Caillios
I have posted some of Caillios' work for reference to my own analysis of our board game. My own notes will be in Asterisks.
Fundamental Categories of Games set out by Caillois Caillois defines two ‘attitudes of play’
In Caillois’ view, games can be examined under these definitions on a kind of scale, ranging from spontaneous play with few if any rules, to heavily formalised games with complex rules.
Wherever a game may be on this scale, games are played with a spirit of ‘paedia’ or of pleasure in play and are freely played for the enjoyment that they give the player(s).
DEFINITIONS OF GAMES
Agôn (a conflict, especially one between the main characters in a drama or other work of literature)
This is a category of competitive games, based on rivalry, in which the winner appears to be better than the loser in a certain category of exploits.
Alea (chance)
These are games of chance, in which the player negates will, and surrenders to destiny.
Some games that he cites, such as dominoes, backgammon, and most card games, combine agôn and alea.
Mimicry (the imitating of other people’s voices, gestures, or appearance..)
Games in this category feature incessant invention. They do not have the rule systems of agôn or alea, instead they have one rule: that the player must ‘fascinate the spectator’, and not fall into behaviour that will break the spell.
‘The spectator must lend himself to the illusion without first challenging the décor, mask or artifice which for a given time he is asked to believe in more than reality itself.’
Ilinx (vertigo, from the Greek for whirlpool)
These are games in which the player deliberately brings on a sense of vertigo, they ‘consist of an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind.’ (p.23)
Caillios also identifies a kind of vertigo of moral order, a desire for disorder and destruction, a drive which is normally repressed.
Caillois cites fairground rides, fast cars, motorbikes, skiing as bringing on this kind of what he calls a ‘pleasurable shock’.
The experience that brings on vertigo is ‘often sought out for its own sake’.
* * * *
Totems and Towers
Our game uses a subtle combination of Agôn and Alea. The dice used in the game provide the chance element (Alea) and the turn tables give the game the element of competition and rivalry (Agôn).
Mimicry is in place by the way of you taking on the role of a Cowboy or a Tribesman in order to play the game. Although this merely dictates your chance cards and whether you produce a totem or tower, a lot mor can be added to the role via the imagination. You yourself become the cowboy or the tribesman in your playing of the game.
However that all said our game does not contain Ilinx and I would not reasonably expect any board game to include such a feeling!
1950's American Culture
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade50.html
This website looks at a brig overview of the time period. I chose to look at the fifties because so many other games I found when researching competitors were produced in the early fifties and I wanted to look deeper into why this was. From this website I found a link to some information on Hopalong Cassidy, a fictional western character which was very popular with children at the time. Could he have been a contributing factor to why western themed boardgames were so popular?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy
Looking further into Cassidy I found that he was a fictional character first seen in short stories in the 1930s, but later through feature film success in the 1940s became a television star in one of the first Western Television Series.
Another prominent character was 'Kid Colt' which had his own series of comics as well as featuring in the Annual 'Western Winners'. "Kid Colt" boasts the title of longest running western comic character in Marvel Comics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Colt
With such a wave of enthusiasm for the 'Western Way' in the early 1950s there's no doubt as to why there were so many successful Western themed boardgames at the time. Our challenge as a group is to try and be just as successful with a generation which seemingly has no Cowboy appeal, not counting of course the recently released remake of Cowboys and Aliens film!
Images taken from;
Enochsemporium.co.uk
Revealing-revelations.net
Comicvine.com
Cactuscreekdaily.com
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=691097
Research and Practice of Rule-Writing
In order to write the rules for our board game, I felt the need to be able to look at it objectively and removed from my previous familiarity in order to write the rules so that anyone could play the game, without further instruction.
When we play tested the game with another group they found the rules easy to follow but our team leader jess was on hand to help if they ever got stuck. Obviously in real life when children lift our game out of the box they won't have such instruction, they will only have the game manual so it needs to be concise, easy to read and visually attractive so children would want to pick it up and read it.
Chess
Chess has a simple goal and reasonably simple rules, it is the way in which players chose to play the game which makes it more complex and intellectually stimulating.
One player plays with all the white pieces, the other with the black pieces.
