Week 3 Questions

From Chapter 1:

• How does mary flanagan’s definition of game differ from chris crawford’s as well as the definition crafted by katie salen and eric zimmerman? Chris Crawford contrasts what he calls “games” with puzzels. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman among other game scholars, note a wide variety of definitions of the term “game”. Salen and Zimmerman (2003) also discuss the designer’s ability to create situations for “meaningful play.” 

• What is an activist game? Activist games can be characterized by their emphasis on social issues, education, and, occasionally, inter-vention. In other words, they are not purely conceptual exercises, but rather, games that engage in a social issue through, most commonly, themes, narratives, roles, set-tings, goals, and characters; and less commonly, through game mechanics, play para-digms, interactions, or win states to benefit an intended outcome beyond a game’s entertainment or experiential value alone. 

From chapter 3 :

• Go and chess are examples of games that feature “perfect information”, what other games share that feature? Checkers, and tic-tac-toe

• Why might chance or gambling games hold spiritual or religious importance to ancient cultures? There is evidence that ancient games involving chance often held spiritual and
• ritualistic importance. Senet offered board designs for two players and rules incorporating chance. Hounds and Jackals, or Fifty- Eight Holes, appeared in Egypt in the Middle Kingdom around 2000 BC and consisted of two parallel tracks of twenty- nine holes assembled in groups of five. 

• When was the earliest battle between government/ religious groups and games? what modern games can you think of that have been banned or demonized? In 1254, St. Louis IX of France forbade Tafl at court, calling the game “inhonesti ludi.”33 Thus the battle between government or religious groups and games is at least as old as this event, if not much older. I am not really a gamer so I can’t really think of any games that have been banned.

• What is a fox game, and what would be a modern example? a group of board games featuring unequal opponents, one player is the fox, or aggressor. Other players control or play the numerous geese, sheep, or prey the fox tries to eat while the fox attempts to avoid the traps his opponents set all around him. Fox games are characterized by an unbalanced set of game goals and a rather abstract board. These “unbalanced games” paralleled the popularity of chess, Go, and backgammon, and their rules of play were relatively stable.

• What was the purpose or intent of the game: Mansion of Happiness? Players compete to be the first to reach “happiness,” or heaven, a large square in the center of the board.

• Why do artists from the Fluxus and Surealist movements play games? Why did Surealists believe games might help everyone?  Artists, especially those who followed the Surrealist and Fluxus movements, also tend to play games as a form of recreation and research. Surrealists believed that games might help everyone—artists, scientists, politician, even farmers, tap into the spiritual realm and the human unconscious. 

• Changes in what can signal profound changes in games? How were pinball games reskinned during WW2? As seen in fi gure 3.20, the typical wildlife featured in the original game is replaced with a changeover unit to make the game politically relevant during the Second World War. 

• What statements did Fluxus artists make by reskinning games like monopoly and ping pong? Fluxus artists were deeply interested in breaking down the boundaries between art and everyday life, and by reskinning games like Monopoly and Ping Pong, they made statements that challenged traditional notions of art, culture, and social structures. Fluxus, which emerged in the 1960s, was a movement that sought to blur the lines between art and life, using games and interactive actions as platforms for artistic expression and political critique.

• How are artists like Lilian Ball, Marcel Duchamp, Takako Saito, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco and Ruth Catlowusing war games? Artists like Lilian Ball, Marcel Duchamp, Takako Saito, Yoko Ono, Gabriel Orozco, and Ruth Catlow engage with the concept of war games in different ways, often using the format of the “game” as a tool for exploring themes such as power, control, violence, and the absurdity of war. These artists might either directly reference military conflicts or use the structure of games to critique traditional notions of war. 

• Why is it important for players to have agency in a critical or serious game?

Games, such as Catlow’s chess game, expose the possibilities of player agency in other ways: fi rst, by empowering the pawns, thus imbuing traditionally conceived pieces/ roles with new power; second, by opening up the possible outcomes of the game in terms of widening the possible win states, thus rewriting the original in visionary ways. Metaphorical or actual, the game design must embody action, and depending on how active a game feels, its critique may be more or less apparent.