one's own life, each game representing chance, skill, or a mixture of both respectively. I personally find this way to portray such a debate to be refreshing, and particularly engaging as a form of comparing ideologies that do not necessarily have to be in any way associated with games. 

9-Men's Morris

This particular game is one that seems to pop up absolutely everywhere, and must've therefore been very popular - the game even features as a playable minigame in Assassin's Creed III! In this episode of Games Britannia Doctor Irving Finekl, who features throughout the show, puts forwards the curious suggestions that it may appear all over the world in history because the game seems to be an obvious natural progression when one goes to make a game out of nothing. As he was aware of, and found, a very large number of games boards graffitied around particular cathedrals; during this section Woolley talks with David Sherritt about the Church's attitude towards games in this era of history. The prevailing opinion was that the Church was certainly tolerant of this behaviour, but it may have even been celebrated. I feel, however, the most important thing to take away from this section, is that as we move forwards in time, some games are being created that are tailored less towards spiritual guidance, and more towards focussing on combating humanity's 'propensity for boredom'.

 

Modern-day 9-Men's Morris action!

In the interest of organization and scheduling, I have decided to split this particular topic into two parts. Therefore I shall discuss the rest of my thoughts on Games Britannia: Dicing With Destiny, in a future post. However, I would not like to bring up a point that Dr. Irving Finkel made towards the start of the episode. about how games are one of the few things that we do not see in the animal kingdom in any regard and that this is one of the key definable things that sets humanity apart from other animals. 

In The Beginning, There Is the Designer

I recently read an excerpt from Jesse Schell's The Art of Games Design: A book of lenses (2008), specifically chapter one, entitled "In the Beginning, There Is the Designer". I would share with you the exact notes I made on the intriguing section of text, but I suspect they are somewhat incoherent to anyone but myself; so I shall put them into a more understandable format!

Firstly, however, although I didn't note these things down I would like to briefly write about how entirely correct I feel Schell was in beginning his book with a chapter talking only about the actual people who are to become the designers. I feel too many approaches jump straight into designing games, and people seem to forget that designers also have to be leaders, they must know how to work within a team, and how to view themselves and the people around them. Moreover, I am quite fond of the way Schell actually writes and chooses to address the reader. Although his tone stays largely formal, I felt a sense of his personality was displayed through his writing, and I found this to make the text far more engaging.

I tend to take most of my notes as a series of titles and bullet points, so that is how I shall present them here:

Notes on The art of Games Design, Chapter 1

•  Self-confidence
• An attitude of "just do it"
• Understand every aspect of the phrase "I am a game designer"
•  Do not fear failure, it is necessary
• A working understanding of all skills involved in making a game
• Listening is the most important skill
• Five kinds of listening, listening to:
• Team - Working together
• Audience -They are the judges
• Game - Knowing everything about it
• Client - Creating what it is they want
• Self - Source of true creativity
• Deep, thoughtful listening
• Assume nothing, think everything through
• The Gifted
• Minor Gift is the talent
• Major gift is the passion, it can create the minor gift

I confess my original notes were certainly more of a mess than what I have displayed here. however I have here captured the main essence of what I was taking note of without including my route to arrive at these key points that I feel are the main things to take away from this particular example of text. 

Categorising Games

Segregating the many different games there are in the world into neat groups is a challenging notion. It is awfully unclear, with many games, as to how they should be categorised; and I would like to share with you a few ideas I've recently been exposed to that are based around doing exactly that!

 The Escapist's Genre Wheel isn't exactly the simplest solution.

The first of which is a broad, sweeping form of splitting up games. Roger Callios, building on the works of Johan Huizinga, put forward the terms 'paidea' and 'ludus' as a way of defining  a game, oriented around the structure of 'play'. A game grouped under paidea would be one  that was based on the notion of playing for the sake of pleasure; whereas a game grouped under ludus would be one clearly constrained by rules and an ultimate outcome.

Although paidea would certainly seem more prominent in the playground games of children; with regards to video games, it seems that ludus is far more common as structure for games. I personally have had more experience with ludus games and tend to prefer them, I think the reasons behind this fact are revealed when I consider the things I look for in games: I enjoy a rigid, solid, and clear goal and ruleset that I can work in and be creative in finding ways to manipulate these rules to reach said goal.

Let us compare the different ways these two structures can allow for gameplay. An example of a ludus game could be a multiplayer battle on the well-known RTS game Total War: Rome II. In one of these battles, each player would be given a set amount of money, with which they must construct an army out of a selection of different units; then they must command their armies on a battleground of some description and one must come out the victor, with the other defeated. There is certainly a large amount of choice in how each player goes about trying to achieve this goal, in many ways I entirely believe constraint breeds creativity, but both players still have no choice but to battle each other until one is defeated.

On the other hand, a paidea game could be represented by the freebuild mode on the game Stronghold. I feel this is a particularly good comparison, because both games are of the RTS genre, but go about it in very different ways. The freebuild 'game' in Stronghold is effectively a sandbox, where the player can build castles to their hearts content with absolutely no given goals or real constraints beyond what the game is capable of providing. When one plays in this kind of environment they can, and often do, make up their own goals which they can achieve or fail as much as they like. It is a much more relaxing form of play, that allows a players imagination to 'run wild' as it were.

I for one, am not fond of playing in these sandbox games myself, but many people are; and it's important to understand the differences in the kinds of gameplay these two structures can induce to evoke these preferences.

Now, the second idea supported by Callois for segregating games further is to group them under four distinct types of gameplay: 'Agon' - competition, 'Alea' - chance, 'Ilinx' - movement, and 'Mimicry' - roleplay. At first glance these might seem to be very effective ways of defining and separating different games, and certainly there are many games that would fit neatly into this system. Sticking with RTS games for the moment, one of my favourite games is Starcraft II, in its main multiplayer aspect it is a deeply ludus game, centred around agon, or competition, and simply hasn't even the slightest hint of any other of the aforementioned terms. However there are many games that do not fit into this box without scuffing the edges somewhat.

The problems start to show when we consider a game such as FTL: Faster Than Light, an indie spaceship managing game. FTL can certainly be called ludus and has a very large aspect of alea, or chance, in that many events that affect the player's game are entirely randomised and unpredictable. However there is an amount of competition that this game breeds, perhaps players might race to see who could finish it first, on its hardest difficulty; moreover, the game gives players the feeling that they are part of the crew on this ship, stranded alone in the middle of space, and introduces an aspect of mimicry in the form of make-believe or roleplay.

But perhaps I'm being pedantic and this game more or less fits in its box? Well I'd suggest we move on to consider racing games such as Mario Kart. Again this is quite clearly a ludus game, but it also appears to have three of the four types of gameplay mentioned before: Agon, in that they are racing against others in order to win; Alea, in that weapon pickups are randomised; and Ilinx, in that a player must carefully control their movement around a track in order to achieve the goal of winning.

Really, I think these two notions of grouping and defining the differences in various games are generally quite effective and useful; many games would fit nicely into its own category and be well-described by it. However, I think it's clear that there are still some games that would fit into several of these categories, racing games in particular are almost intrinsically bound to end up as part of Ilinx and Agon. The more generalised groupings of games, paidea and ludus seem to be entirely mutually exclusive, I cannot think of a game that would fit into both, as they are effectively opposites, one inspires creativity by forcing constraint, and the other allows a player's creativity to build its own fun and games within an environment. For this reason, I'd certainly say that form of classification is entirely correct.