Regions of Games

Chris Crawford perceives five regions of games; board games, card games, athletic games, children's games, and computer games.

BOARD GAMES
These games consist of a playing surface divided into sectors populated by a set of movable pieces. In the most common arrangement the pieces are directly associated with the players, while the playing surface represents an environment beyond the players' direct control. Players maneuver their pieces across the playing surface in an effort to capture other players' pieces, reach an objective, gain control of territory, or acquire some valued commodity. The player's primary concern in these games is the analysis of geometrical relationships between the pieces.

There are many different types and styles of board games. Their representation of a real life situation can range from having no inherent theme, such as Checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as Cluedo. Rules range from the very simple, such as in Tic-tac-toe, to ones which describe a game universe in great detail, such as in Dungeons & Dragons, although most of these are Role-playing games and the board is secondary to the game, serving to visualize the scenario. The length of time it takes to learn to play or master a game can vary greatly from game to game. Learning time does not necessarily correlate with the amount or complexity of rules; some games, such as chess and Go, have simple rules that can still lead to complex scenarios.


CARD GAMES
These games utilize a set of 52 symbols generated from two factors: rank (13 values) and suit (4 values). The games revolve around combinations built from these two factors. Players may gain or lose possession of symbols either by random processes or by matching some combination allowed by the rules of the game. Each legal combination is assigned a victory value for final assessment of game results. Players must recognize both existing and potential combinations and estimate probabilities of obtaining the cards necessary for completing a combination. This probability must be weighed against the victory value of the combination. Since the number of combinations is very large, precise computation of the requisite probabilities exceeds the mental powers of almost all players, rendering the game a primarily intuitive exercise. Thus, the player's primary concern in these games is the analysis of combinations.

A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary things with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). Some games have formally standardized rules, while rules for others can vary by region, culture, and person.

Types of card games; trick taking games, Matching games, Shedding games, Accumulating games,Fishing games, Comparing games, Solitaire (Patience) games, Drinking card games, Multi-genre games,Collectible card games, Casino or gambling card games, Poker games, etc.


ATHLETIC GAMES
These games emphasize physical more than mental prowess. The rules of the game rigorously specify a precise set of actions that the player is either allowed to execute or required to execute. Skillful use of the body is the player's primary concern in these games. We must be careful to distinguish between athletic games and athletic competitions. For example, a race is a competition, not a game. The line of demarcation between games and competition illuminates one of the fundamental elements of all games. I distinguish the two by the degree of interaction between players. Theoretically speaking, the runners in a race do not interact with each other. Each is racing only against the clock; the presence of other runners should be immaterial. In truth, the runners do interact psychologically, for the performance of one runner can affect the performance of the other runners. Furthermore, in some races a runner (or driver or pilot or captain) can physically interpose himself in between the goal and another racer, thereby gaining an advantage. I conclude that the simplest competitions, those in which each person strives to perform some task optimally without direct interaction with the other competitors, do not constitute games but competitions. A competition that does allow interaction is a game.

Some athletic games can be played outdoor (common examples are; football, hockey, etc.) and another be played indoor (common examples are; racquetball, volleyball, badminton, etc.)


CHILDREN'S GAMES
Hide and Seek, Red Rover, Tag, and Kick the Can are common examples. Such games frequently take the form of group activities emphasizing simple physical play. Although these games contain simple mental and physical components, their function is not to challenge the child to perform to his or her limits in either domain. Instead, the player's primary concern in these games is the use of social skills illuminating the fundamental role of the group in human life. A wide variety of children's activities are frequently referred to as games. When a child talks to a strip of bark, maneuvers it, and provides sound effects, we are tempted to refer to such behavior as game playing. For the purposes of this book, I ,exclude such activities from the fold of games. These improvisational games are too ill defined to provide us with any useful information about games.

