In this blogpost, three movements are discussed: the Spacewar movement, the fluxus movement, and the New Games movement. The Spacewar movement, as characterized by Stewart Brand, is the emergence of video games on computers, originally as something that motivates and stimulates production of something useful. From this movement I will examine Spacewar itself. The fluxus movement is characterized by the change of preexisting games into another, building upon the base to express an idea. From fluxus I will examine Liquid Chess. The New Games movement is known for its more involving social interaction between its participants, and where the player is not bound by the game but empowered by it. From this movement, I focus on Rock Paper Scissor Tag. These three games, Spacewar, Liquid Chess, and Rock Paper Scissor Tag find their base in traditional game concepts, representation, and mechanics, but at times also deviate from them.
Spacewar however, is difficult to classify in any other way than a traditional game. The game begins with a specific set of rules, the players compete, and the game ends with a single party at the top. The traditional concept of warring parties is continued in the game of Spacewar and representation of both the conflict and the participants is consistent. What differed from many games, however, is that Spacewar originated from and served as a catalyst for real life progress. Cathode Ray Tubes had just made their appearance, but their abilities as a display were best demonstrated at the time by only a kaleidoscope-like program. Steve Russell, one of the creators of Spacewar, said the Spacewar project started by “figuring what would be interesting displays.” Later at IBM, this productivity and inspiration behind the game was perpetuated as programmers tested their code as modifications of Spacewar. This goes in stark contrast to Caillois in the the previous blogpost, who defined games as a place where “property is exchanged by no goods are produced.”
The fluxus movement is best explained as a modding movement; and Liquid Chess is one of those mods, taking chess and replacing visual identification of the pieces with rhinal cues. In terms of traditional concepts and mechanics, Liquid Chess is no different from any other game. It does, however, deviate from the classical representation of chess pieces by removing standard chess piece shapes and replacing them with vials with liquids and scents. This brings the game to a different and new dimension, bringing to focus a sense that is uncommon in games.
Rock Paper Scissor Tag, like the other two games, uses many traditional game concepts, but subverts them in some ways. Like Liquid Chess, Rock Paper Scissor Tag is a mod of two preexisting games. Two teams decide collectively on their own to throw rock, paper, or scissors, and ensuing action is like team-based tag. In terms of traditional game mechanics, the game is not too different. It could be said, however, that because the game can be changed at any time at the will of the players, an idea that strays from many present-day games where the rules are coded and cannot be broken or easily “hacked.” This goes with the idea of changing a game or cheating in order to preserve a "well-played game," as suggested by DeKoven. Rock Paper Scissor Tag displays its greatest subversion of traditional concepts in that the game has no winning party. Players change between teams every round, and the game ends either when the players are too tired to play, or when a team is eliminated. But even the latter case, one could hardly call it a loss (or win), as the play focuses on a kind of collectiveness rather than bias towards a particular team. In a way, it avoids the problem of playing to win vs. having to win as mentioned by DeKoven, or rather encourages the former.
In all of these examples, the game has the majority of its characteristics in traditional game concepts, representations, and mechanics, but deviate in some way. In creating the game, the designers aimed to change something, effectively hacking or modding previous traditions, in order to introduce something new into gaming society. One can view this deviation and defiance to traditional rules as a crux in designing games. These subversions of old ways continue to evolve the world of games, and society as well.
Bibliography
Brand, Stewart. "SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Rolling Stone, December 7, 2001. http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html
DeKoven, B. (1978) The Well-Played Game: A
Player's Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books. (1st or 2nd Edition)
Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (aka Ludica) (2005). "Sustainable Play: Towards A New Games Movement for the Digital Age." Digital Arts & Culture Conference Proceedings, Copenhagen, December 2005.
Pearce, Celia. "Games as Art: The Aesthetics of Interactivity." Visible Language: Special Issue on Fluxus. January 2006.
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