Words feel strange to me, and I find them difficult at times.
Years ago, made use of Webster’s/oxford dictionary to give of their definitions and pick it apart pedantically.
I have grown out of that. I now give greater credence to a word’s origin. In my word origins, I try first to seek a non-Latin, non-Greek source of the word I wish to explore.
In English, after hundreds of years of borrowing, the Old English words often elude us. Old words like game, have such history – related to a old German word that means “glee.”
For the past 1000 years at least, a game gives us joy or causes us glee, if we take to heart the word origin.
At least, until we hit the digital age.
In the modern context, the commonly accepted working definition of “game” can be viewed as “a piece of interactive media.”
When I talk about “games,” I have portions of that definitino that I exclude, even when the Old English “something that makes you happy” definition might still apply or the modern “piece of interactive media” definition might still apply.
As with all beginnings of discussion, when I attempt to define something, I wind up mainly talking about what my definition excludes.
When I talk about games, the things I talk about:
- Has an initial state.
- Has rules by which that state may mutate.
- Requires choices on the part of the player.
- Has a way to measure relative success.
Mind you, the purpose of defining what game means provides a starting point for a discussion. Naturally, the definition changes over time.
Really, even the things that look a lot like games, for example jigsaw puzzles(which have an initial state, rules, does not requires choice… the pieces fit where they fit… the activity is finding them, and does not have a notion of relative success… just “done” and “not done” because an incomplete puzzle does not have much merit), can easily become games by setting up a stop watch and competing for time to completion.
You know what has always bothered me about blogs that I have written?
The end. I have made my point, but it feels incomplete somehow. Mainly due to the fact that it wasn’t plotted out in any way. That’s no way to write things. I might as well text or tweet or chat on twitch.
If I manage to keep blogging again, I want to return to the standard three point structure: intro, three points, outro, akin to an essay structure. I don’t even know if that would work for this topic, and if it doesn’t work for this topic, then why did I write it?
In my writing, I also prefer to use e-prime. So I shall go back and replace forbidden sentences with other sentences that conform to the idiom of e-prime.
The Grumpy GameDev 