Sunday, August 21, 2011

LXXX - an exposition on play

what is play?

i didn't start thinking about play with a question like this. i do read the philosophers, but no, i don't like to ask, much less answer, questions that begin like this. what is law? eesh, legal theory. what is property? now that was interesting. but let me tell you how i got started - it began with a warped, a detached, a meta-play sort of pride. and i love the word "meta". metaphysics, metaheuristics, metarealism. metta world peace. let me copy out the first line in its wiki article: Meta ... is a prefix ... used to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter. now that is beautiful.

i felt proud that i've never truly been addicted to any game. games were, in the past, distractions for me, and not serious ones. i never dota-ed that hard, partly because i knew that it cost too much, and partly because i got tired of it at its highest. well, i never reached its highest, but i knew that the micro (by micro, i refer to the skill) i needed to get there was not worth the effort, nor would it give me satisfaction. i played dota for its teamwork. dota is only one example, the other large one being cs, but eventually i thought that cs too was individualistic. anyway, my point is that computer games were never more than hobbies for me. yes, i did play them a lot, but they were never a lifestyle.

so, what is play? play to me is activity which is chiefly fun. however, i think that true play tends also to be in large parts both educational and enlightening, with regards to the self and with regards to reality. if there is a commonly held view that work is the opposite of play, i would say rather that work is income earning activity, and therefore play is neither necessarily nor sufficiently definitionally excluded from work. woo, big words.

so why did i think about play? this essay began with a feeling that i knew play, that i knew both the very attraction and detraction of games, that i knew the time-efficiency of play, that i could break down into distinct sequences the relationship that i had with play. and i knew that i often went into crusty play very quickly. but before i explain that word, crusty, let me show you my play development observations.

Pagan
Skeptic
Noobie play
Experienced play
Pro play
Appreciative play
Crusty play
Jaded play
Reawakened play
Retro play

as a Pagan, you think play is rubbish. you think games are for kids, a waste of time, unimportant to the self. you think kids play too much computer (which i actually agree with) and would have yours do crosswords to unwind.

a Skeptic thinks that most games are silly, basically allure only through flash and gimmickry, and teach bad values. he thinks Poker is cheating but Snakes and Ladders is safe. he is basically not a Pagan but not a Believer either.

a Newbie is one of those short lived personas who don't know how lucky they are. as robbie williams sings, youth is wasted on the young. noobie fun is the most innocent of fun - the world is brand new after a rain, the birds are singing and every click and spin brings treasure and new, unexplored possibilities. mistakes do not exist in a noobie's consciousness. if a noobie wonders if he is one, he instantly ceases to be a noobie.

an Experienced player is one who decides not to be a noobie. he understands that the game wants to teach him things, and he in turn wants to learn them, although he does not yet necessarily know whether these are good or bad things. he knows only that he is improving at the game. this is fun if the player likes to get better, and thinks that as a pro he will derive utmost satisfaction from the game - this latter point is especially important. if not, he will at this point realise that he never wants to be a pro, and simply becomes a sometime gamer. where the game is not a good game, it is also possible that the gamer sees it for what it is, and decides that pro play of that game is not desirable. but this scenario is uninteresting.

it is not impossible for an experienced gamer to skip pro play and still become an appreciative gamer or a crusty gamer, but in truth i believe that he cannot truly judge a game without being pro at it at one point or another.

a Pro gamer is simply one who owns Experienced gamers. pro gamers only desire to play balanced instances of games, i.e. against other pro gamers. it is hard, lonely work becoming a pro gamer. it is harder, lonelier, staying there. 

an Appreciative player is something that i wish more of us would become - yes, the graphics are nice, the levels are well designed, the gameplay and timing is rhythmic and symphonious, but more importantly, that the creative design, art direction and cultural standard of the game are good at both high and regular levels of abstraction. an appreciative player is both a gamer's gamer and a game-designer's gamer. he sees things that developers want him to see, laughs at the inane things that make designers laugh, and cries when little tragedies occur in a game. he knows that the game teaches good things, that it acts as a mirror of life, and that in each player's gameplay much can be observed about their belief systems and lifestyles. in other words, he is a Believer.

Crusty - now we're getting warm. merriam-webster.com gives crusty as being of surly incivility in address or disposition. and i do believe that many gamers are crusty in the broader sense of being bad-mannered to other gamers, because of the isolated gaming environment we find ourselves in, but possibly also (if less likely) in the narrower sense of seeing ourselves as having grown past the game. we've learnt all that we wanted from a game, or it has taught us all that it could teach us. we play like old uncles play checkers - cynically, sarcastically and insensitively. we shrug when we win and chuckle blithely when we lose. we're like old sea dogs - crusty.

a man may or may not become crusty, and he may or may not become appreciative. in other words, these are optional, advanced phases. many men are happy to be noobs all their lives, many are happy to be hobbyists, enthusiasts, avids, fanatics, sharks, or facilitators. many don't care, it's true. but these things you say about gaming, you could also say about life.

