These are just some notes and quotes of Raph Koster's book [A Theory of Fun](http://www.theoryoffun.com/) ## How the brain works ... the human brain is mostly a voracious consumer of patterns [...] Games are just exceptionally tasty patterns to eat up. it seems that a kid can't learn by being taught. They have to make mistakes themselves. They push at boundaries to test them and see how far they will bend. Simply put, the brain is made to fill in blanks. We do this som uch we don't even realize we're doing it. Noise is any pattern we don't understand. ## What games are Games might seem abstracted from reality because they are iconic depictions of patters in the world. They have more in common with how our brain visualizes things than they do with how reality is actually formed. Games are puzzles to sovel, just like verything else we encounter in life. [...] The only real differences between games and reality is that the stakes are lower with games. Since they are abstracted and iconic, they are readily absorbed. Since they are formal systems, they exclude distracting extra details. Games that fail to exercise the brain become boring. The more formally constructed your game is, the more limited it will be. Fun is about our brains feeling good - the release of endorphins into our system. [...] Basically, our brains are on drugs pretty much all the time. One of the subtlest releases of chemicals is at the moment of triumph when we learn something or master a task. Fun from games arises out of mastery and comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun. **... with games, learning is the drug.** This doesn't mean it necessarily caves new experiences- mostly it just craves new data. Boredom might strike: - the player groks how the game works in five minutes (tic tac toe). - there's a ton of depth but below their level of interest (baseball stats). - fail to see any patterns (too hard) - unveiling of variations in the patterm might be too slow (repetitive). - unveil variations too quickly (too hard too fast). - master everything in the pattern, consumed the fun (I beat it). Definition of a good game: one that teaches everything it has to offer before the player stops playing. **keep the player learning** ## What games teach us Given that we're basically hierarchical and strongly tribal primates, it's not surprising that most of the basic lessos we are taught by our early childhood play are about power and status. [...] Games almost always teach us tools for being the top monkey. Classifying, collating, and excercising power over the contents of a space is one of the fundamental lessons of all kinds of gameplay. Exploring a possibility space is the only way to learn about it. Music excels at conveying only a few things -emotion being paramount among them. Games do very well at active verbs: controlling, projecting, surrounding, matching, remembering, counting, and so on. Games are also very good at quantification. By contrast, literature can tackle all of the above and more. Over time, language-based media have tackled increasingly borader subjects. Games should be evolving toward teaching us those skills that are mode commonly needed today. Most games encourage demonizing the opponent, teaching a sort of ruthlessness that is a proven survival trait. But these days, we're less likely to need or want the scorched-earth victory. Can we create games that instead offer us greater insight into how the modern world works? ... basic human traits that games currently tend to reinforce and that may be obsolete legacies of our heritage: - blind obedience to leaders and cultism - rigid hierarchies - binary thinking - the use of force to resolve problems - like seeking like, and its converse, xenophobia ... what has changed is the fidelity of the simulation, not what we're simulating. One of the commonest signs of incremental innovation in game design is designers simply adding more of a given element rather than adding a new element. ... why the most popular games are the ones that teach obsolete skills while the more sophisticated ones that teach subtler skills tend to reach smaller markets. Remember, we live most of our lives in the unconscious. We've evolved exquisite sensitivity to visceral challegnes. Visceral appeal: action games let us stay there, wheras games that demand careful consideration of logistics might require logical, conscious thought. You don't tend to see "time attack" modes in strategy games... The task in the strategic games are not about automatic responses, and therefore the training to execute at reflex levels of speed would be misguided. If anything, a good strategy game will teach you not to get too familiar with the situation and will keep you on your toes. Games have these characteristics: - present models of real things, often highly abstracted. - generally quantified or even quantized models. - primarily teach us things that we can absorb into the unconscious as opposed - mostly teach us things that are fairly primitive behaviours but they don't have to. ... possible algorithm for innovation: find a new dimension to add to the gameplay. [...] how about exploring puzzle games based o time rather than space, for