Children's games that involve role play generally have no rules except to stay in character, and require no specific props. They are normally restricted to young, pre-pubescent children, and aside from their straightforward purpose of fun can sometimes also serve the purpose of allowing children to explore adult roles and relationships. Play can reveal a lot about a child's psychological state, perception of gender roles, home life and interpretation of the world that is around them.

• Cowboys & Indians: remains popular around the world, even though the films, television series, and books that might have been thought to give rise to it have largely fallen from prominence. This gives an insight into the child's perception of good and evil.
• Cops & Robbers: Similar to Cowboys & Indians. Some could see it as the politically correct version.
• Doctor (Doctor & patient; Doctors & nurses; Mothers & fathers): the main aim is discovering each other's bodies, and it can even involve experiments with sexual play.
• House: the main aim is to explore familial relationships. Children can act like a family and also explore other family arrangements with each other. It also deals with gender roles.
• Shopkeeper and customer: This is interpretation of basic social interaction and can be an insight into the income status of the child's parents.

they also play princesses where the children pretend they are ruler of a kingdom (usally a couch or somthing) and pretend the other chold is there servant but then the servant becomes a princess too.

COMPUTER GAMES
These games are played on five types of computers: expensive dedicated machines for the arcades (“coin op” machines), inexpensive dedicated machines (“hand helds”), multi program home games, machines such as the ATARI 2600 and the ATARI 5200, personal computers, and large mainframe computers. The computer acts as opponent and referee in most of these games; in many of them it also provides animated graphics. The most common form of computer game is the skill and action (“S&A”) game emphasizing hand eye coordination. These S&A games are frequently violent in nature. There are many other areas of computer gaming: adventure games, fantasy role playing games, and war games. In our cursory overview, these other computer games are eclipsed by the sheer volume of the skill and action games. This concludes our quick survey of the most prominent groupings in the universe of games. We shall return to the subject later, to create a taxonomy of computer games, and later still to draw on specific examples of games to make points about their nature. We must now address the question which motivated our initial reconnaissance: what are the fundamental elements common to these games? I perceive four common factors: representation, interaction, conflict, and safety.


source : The Art of Computer Game Design by Chris Crawford, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/court+game, http://en.wikipedia.org

Gameplay Elements and Classification

Games can be characterized by "what the player does." This is often referred to as gameplay. Major key elements identified in this context are tools and rules which define the overall context of game and which in turn produce skill, strategy, and chance.


Tools

Games are often classified by the components required to play them (e.g. miniatures, a ball, cards, a board and pieces, or a computer). In places where the use of leather is well established, the ball has been a popular game piece throughout recorded history, resulting in a worldwide popularity of ball games such as rugby, basketball, football, cricket, tennis, and volleyball. Other tools are more idiosyncratic to a certain region. Many countries in Europe, for instance, have unique standard decks of playing cards. Other games such as chess may be traced primarily through the development and evolution of its game pieces.

Many game tools are tokens, meant to represent other things. A token may be a pawn on a board, play money, or an intangible item such as a point scored.

Games such as hide-and-seek or tag do not utilise any obvious tool; rather, their interactivity is defined by the environment. Games with the same or similar rules may have different gameplay if the environment is altered. For example, hide-and-seek in a school building differs from the same game in a park; an auto race can be radically different depending on the track or street course, even with the same cars.


Rules

Whereas games are often characterized by their tools, they are often defined by their rules. While rules are subject to variations and changes, enough change in the rules usually results in a "new" game. For instance, baseball can be played with "real" baseballs or with wiffleballs. However, if the players decide to play with only three bases, they are arguably playing a different game.

Rules generally determine turn order, the rights and responsibilities of the players, and each player’s goals. Player rights may include when they may spend resources or move tokens. Common win conditions are being first to amass a certain quota of points or tokens (as in Settlers of Catan), having the greatest number of tokens at the end of the game (as in Monopoly), or some relationship of one’s game tokens to those of one’s opponent (as in chess's checkmate).


