Games have been around for nearly all of humanity. There are not only affected by the culture they are being played in, but can actually become part of the culture itself. Considered by many to be the first videogame, Spacewar! was created in 1961 by a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology hackers. The team used a Digital Equipment Corporation Programmed Data Processor-1 (DEC PDP-1) to create the game which took approximately 200 hours to create. Stewart Brand in his article, “Space War, Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Burns”, the author discusses his amazement on how well the team created the game. Brand states that “Spacewar is not only intriguing history, it’s the most, sophisticated analysis of good game design I’ve ever run across – elegant work. But that’s in retrospect; back then it was just kids staying up all night.”
What I find most amazing about this encounter is that the team did not create the game for profit or admiration. They created the game simply to discover what they could do with the given technology. By encouraging other hackers to not only play the game, but to also modify it and play it with others, the team was facilitating social interaction and increasing the quality of the game. In a way, this game could be considered one of the first open-source programming efforts.
In Celia Pearce’s piece, “Games as Art: The Aesthetics of Interactivity,” the author discusses her research on the comparison between different types of games. In her research, Pearce studied a wide range of game genres and types including board games, strategy games, card games, sports games, children’s games, and finally computer games. Through her research, Pearce found six common features of games that separate them from activities. These six principles explained by Pearce’s research are listed below.
· Parameterized play: consisting of rules that the
users agree to
· A goal: possibly a series of sub-goals leading
to a meta-goal
· Obstacles: these create challenges leading
eventually to the goal
· Resources: initially given but can also be given
later during game
· Consequences: come in form of rewards or
penalties
· Information: known and unknown to users
During our outdoor game gay, we engaged in many games that represent are an accurate reflection of these principles. In the case of the “Rock, Paper, Scissors Tag Game” (RPSTG) the principles are straightforward. The game involves two teams and unites the two common games of rock, paper, scissors and tag. Both teams line up in two parallel lines facing each other and each team independently chooses which sign to throw (rock, paper, or scissors). Once a signal is given, the team who wins the RPS match tries to tag the losing teams’ players before the losing team reaches a safety zone. The game ends when one team has all the players.
This game is only an example of the parameters that all games share. Though games can be created or used through different and varying mediums, they all share common features.
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