example? ## What games aren't You won't find any games that are pure unclothed abstractions. ... the part of games that is least understood is the formal abstract sstem portion of it, the mathematical part of it, the chunky part of it. By and large, people don't play games beacuse of the stories. The stories in most video games serve the same purpose as calling the ubser-checker a "king". It adds interesting shading to the game but the game at its core is unchanged. Comparison between games and stories: - experimental teaching vs. vicariously teaching. - good at objectification vs. good at empathy. - quantize, reduce and classify vs. blur deepen and make sublte distinctions. - external (about people's actions) vs internal (about people's emotions and thoughts). Autonomic responses arent' fun in and on themselves. You have them developed already, so the brain only rewards you for doing them in the context of a mental challenge. Positive emotions surrounding interpersonal interactions: - *Schadenfreude*: rival failing at something - *Fiero*: achieved a significant task. Signal to others that you are valuable. - *Naches*: someone you mentor succeeds. - *Kvell*: emotion felt when bragging about someone you mentor. - *Grooming behaviours*: signal of intimacy. - *Feeding other people* Marc LeBlanc has defined eight types of fun: - sense-pleasure - make-believe - drama - obstacle - social framework - discovery - self-discovery and expression - surrender Raph's types of fun: - *Fun* is the act of mastering a problem mentally. - *Aesthetic appreciation* isn't always fun but it's certainly enjoyable. - *Visceral reactions* are generally physical in nature and relate to physical mastery of a problem - *Social status maeuvers* of various sorts are inrinsic to our self-image and our standing in a community. ### Aesthetic appreciation ... is about recognizing paterns, not learning new ones. Beauty is found in the tension between our expectation and the reality. Delight, unfortunately, doesn't last. ### Fun Fun is the feedback the brain gives us when we are absorbing patterns for learning purposes. Excercising mastery will give us some other feeling, because we're doing it for a reason, such as status enhancement or survival. **Fun is contextual.** School is not usually al that fun because we take it seriously, it's not practice, it's for real, and your grades and social standing and clothing determine whether you are in the in-crowd or not. I think there's a good case to be made that having fun is a key evolutionary advantage right next to opposable thums in terms of importance. Without that little chemical twist in our brains, that makse us enjoy learning new things, we might be more like sharks and ants of the world (only getting feedback for eating). **Fun isn't flow.** As we succeed in mastering patterns thrown at us, the brain gives us little jolts of pleasure. But if the flow of new patterns slows down [...] we'll start to feel boredom. If the flow of new patterns increases beyond our ability to resolve them, we won't get the jolts either because we're not making progress. **Games aren't stories. Games aren't about beauty or delight. Games aren't about jockeying for social status. Fun is about learning in a context where there is no pressure, and that is why games matter.** ## Different fun for different folks Forms of intelligence: - linguistic - logical-mathematical - bodily-kinesthetic - spatial - musical - interpersonal - itrapersonal (internally directed, self motivated) People are likely to select problems that they think they have a chance at solving. Men are more likely to have systematizing brains, and women are more likely to have empathizing brains. Men not only navigate space differently, but they tend to learn by trying, wheras women prefer to learn through modeling another's behaviour. It means that not only will a given game be unlikely to appeal to everyone, but that it is probably impossible for it to do so. Since games are formal abstract systems, they are by their very nature biased toward certain types of brains. Maybe games are more likely to appeal to young males because these players hapen to have the sort of brain that works well with formal abstract systems Female plyers would gravitate toward games with simpler abstract systems and less spatial reasoning, and more emphasis on interpersonal relationships, narrative and empathy. Males would focus on games emphasizing the projection of power and control of territory, wheras females would select games that permit modeling behaviour such as multiplayer games, and do not demand strict hierarchies. The thought that games are limited because of their fundamentally mathematical nature is somewhat depressing: it hasn't stopped music from being a highly emotional medium, and language manages to convey mathematicla thoughts, so there is hope for games yet. ## The problem with learning Our brains may unconsciously direct us to learn, but if we're pushed by parents, teachers or even our own logical brains, we often resist most mightly. Many players are willing to cheat. It's actually a sign of lateral thinking. [...] they are also excercising a skill that maks them more likely to