Darragh D.'s Blog

What is a game? A game can be thought of as a mode of play, yet that offers little in defining what features mark something as a game . Many academics and professional game designers have offered their opinions on what a game is.   Different Definitions and Commonalities In Homo Ludens (1984) by Johan Huizinga, a game is defined as a non-serious activity existing outside of normal life and follows rules which only occur within its own boundaries, also known as a magic circle . In Playing for Real (2008) by Tom and Janice Baranowski, a game is defined as “a physical or mental contest with a goal or objective, played according to a framework, or rules, that determines what a player can and cannot do inside a game world.”   In The Grasshopper (1978) by Bernard Suits, a game is defined as “the voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”   In Rules of Play (2004) by Katie Salen and Zimmerman, a game is defined as “a system in which players engage in an ar...

  The magic circle is a concept of a border between the real world and the space of play, where the rules of reality are accepted as being different. The name comes from how some games, such as marbles , involves drawing a circle on the ground, which acts as the field of play. In the game of hide and seek , a player given the role of seeker must look away from the players acting as hiders so they have enough time to hide, the seeker must then explore and find all the hiders. The seeker wins if they discover all the hiders. The hiders win if at least one remains hidden until the seeker admits defeat or a certain amount of time passes. One may step back and observe the game’s rules as arbitrary, especially when compared to instances in nature of predators hunting hiding prey. These hunters don’t stop and close their eyes to give their quarry a chance to find a good spot to hide nor would a discovered animal automatically submit to a predator; it may attempt to fight or flee if giv...

Tablut   is a game originating from around 1,500 years ago, during the time of the Vikings (). Tablut is a variant of   tafl , which were boards games often played in places like Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, and Britain, until being replaced by chess in the 12th century. However, Tablut continued to be played in some regions all the way to the 18th century, because of this, its rules are better recorded than those of the other tafl variants. Rules Set-up Tablut is played on a grid, intended to be 9x9, but these numbers can be increased, along with the number of pieces (See image below). There are two factions: The  King  is positioned at the board’s centre, surrounded by  Defenders . The  Attackers  are split into four groups at the middle of the board’s sides. Classic version of Tablut: 9x9 Grid with 1 King, 8 Defenders, and 16 Attackers.  Alternate, scaled-up version of Tablut: 11x11 Grid with 1 King, 12 Defenders, and 24 Attackers. ...

Outer Wilds  is a sandbox puzzle game where the player controls an astronaut who finds themselves stuck in a time-loop which always ends with the sun going supernova and destroying the solar system. Whenever the player character reaches the end of a loop – or dies before the sun explodes – they restart back on their homeworld, next to their spaceship. The spaceship acts as the astronaut’s main form of travel between planets. The main goal of Outer Wilds is to unravel the mystery of time-loop and the sun’s supernova by exploring the solar system for clues left behind by a long-dead civilisation.   Structural Rules Each time-loop lasts   22 minutes. There is no conventual countdown timer to let the player know, but a player may deduce this time limit by simply measuring it in real life. For narrative reasons, the time-loop and sun’s supernova cycle do not begin until the player encounters a strange alien artefact. After this point, it is up to the player on how they use the...

There have been many reports on the effects gaming has on a person’s mind. A positive example would be a study conducted by  Green and Bavelier (2015)  examined whether there was a causal link between playing ‘action video games’ and cognitive improvements. An action video game is denoted as having detailed environments, moving targets, and the need to frequently adjust one’s  focus  between  a single objective and spreading attention across multiple tasks while  making quick yet precise actions. An example of an action game would be  Unreal   Tournament.  Contrastingly, a ‘control video game’ is a game which lacks the traits present in an action game.   An example of a control game would be  The Sims . Unreal Tournament is an example of an action game. The study was performed using participants who had  little or no experience playing action games. First, the  participants’ cognitive abilities were  measured using ...