This blog entry is about Paidea and Ludus, the meanings of these words are as follows Paidea - "plays" for pleasure and Ludus - more constrained by rules, with a clear outcome (eg "winning"). We were given a task to decide on a game for each of those meanings; and talk a little on why they are under that term.
The game I have decided to choose for Paidea is "Mine Craft", it is a free roaming, building, do whatever you like game; there is no aim you're purely playing for pleasure. When you start the game you are given no tasks to complete, you could start by building anything you feel like from materials around the world; maybe build a house to live in, or maybe you could hunt animals for food (which you need for recovering hp) when it gets dark you can build a torch by chopping down trees or a pick-axe to mine rocks, which makes as better material to improve your house and tools. To build the tools you have a grid of 2x2 (3x3 if you have made a workbench) in which you place the materials in a set way to build the tool or item, for example if you wanted to make a rock spade you would place 3 sticks with a rock at the top of the sticks. The only boundariesare what you set yourself, its purely playing for pleasure and therefore a perfect example of a Paidea game.
The game I have decided to choose for Ludus is "Manhunt" its a extremely controversial game due to the content of extreme violence, But i chose it due to I feel it fits Ludus pretty well. In the game you play a man called "James Earl Cash" who was set up for a crime he didn't commit and sentenced to death by injection, though he wakes up in a dark room in which he is spoken to by the "director" and forced to play a game of cat and mouse in order to save his family and to earn his freedom back he has to carry out the instructions you are giving to you by the "director" if you don't follow the instructions he gives you, you cannot progress further into the game, the instructions the "director" gives you are from not getting spotted by the enemy as you make your way through a level to killing people in a extreme manner. I feel this game fits Ludus pretty well.
We also have 4 other words in which are used to talk about games which are Agon (competition), Alea (Chance/randomness), Ilinx (movement) and Mimicry (simulation,make-believe, role-play) a game that fits all these meanings in my opinion is "World of Warcraft" you have Agon which is the competition between other guilds to progress faster than each other to get server 1st's or the competition of the arena to get the highest rank and be the best.
It also has Alea as you have the chance/randomness of the "loot" that drops from mobs and bosses or if a "rare" mob will spawn, also you can roll on items which also adds to the chance and randomness.
Ilnx as you have the whole world to move around in either by foot, or a ground mount, even by flying either on a airship or a flying mount like a nether drake.
Mimicry as it's a make believe world you play in, or if you so choose you can play on a role playing server in which people act as there character in how they would speak and act.
I have found it interesting to learn about these words and what they mean, also the way they could be used to explain about games.
While the terms we considered are widely discussed by authors focussing on games on on approaches to the study of games, they derive from a 1958 book by Roger Caillois, a French sociologist who sought to systematically classify games.
ReplyDeleteYou'll find a copy of Caillois's _Man, Play and Games_ in the library if you want to consult the source.