During the week of Jan 27, the lecture
for Intro for Game Studies, we discussed the definition of game, play
and culture. Game, like most enjoyable activities, there are multiple
definitions. Ranging from the complex, “proceeds according to rules
that limit players”, to the simple, “voluntary”, “uncertain”
and “inefficient”. The one definition I would have to disagree
with is “inefficient”. Most games you have to be inefficient
because of the rules, such as playing basketball. It would be more
efficient to just hold the ball then dribble. The one example that
contradicts this is speedruns. The point of speedruns is to complete
the game as fast as possible. The easiest way to do this is to be as
efficient as the game will let you. These techniques sometimes
include glitches, skips and cheats. One could make the case that
they are playing the game unlike he creator developed. Technically
the are still playing the game.
Play can either be a part of game or
game can be a part of play. It depends what way you look at it. Play
can be unorganized shenanigans like two dogs chases after each other
or play can be a subset of game because one plays a game.
The culture of a game is how people
understand the game. I believe that is what my teacher was saying. I
was too busy talking about Kingdom Hearts and how it was an average
RPG with Disney characters. Apparently everybody knew what I was
talking about because of the culture that we live in.
The cards games we played were “Gloom”
and “Zombie Fluxx”. “Gloom” was supposed to be a fun game
where you make your family miserable before killing them. Every
sadist would love this game but I didn't enjoy it maybe because
nobody knew how to play and the one person to read the instructions
still didn't know how to play. So we called it a tie and decided to
play “Zombie Fluxx”. This is the simplest game, pick a card play
a card. You win when you reach a goal. Lets just say it was too easy
for me to grasp the game but it was fun to play.