Each piece on the board has its own set way of moving;
Pawns make up the front line of defence and can only be moved one square at a time in a forwards direction. The only exception to this is on the first move of a pawn in the game can be two squares forward if the player so decides. Pawns are taken diagonally.
Castles can move forwards and backwards in any amount. They can move sideways in any amount but they cannot move diagonally across the board.
Knights can move in a set pattern much like an L shape. They can move three squares forward and two to the side (right or left) or two squares forward and three to the side, etc.
Bishops can only move diagonally but they can move any amount of squares forwards or backwards in a diagonal direction.
The Queen can move in any direction any number of squares and so by default she is the worst piece to use bar The King.
The King can move in any direction but only one square at a time.
The aim of the game is to defeat your opponent by placing their king piece in 'Check Mate'. This means that if they move their King piece in any direction it will result in it being taken by the oppositions piece. You can place a player in 'Check' by threatening their King piece by it being in danger of being taken by one of your pieces unless they move their King to safety. The usual nature of the game is that a players defences are dwindled by gameplay (through each of their pieces being taken) until the King piece becomes vulnerable and then the player will attempt to place said piece in Check Mate.
Snap
Snap is also a game for two players. The rules are extremely simple. A deck of cards is split evenly in two so that each player has half of the pack.
One after the other, players draw one card and place it in the space between them. The drawn cards are laid down on top of each other in a pile.
The aim of the game is the shout "Snap" and slam your hand on top of the middle pile before the other player, when two matching cards are drawn.
For example a 2 of hearts is drawn and a 2 of clubs is then placed on top of it, that would be a place where someone should shout "Snap!"
When the person has won the middle pile by correctly shouting snap first, they claim the pile and add it to their original half of the deck. The process of drawing cards then starts again until one player runs out of cards.
When a player has run out of cards, they have lost the game.
My writing of the rules to these two games just goes to show that even the simplest of games such as Snap take quite a while to explain completely without someone being there for you to show practically.
I now hope to be able to write a complete version of the rules for Totems and Towers.
I have posted some of Caillios' work for reference to my own analysis of our board game. My own notes will be in Asterisks.
Fundamental Categories of Games set out by Caillois Caillois defines two ‘attitudes of play’
- Paedia (from the Greek for children), which describes a ‘power of improvisation and joy’.
- This is allied to Ludus, which describes the rule-bound nature of games.
In Caillois’ view, games can be examined under these definitions on a kind of scale, ranging from spontaneous play with few if any rules, to heavily formalised games with complex rules.
Wherever a game may be on this scale, games are played with a spirit of ‘paedia’ or of pleasure in play and are freely played for the enjoyment that they give the player(s).
DEFINITIONS OF GAMES
Agôn (a conflict, especially one between the main characters in a drama or other work of literature)
This is a category of competitive games, based on rivalry, in which the winner appears to be better than the loser in a certain category of exploits.
Alea (chance)
These are games of chance, in which the player negates will, and surrenders to destiny.
Some games that he cites, such as dominoes, backgammon, and most card games, combine agôn and alea.
Mimicry (the imitating of other people’s voices, gestures, or appearance..)
Games in this category feature incessant invention. They do not have the rule systems of agôn or alea, instead they have one rule: that the player must ‘fascinate the spectator’, and not fall into behaviour that will break the spell.
‘The spectator must lend himself to the illusion without first challenging the décor, mask or artifice which for a given time he is asked to believe in more than reality itself.’
Ilinx (vertigo, from the Greek for whirlpool)
These are games in which the player deliberately brings on a sense of vertigo, they ‘consist of an attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind.’ (p.23)
Caillios also identifies a kind of vertigo of moral order, a desire for disorder and destruction, a drive which is normally repressed.
Caillois cites fairground rides, fast cars, motorbikes, skiing as bringing on this kind of what he calls a ‘pleasurable shock’.
The experience that brings on vertigo is ‘often sought out for its own sake’.
* * * *
Totems and Towers
Our game uses a subtle combination of Agôn and Alea. The dice used in the game provide the chance element (Alea) and the turn tables give the game the element of competition and rivalry (Agôn).
Mimicry is in place by the way of you taking on the role of a Cowboy or a Tribesman in order to play the game. Although this merely dictates your chance cards and whether you produce a totem or tower, a lot mor can be added to the role via the imagination. You yourself become the cowboy or the tribesman in your playing of the game.