Jaded players have a common understanding - that they have spent way too long playing something. maybe they were too ignorant. maybe they were too weak. maybe they were having a rough time elsewhere. they're not unlike ex-alcoholics; they're bitter. there is a way not to feel jaded - and that is to understand gaming relationships better.

Reawakened play is a sweeping term used to refer to gamers who rediscover the joys of a certain game after a hiatus. few games have true replay value, in that new things can be learnt (or new fun had) after the third or fourth play through, and that includes after having read walkthroughs and guides. few games indeed. but many a time gamers link up and play through stuff together, if only to walk again through their old corridors of power, and revisit their old haunts. a shining example would be MUD, text-based games. these are also old enough to be Retro, but a game (or indeed, anything) has to meet another requirement to be retro. Reawakened play is often closely linked to appreciative play, but it does of course require a good game to encourage appreciation.

Retro play has a requirement written in solid, typeface, bold and underlined font, which is that it must be of a game which was well played in the gamer's past. that's what retro is - that once upon a time your daddy played this game, although to you it would only be old school; that is, only your dad can claim that it is retro. a retro game (following this classification) would be FF7. retro play is fun if and only if it is the kind of game that is fun fifteen years into the future, when it can barely run, requiring 16-bit greek that requires emulators. oh shit i just thought of a truly retro game i will never have back - strike commander. if there is a god, he would someday deign to let me play that game. c:/. cd/sc. sccd.

something intrinsically important is left to be explained, something which underlies and resonates through everything i have just mentioned, a single question - what is a good game? and here i hesitate, this i find inherently difficult to answer. what is good is subjective but can also be rationally and reasonably discovered; of what is good, i do not fear to answer. but what is a good game? for i feel that games are often misunderstood, being children of their times (and we live in strange, fluid times). they are badly understood by both gamers and non-gamers, and do not always stand to gain from their attractive characteristics.

but let me nonetheless begin to answer what i think is a good game. i believe that a good game is intuitive and logical, and if it is a unique, even warped type of logic, provided it is strictly coherent in itself, then it is that much better for it. it is intuitive in that its reward systems make sense to a gamer who is willing to delve into the fictions and artificial constructs of the game. i believe that a good game teaches both micro and macro, with micro being technical skills and macro being strategic thinking both inside the game and outside the game. in this regard, i think that a game should reward the highest micro skills, but not place a premium on them. a game should not penalise gamers who do not use the best systems. the glitz and glamour of a game should be icing, nothing more or less. a good game should be fun for noobies, it should be fun for experienceds, and it should be fun for pros. the learning curve of a good game should be realistic at each level; it should be balanced in that it rewards each level of proficiency accordingly, and not merely with a handicap system. a good game should ideally produce an immersible experience, but not create one so overwhelmingly saturated that a gamer's imagination cannot be properly applied to his gaming experience. obviously, the difference in this regard between a computer game and a board game can be startling; a proper comparison may be implausible. but no less, i believe that a good game cultivates the imagination, and does not inhibit it. a good game teaches a gamer adaptive skills, tactical efficiency and exposure to various schools of thought. a good game teaches a gamer to anticipate and pre-empt other gamers. i firmly believe that a good game should teach life lessons, both in single player and multi-player mode. i believe that a truly good game is fun even the third or fourth time through. i believe that a truly good game spans generations. finally, i believe that a good game is like art in that it reflects humanity.

so my hope is that play is not something we think of lightly, not something we do not often ask ourselves the importance of with regards to our maturity, and not something we eventually dismiss and relegate from our lives. as nietzsche once said, men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play. and i think chesterton is both right and wrong when he says, it is only we who play badly who love the game itself.

