My first console was an NES, but I really grew up on the Sega Genesis. Between Sonic the Hedgehog, ToeJam and Earl, and Streets of Rage, I had everything I needed to be in my own personal gaming euphoria. Then my family got a PC, and I was introduced to a much larger library of entertainment. I didn't have a lot of money to buy games, so I spent a lot of time playing shareware releases. One of most influential shareware games for me was the Jazz Jackrabbit series.
Jazz Jackrabbit, created in 1994 by Epic MegaGames (now known plainly as "Epic Games" of Unreal and Gears of War fame) is a side scrolling platformer that answers the question "what would Sonic be like if it had been created by Americans?" Jazz has every bit of Sonic's attitude, speed, and accessibility. All of those characteristics are reasons why I liked the series, but none of them are entirely exclusive to games. The essays presented in The Game Design Reader on the subject of defining "play" in relation to "games" offer some potential restrictions to what games are and are not. Jazz Jackrabbit is clearly a game regardless of anything anyone says in an essay, so let's use it as a judge of each author's definition.
Johan Huizinga defines play using lofty language and makes assumptions that seem to me a bit too ambitious for a blossoming medium like games to embrace, saying that "question of what play really is leads us deep into the problem of the nature and origin of religious concepts." (Huizinga 117) Call me a cynic, but when I use my keyboard to control a green rabbit who shoot turtles while collecting floppy disks on an adventure to save a princess, I don't have many of the same feelings I experience during Sunday mass. He cites similarities between the concepts of "play" and "ritual" to prove his point.
Exactly one of these supposedly similar concepts makes sense to me in terms of Jazz Jackrabbit: he claims that one of the single most important attributes of play is "its spatial separation from ordinary life." (Huizinga 113) This is true for both Jazz and a church service, but I'm not convinced that Huizinga gives enough consideration to the nature of a "ritual" versus the nature of "play." He claims "Play cannot be denied," but I beg to differ. (Huizinga 99) Jazz Jackrabbit isn't something that offers infinite gratification. The back of the game's box promises hours of fun, but after that, the game can certainly be denied in favor of a different game or a different type of entertainment entirely. One of Huizinga's "rituals," on the other hand, is obviously not obligatory at all. Many people choose to live without following a religion. So if neither of those things always agree with his definition, his whole conclusion must be reevaluated as well.
Roger Caillois offers a clear-cut definition that made more sense to me on the surface. To summarize, he says play must be (1)"free," (2)"separate," (3)"uncertain," (4)"unproductive," (5)"governed by rules," and/or (6)"make-believe."(Caillois 128) Jazz Jackrabbit is all of these things. The game is designed to be a form of entertainment, split into episodes for quick sessions of enjoyment (1). It has no relation to the outside world (2). There is no way for the player to determine the game's outcome before playing it for the first time. (3) There is no benefit other than bragging rights to winning the game, nor is there any reason to get a high score. (4) The game's mechanics and controls are somewhat arbitrary and generally don't apply to other games. (5) There is no such thing as a wise-cracking green rabbit or evil turtle mafia. (6) Caillois' propositions seem solid enough to pass the Jazz test, which makes them solid enough for me.
He further defines games into a rubric consisting of four categories, but he doesn't seem to truly use them to "define" rather than to "classify" and support his definition of play. Most of these categorizations emphasize the reason why a game is played and what its mechanics entail (chance versus skill, profit vs. fun). He also explicitly states than any number of games could fall under all of the categories. It's an interesting concept, but more intriguing is his conclusion in bringing both ideas together: "the destinies of cultures can be read in their games." (Caillois 147) Indeed, Jazz Jackrabbit is an American Sonic the Hedgehog, and as previously stated, Americans added guns to the equation to reflect the American obsession with violence. It's telling that Epic used similar gameplay mechanics in their recent release, Shadow Complex, but saw much more success by replacing the little rabbit main character in favor of an action-movie caliber soldier with arms the diameter of watermelons.
Last we come to Bernard Suits. His definition claims that "to play a game is to engage in activity directed towards bringing about a specific state of affairs, using only means permitted by the rules, where the rules prohibit more efficient in favor of less efficient means, and where such rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity." (Suits 184) This doesn't seem to allow for cheat codes, which the Jazz series has always embraced. It also conflicts with Caillois' definition because it suggests the player is aware of the outcome if they are working to bring about a specific state of affairs. The debate over efficiency isn't clear either in terms of Jazz. How could a trigger-happy rabbit be more efficient? With the cheat codes Suits doesn't allow for?
All in all, I find that Caillois' definition of play best fits my experience with Jazz Jackrabbit. All of the definitions bring something to the table, but when focusing on pure gameplay, Caillois seems to nail the main characteristics that make it a game.
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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.
Holden, I liked that you used the game to critique the readings; that's kind of an inversion of the assignment, but a good one! I'm not sure you fully grasp Suit's notion of inefficiency though, and I don't know this game well enough to critique your critique. However I can say that I suspect there are in fact obstacles in the game that qualify under Suits' definition. His point is really that obstacles are what distinguish what Caillois would call paidia, that is, open-ended play, versus ludus, which is more goal-oriented and structured.
Posted by: gamegrrrl | 10/18/2009 at 01:45 PM