Skill, strategy, and chance

A game’s tools and rules will result in its requiring skill, strategy, luck, or a combination thereof, and are classified accordingly.

Games of skill include games of physical skill, such as wrestling, tug of war, hopscotch, target shooting, and stake, and games of mental skill such as checkers and chess. Games of strategy include checkers, chess, go, arimaa, and tic-tac-toe, and often require special equipment to play them. Games of chance include gambling games (blackjack, mah-jongg, roulette, etc.), as well as snakes and ladders and rock, paper, scissors; most require equipment such as cards or dice. However, most games contain two or all three of these elements. For example, American football and baseball involve both physical skill and strategy while tiddlywinks, poker, and Monopoly combine strategy and chance. Many card and board games combine all three; most trick-taking games involve mental skill, strategy, and an element of chance, as do many strategic board games such as Risk, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne.


Single-player games


Most games require multiple players. However, single-player games are unique in respect to the type of challenges a player faces. Unlike a game with multiple players competing with or against each other to reach the game's goal, a one-player game is a battle solely against an element of the environment (an artificial opponent), against one's own skills, against time, or against chance. Playing with a yo-yo or playing tennis against a wall is not generally recognized as playing a game due to the lack of any formidable opposition.

It is not valid to describe a computer game as single-player where the computer provides opposition. If the computer is merely record-keeping, then the game may be validly single-player.

Many games described as "single-player" may be termed actually puzzles or recreations.


source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

Game Definitions

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein was probably the first academic philosopher to address the definition of the word game. In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein demonstrated that the elements of games, such as play, rules, and competition, all fail to adequately define what games are. He subsequently argued that the concept "game" could not be contained by any single definition, but that games must be looked at as a series of definitions that share a "family resemblance" to one another.

Roger Caillois

French sociologist Roger Caillois, in his book Les jeux et les hommes (Games and Men), defined a game as an activity that must have the following characteristics:

* fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
* separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
* uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
* non-productive: participation is not productive
* governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
* fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality


Chris Crawford


Computer game designer Chris Crawford attempted to define the term game using a series of dichotomies:

1. Creative expression is art if made for its own beauty, and entertainment if made for money. (This is the least rigid of his definitions. Crawford acknowledges that he often chooses a creative path over conventional business wisdom, which is why only one of his 13 games is a sequel.)
2. A piece of entertainment is a plaything if it is interactive. Movies and books are cited as examples of non-interactive entertainment.
3. If no goals are associated with a plaything, it is a toy. (Crawford notes that by his definition, (a) a toy can become a game element if the player makes up rules, and (b) The Sims and SimCity are toys, not games.) If it has goals, a plaything is a challenge.
4. If a challenge has no “active agent against whom you compete,” it is a puzzle; if there is one, it is a conflict. (Crawford admits that this is a subjective test. Video games with noticeably algorithmic artificial intelligence can be played as puzzles; these include the patterns used to evade ghosts in Pac-Man.)
5. Finally, if the player can only outperform the opponent, but not attack them to interfere with their performance, the conflict is a competition. (Competitions include racing and figure skating.) However, if attacks are allowed, then the conflict qualifies as a game.

Crawford's definition may thus be rendered as: an interactive, goal-oriented activity, active agents to play against, in which players (including active agents) can interfere with each other.

Other definitions

• "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome." (Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman)[7]
• "A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal." (Greg Costikyan)[8]
• "A game is an activity among two or more independent decision-makers seeking to achieve their objectives in some limiting context." (Clark C. Abt)
• "At its most elementary level then we can define game as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome." (Elliot Avedon and Brian Sutton-Smith)
• "A game is a form of play with goals and structure." (Kevin Maroney)

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

What is A Game?

A game is a structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports/games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong solitaire).

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational or psychological role. According to Chris Crawford, the requirement for player interaction puts activities such as jigsaw puzzles and solitaire "games" into the category of puzzles rather than games.

Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.


source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game