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oh my god...
Title: The Perfect Game
Author: G. K. Chesterton
We have all met the man who says that some odd things have happened to him, but that he does not really believe that they were supernatural. My own position is the opposite of this. I believe in the supernatural as a matter of intellect and reason, not as a matter of personal experience. I do not see ghosts; I only see their inherent probability. But it is entirely a matter of the mere intelligence, not even of the motions; my nerves and body are altogether of this earth, very earthy. But upon people of this temperament one weird incident will often leave a peculiar impression. And the weirdest circumstance that ever occurred to me occurred a little while ago. It consisted in nothing less than my playing a game, and playing it quite well for some seventeen consecutive minutes. The ghost of my grandfather would have astonished me less. 
On one of these blue and burning afternoons I found myself, to my inexpressible astonishment, playing a game called croquet. I had imagined that it belonged to the epoch of Leach and Anthony Trollope, and I had neglected to provide myself with those very long and luxuriant side whiskers which are really essential to such a scene. I played it with a man whom we will call Parkinson, and with whom I had a semi-philosophical argument which lasted through the entire contest. It is deeply implanted in my mind that I had the best of the argument; but it is certain and beyond dispute that I had the worst of the game. 
"Oh, Parkinson, Parkinson!" I cried, patting him affectionately on the head with a mallet, "how far you really are from the pure love of the sport--you who can play. It is only we who play badly who love the Game itself. You love glory; you love applause; you love the earthquake voice of victory; you do not love croquet. You do not love croquet until you love being beaten at croquet. It is we the bunglers who adore the occupation in the abstract. It is we to whom it is art for art's sake. If we may see the face of Croquet herself (if I may so express myself) we are content to see her face turned upon us in anger. Our play is called amateurish; and we wear proudly the name of amateur, for amateurs is but the French for Lovers. We accept all adventures from our Lady, the most disastrous or the most dreary. We wait outside her iron gates (I allude to the hoops), vainly essaying to enter. Our devoted balls, impetuous and full of chivalry, will not be confined within the pedantic boundaries of the mere croquet ground. Our balls seek honour in the ends of the earth; they turn up in the flower-beds and the conservatory; they are to be found in the front garden and the next street. No, Parkinson! The good painter has skill. It is the bad painter who loves his art. The good musician loves being a musician, the bad musician loves music. With such a pure and hopeless passion do I worship croquet. I love the game itself. I love the parallelogram of grass marked out with chalk or tape, as if its limits were the frontiers of my sacred Fatherland, the four seas of Britain. I love the mere swing of the mallets, and the click of the balls is music. The four colours are to me sacramental and symbolic, like the red of martyrdom, or the white of Easter Day. You lose all this, my poor Parkinson. You have to solace yourself for the absence of this vision by the paltry consolation of being able to go through hoops and to hit the stick." 
And I waved my mallet in the air with a graceful gaiety. 
"Don't be too sorry for me," said Parkinson, with his simple sarcasm. "I shall get over it in time. But it seems to me that the more a man likes a game the better he would want to play it. Granted that the pleasure in the thing itself comes first, does not the pleasure of success come naturally and inevitably afterwards? Or, take your own simile of the Knight and his Lady-love. I admit the gentleman does first and foremost want to be in the lady's presence. But I never yet heard of a gentleman who wanted to look an utter ass when he was there." 
"Perhaps not; though he generally looks it," I replied. "But the truth is that there is a fallacy in the simile, although it was my own. The happiness at which the lover is aiming is an infinite happiness, which can be extended without limit. The more he is loved, normally speaking, the jollier he will be. It is definitely true that the stronger the love of both lovers, the stronger will be the happiness. But it is not true that the stronger the play of both croquet players the stronger will be the game. It is logically possible--(follow me closely here, Parkinson!)--it is logically possible, to play croquet too well to enjoy it at all. If you could put this blue ball through that distant hoop as easily as you could pick it up with your hand, then you would not put it through that hoop any more than you pick it up with your hand; it would not be worth doing. If you could play unerringly you would not play at all. The moment the game is perfect the game disappears." 
"I do not think, however," said Parkinson, "that you are in any immediate danger of effecting that sort of destruction. I do not think your croquet will vanish through its own faultless excellence. You are safe for the present." 
I again caressed him with the mallet, knocked a ball about, wired myself, and resumed the thread of my discourse. 
The long, warm evening had been gradually closing in, and by this time it was almost twilight. By the time I had delivered four more fundamental principles, and my companion had gone through five more hoops, the dusk was verging upon dark. 
"We shall have to give this up," said Parkinson, as he missed a ball almost for the first time, "I can't see a thing." 
"Nor can I," I answered, "and it is a comfort to reflect that I could not hit anything if I saw it." 
With that I struck a ball smartly, and sent it away into the darkness towards where the shadowy figure of Parkinson moved in the hot haze. Parkinson immediately uttered a loud and dramatic cry. The situation, indeed, called for it. I had hit the right ball. 
Stunned with astonishment, I crossed the gloomy ground, and hit my ball again. It went through a hoop. I could not see the hoop; but it was the right hoop. I shuddered from head to foot. 
Words were wholly inadequate, so I slouched heavily after that impossible ball. Again I hit it away into the night, in what I supposed was the vague direction of the quite invisible stick. And in the dead silence I heard the stick rattle as the ball struck it heavily. 
I threw down my mallet. "I can't stand this," I said. "My ball has gone right three times. These things are not of this world." 
"Pick your mallet up ," said Parkinson, "have another go." 
"I tell you I daren't. If I made another hoop like that I should see all the devils dancing there on the blessed grass." 
"Why devils?" asked Parkinson; "they may be only fairies making fun of you. They are sending you the 'Perfect Game,' which is no game." 
I looked about me. The garden was full of a burning darkness, in which the faint glimmers had the look of fire. I stepped across the grass as if it burnt me, picked up the mallet, and hit the ball somewhere--somewhere where another ball might be. I heard the dull click of the balls touching, and ran into the house like one pursued.