The Value of Games

A few quick thoughts on the value of games after reading a bit on the MOMA design exhibit about functionality vs meaning etc. :

Games are art and have meaning, sure. But I think for expressing traditional forms of "meaning in art" games are basically very inferior or at best slightly inferior to the traditional forms of art themselves. If all we're looking for in complex and powerful games is literature-style heavy duty themes and character development then games are always going to lose out to books or movies or fine arts. In my opinion, games have a different kind of meaning and are most interesting when aiming for a different kind of goal. Whereas many traditional forms of art are mostly about intentional meaning -- they have a message -- games are not about anything. Maybe really bad, simple games can have the same kind of meaning we often respect in traditional art, but any good game is going to be complex enough that it becomes many times more difficult, and virtually impossible, to insert meaning in the same way you can insert a theme into a novel. But why would you even want to? Traditional art often (although not always) makes statements, but games can ask questions, and they can ask questions in a way that no other medium can. Every game is a question. It's: I wonder what would happen if I created a system in which X is true. Or, I wonder what would happen if I modeled a system in the following way. In this way, the meaning is participatory as well -- it's only uncovered through the combined efforts of the designers and the players. And even though I think that's valuable in the abstract in a lot of ways, maybe the most obvious way to see value in it is when games model real world systems (and they do pretty often). Take Civ for example. Civ is more or less trying to find an architecture to model the entire world, but in Civ IV killing slaves early game to make your cities happier is a very strong strategy. Surely Sid Meier didn't intend that as a message or a theme to be uncovered in the game. But just because it wasn't intended doesn't make it worthless. It's actually a fascinating (and disturbing) insight. It's just one of the amazing things that you can uncover when you take a system and model in and then push it to its logical extreme. And games are the only artform that can do that, really. You wind them up and you let them loose, and no one knows what they're going to say.

The other thing that makes games valuable is much simpler. Becoming an expert is valuable in and of itself in my mind, but many people would disagree. However, I think it's definitely the case that becoming good at games teaches you how to learn skills -- how to become an expert. Because unlike many other things, they have immediate feedback and are heavily goal oriented -- two things that many actual skills lack. But when you go back to learn something that's "obviously" useful, if you approach it with a goal oriented mindset, look for challenges, and seek for immediate feedback -- i.e. devote yourself to something that experts on experts (yeah) call deliberate practice -- I think it really makes you better at becoming better.

Ideas

Non-Gameplay

The game is about identity and construction of the self. It's also about gender, in a way that I haven't figured out yet -- but for some reason I'm stuck on that idea, maybe because other people are stuck on that idea and the job of a game designer is to get people stuck on an idea. So it's about gender somehow, maybe in a way that's more tacked on. But here's how it's about identity: players are trying to align their self -- their constructed self and perceived self -- with who they "really" are. And that's kind of what people are doing in real life all the time. But who the hell are you really, if not your constructed self? I guess the answer to that is that people have certain innate things for seemingly no reason -- they want to do ballet or puppeteering, and it makes them happy to do those things in a way that is inexplicable, or is explicable only if you use words like "innate." But, as a person, I feel like you often don't even know what those things are until you try things. And you learn those things from other people as much as yourself. You learn what you want to believe in and what "clicks" with you -- and the you there is the you you, which makes sense to me for some reason.

Gameplay

So the idea is pretty basic, you're trying to align your identity and self and gender with what you understand to be  your innate self. Except it's hard, because you don't know who you are innately, really. You have no way of knowing. So you do things -- actions, unions -- and you see how you feel about them. Most of all, you see how you feel about other people and you define yourself with them and help them to define themselves.

So add a Helix knock-off idea on top of this. There needs to be a juicy hook, because shit is always cooler when you have some sort of hook to grab people at the beginning and this game also needs another layer. Here's one idea: at the beginning of a game, you answer a short 6 or 7 question survey on sort of "core" issues, and that creates your "strand" or "code." Because it's what you do every day. You try to understand yourself and construct an identity that is sympatico with that understanding, but the only way to understand yourself is through the lens of your current constructed identity. You have to reverse-engineer your innate self through your constructed self and then construct a new self that is more aligned with your innate self.

Other gameplay ideas: players start out with all of one color. Players start out with two goals, and must discard one at 5 turns in. Players construct their own identity with three cards: red, blue, green, and use one to  show like "when I would get a blue stone I instead get red/green."

Gender Game

As I research more gender theory stuff, here's a quick place to store the current idea/rules for my prototype game.


GENDER GAME 

The gender game is a cooperative game about identity. It's set in a not-so-distant future in which all of humanity's major physical problems are all but solved. There's no more hunger or poverty, very little work that isn't automated, and manageable environmental problems. So humanity is obsessed with identity and personality -- it's all they have to do anymore really, and all they care about.

Players play people in this world. There are three types of resources -- red, green and blue pieces. These are the main currency in the game, you start out with them, you trade them to get more of them, and when you have enough of them (based on some other stuff) you win the game. Here's how it works, exactly:

There is one game master. In the large social game this would be like a central processing unit that people could come to any time once per day (turn). In this small version it's one person who knows the rules. The GM deals each other player a "strand" or "code", which is sort of future slang for DNA I guess, or something. A players' code is hidden from them for the entire game. This code decides what happens when players make unions, mentioned below.

Players take turns, going clockwise. When it is a players' turn they can make a union with one other player, which involves both of them putting down an equal number of stones of different colors. They then hand these stones into the GM, who gives them back more stones which are determined by their code. So, for example, players make a union with 2 red stones and one green and one blue stone. If one player has Code A and Code A is like:

Red: Blue and a Green
Blue: Red and a Green if there is one of each color in the union.
Green: Blue

Then that player would get 3 blues, 1 red and 2 greens.

And the other player would get the same, but for their code. In factm, maybe codes aren't predetermined but are determined by a bunch of random things that determine small logic sequences, and the possible logical actions are publically shown to players. Possibility?

This will have to be refined a bit so it's not too hard but not too easy to guess. Maybe a bit more complex than one to one. Maybe small logic gate type things.

The other part of it is identity. On their turn a player can change their identity to one of several publically displayed identities. This gives them some small bonus as well as providing them with a goal -- e.g. get 12 green stones or something.

(Their pieces aren't public to each other)

Also maybe a screw mechanic.

It's not really a competitive game, or a cooperative game. People who fulfill a goal win, and people who don't lose.

Problems: Switching goals too often might be a bad thing? Having goals be too transient?

Remember! More like an art project than awesome under the hood. Although ideally it's both.