The game: Battle City. Year: 1985. Platform: Nintendo Family Computer
The game has in total 35 levels. In each level players have to navigate through a maze of brick walls and other obstacles in order to shoot at enemies. There are different type of enemy tanks with various levels of armor protection and firepower. There are also various types of power-ups for player’s tank to grab, such as firepower upgrades, extra armor and extra life, to name a few.
This is one of the first Famicom games I ever played (on a 14-in. black-and-white TV set). It’s a fun little game and arguably very hard for me at 10. Unlike many other games I’ve played, this game doesn’t seem to have a storyline. You just play through the levels. When you complete all the levels, it comes back to stage one. The game can be played by two players together. I would say the two-player mode is more destructive than it is being helpful or cooperative. At least for me and my buddy, we’ve spent far more time on shooting at each other fanatically than shooting at the enemies.
Of all the characteristics of play defined by Huizinga and Caillois, each can find its examples within this fun little game. Here are some of them.
Pre-defined and fixed limits of space and time: the game can only be played with the presence of a game console, the game cartridge and a TV set. The pre-requisition of the hardware is obviously there. The game is set to display on the TV screen. It is staged to take place in a rectangle battle field—the metaphor of a “city.” The game is set to have multiple stages. Players have no way to advance the game other than complete the level and move to the next.
Uncertainty: the course and result of the game can’t be determined beforehand. For each game the game play situation may be different. The rewards may pop up at different places. As players you may try different strategies and then find yourself end up with totally different results each time. Who you play with also matters, especially when your suicidal lieutenant always has a tendency to point his gun at you or the base.
Governed by rules: there is clearly a set of rules designed for the game. Its straightforward winning/losing conditions aside, other rules regarding rewards /punishments are quickly learnt by players. The game doesn’t spell out these rules on screen, but players usually take little time to figure that out. Back to me and my buddy example, it’s interesting to see that although the game has laid out a clear goal for players to achieve, which is to destroy enemies, we never failed to find ways to defy the goal by creating our own way and own rules to play the game (and have fun).
Unproductive: my precious fun time with my Famicom, however, was often cut short by my parent’s yelling across the house. “There is no good in playing video game” is the usual rhetoric, followed with “you are wasting your time! It’s no good for your health, and definitely not help improve grades…have you done your homework? Can’t you find something better to do?” While being agitated by my parent’s harsh criticism on my favorite pastime, I often felt frustrated being unable to rebut their claim. As naïve as I was at ten, it’s really hard to find any example of what video game was “good for.” Frankly, even today, my rebuttal to the accusation would still sound very pale, especially after reading what Huizinga and Caillois have to say about the unproductive nature of play.
Huizinga thinks game is an integral part, a necessity of life. He claims game plays its social and cultural role by stepping out of real life and into a temporary sphere of activity satisfying in itself and ending there. This sphere of activity is above and beyond the biological processes of nutrition, reproduction and self-preservation. But the most importantly, Huizinga points out that game itself lies outside the evaluations of “vice and virtue.”
My parents, however, will probably agree more with what Caillois’ verdict on game’s productivity: an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill and money. It creates no goods, nor wealth or new elements of any kind. Looking back at all those hours I’ve spent on my Famicom when I was a kid, I’m definitely confused. Did I really have a good time (there were definitely some)? If play is supposed to be free and voluntary, why my head is still filled with memory of spending many hours playing games that I even felt boring while I was playing? Maybe it is because life outside the game is even more boring? Life is full of goals to achieve, big or small; a game world is hardly any different: game has rules and goals too. It’s just sometimes the goals of game world are much easier to achieve than the goals in real life. Instant gratification, that’s the key of the game.
Works Cited
Huizinga, Johan. "Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon." The Game Design Reader. Ed. Salen and Zimmerman. Boston: MIT, 2006. 96-119.
Caillois, Roger. "The definition of play and the classification of games." The Game Design Reader. Ed. Salen and Zimmerman. 122-155.
Suits, Bernard. "Construction of a Definition." The Game Design Reader. Ed. Salen and Zimmerman. 173-191.
I like that you brought your personal experience into this; it added interest to the essay. I don't see any reference to Suits, though, even though he is listed in the bibliography.
Posted by: gamegrrrl | 10/18/2009 at 02:40 PM