However that all said our game does not contain Ilinx and I would not reasonably expect any board game to include such a feeling!
1950's American Culture
http://kclibrary.lonestar.edu/decade50.html
This website looks at a brig overview of the time period. I chose to look at the fifties because so many other games I found when researching competitors were produced in the early fifties and I wanted to look deeper into why this was. From this website I found a link to some information on Hopalong Cassidy, a fictional western character which was very popular with children at the time. Could he have been a contributing factor to why western themed boardgames were so popular?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopalong_Cassidy
Looking further into Cassidy I found that he was a fictional character first seen in short stories in the 1930s, but later through feature film success in the 1940s became a television star in one of the first Western Television Series.
Another prominent character was 'Kid Colt' which had his own series of comics as well as featuring in the Annual 'Western Winners'. "Kid Colt" boasts the title of longest running western comic character in Marvel Comics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid_Colt
With such a wave of enthusiasm for the 'Western Way' in the early 1950s there's no doubt as to why there were so many successful Western themed boardgames at the time. Our challenge as a group is to try and be just as successful with a generation which seemingly has no Cowboy appeal, not counting of course the recently released remake of Cowboys and Aliens film!
Images taken from;
Enochsemporium.co.uk
Revealing-revelations.net
Comicvine.com
Cactuscreekdaily.com
http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=691097
The Lone Ranger
Hi-Ho Silver, Away!
Nerdreactor.com
Flicksnews.net
Telegraph.co.uk
Research and Practice of Rule-Writing
In order to write the rules for our board game, I felt the need to be able to look at it objectively and removed from my previous familiarity in order to write the rules so that anyone could play the game, without further instruction.
When we play tested the game with another group they found the rules easy to follow but our team leader jess was on hand to help if they ever got stuck. Obviously in real life when children lift our game out of the box they won't have such instruction, they will only have the game manual so it needs to be concise, easy to read and visually attractive so children would want to pick it up and read it.
Chess
Chess has a simple goal and reasonably simple rules, it is the way in which players chose to play the game which makes it more complex and intellectually stimulating.
One player plays with all the white pieces, the other with the black pieces.
Each piece on the board has its own set way of moving;
Pawns make up the front line of defence and can only be moved one square at a time in a forwards direction. The only exception to this is on the first move of a pawn in the game can be two squares forward if the player so decides. Pawns are taken diagonally.
Castles can move forwards and backwards in any amount. They can move sideways in any amount but they cannot move diagonally across the board.
Knights can move in a set pattern much like an L shape. They can move three squares forward and two to the side (right or left) or two squares forward and three to the side, etc.
Bishops can only move diagonally but they can move any amount of squares forwards or backwards in a diagonal direction.
The Queen can move in any direction any number of squares and so by default she is the worst piece to use bar The King.
The King can move in any direction but only one square at a time.
The aim of the game is to defeat your opponent by placing their king piece in 'Check Mate'. This means that if they move their King piece in any direction it will result in it being taken by the oppositions piece. You can place a player in 'Check' by threatening their King piece by it being in danger of being taken by one of your pieces unless they move their King to safety. The usual nature of the game is that a players defences are dwindled by gameplay (through each of their pieces being taken) until the King piece becomes vulnerable and then the player will attempt to place said piece in Check Mate.
Snap
Snap is also a game for two players. The rules are extremely simple. A deck of cards is split evenly in two so that each player has half of the pack.
One after the other, players draw one card and place it in the space between them. The drawn cards are laid down on top of each other in a pile.
The aim of the game is the shout "Snap" and slam your hand on top of the middle pile before the other player, when two matching cards are drawn.
For example a 2 of hearts is drawn and a 2 of clubs is then placed on top of it, that would be a place where someone should shout "Snap!"
When the person has won the middle pile by correctly shouting snap first, they claim the pile and add it to their original half of the deck. The process of drawing cards then starts again until one player runs out of cards.
When a player has run out of cards, they have lost the game.
My writing of the rules to these two games just goes to show that even the simplest of games such as Snap take quite a while to explain completely without someone being there for you to show practically.
I now hope to be able to write a complete version of the rules for Totems and Towers.
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