survive. Cheating is a sign that the player is in fact grokking the game. [...] cheating is a winning strategy. Cheating may not prepare us correctly. Exploiters are ofthe the most expert players of a game. Their logic goes something like "if the game permits it, then it's legal". Human beings are all about progress. We like life to be easier. We're lazy that way. We like to find ways to avoid work. Since we dislike tedium, we'll allow unpredictability, but only inside the confines of predictable boxes. Unpredictability means new patters to learn, therefore unpredictability is fun. But the stakes are too high for us to want that sort of unpredictability under normal circumnstances. That's what games are for in the first place - to package up the unpredictable and the learning experience into a space and time where there is no risk. **The destiny of games is to become boring, not to be fun. Those of us who want games to be fun are fithting a losing battle against the human brain because fun is a process and routin is its destination.** Rewards are one of the key components of a successful game activity; if there isn't a quantifiable advantage to doing something, the brain will often discard it out of hand. Successful games incorporate the following elements: - Preparation (healing, practicing, etc.) - A sense of space - A solid core mechanic - A range of challenges (content) - A range of abilities required to solve the encounter (many possible patterns) - Skill required in using the abilities Features that make it a **learning** experience: - A variable feedbakc system (not completely predictable) - The mastery problem must be dealt with (bottom feeders) - Failure must have a cost _Not requiring skill from a player should be considered a cardinal sin in game design._ [...] players are always trying to reduce the difficulty of a task. The easiest way to do that is not to play. **Your sole responsibility is to know what the game is about and to ensure that the game teaches that thing. [...] No system should be in the game that does not contribute toward that lesson.** _Once you learn something, it's over. You don't get to learn it again._ ## The problem with people If something has worked for us before, we'll tend to do it again. The real problem with people is that even though our brains feed us drugs to keep us learning, even though from cearliest childhood we are trained to learn through play, even though our brains send incredibly clear feedback that we should learn throughout our lives, **people are lazy**. Sticking to one solution is not a survival trait anymore. [...] Closed mindedness is actively dangerouse to society because it leads to misapprehension, which leads to misunderstanding, which leads to offense, which leads to violence. The point at which a player chooses to repeatedly play a game they have already mastered completely, just because they like to feel powerful, is the point at whcih the game is betraying its own purpose. Games need to encourage you to move on. They are not there to fulfill power fantasies. Games are for offering challenges, so that you can then turn around and apply thos techniques to real problems. The problem of increasing complexity. When a new genre of game is invented, it follows a trajectory where increasing complexity is added to it, until eventually the game on the market are so complex and advanced that newcomers can't get into them - the barrier of entry is too high. It's the "jargon factor", and it's common to all formal systems. The worst possible fate for games, and by extension, for our species, would be for them to become niche, something played by only a few elite who have the training to do so. It was bad for sports, it was bad for music, it was bad for writing. ## Games in context Game is not a medium. The medium is [...] "formal abstract models for teaching patterns". What is art for? Communicating. My take on art is simple: Media provide informatoin. Entertainment provides comforting, simplistic information. Art provides challenging information, stuff that you have to think about in order to absorb. What would an art game be like? - thought-provoking. - revelatory. - contribute to betterment of society. - force us to reexamine assumptions. - give us differnet experiences each time we tried it. - allow each of us to approach it in our own ways. - forgive or even encourage misinterpretation - not dictate - immerse and impose a worldview Some say that formal abstract systems cannot achieve this, but I have seen paintings of Mondrian made of nothing but colored squares; I have traced the rythims of a sonnet, I have trod in the steps of a dance. All media ar abstract, formal systems. It is a lot easier to fail to respond to a painting than to fail to respond to a game. No other medium defines itself around an intended effect on the user, such as "fun". ## The ethics of entertainment The aesthetic experience of playing these games matters. [...] It matters who sings a song because delivery is important. For games to really develop as a medium, they need to further develop the ludemes, not just the dressing. The ethical questions suround games as muder simulators, msogyny, undermining traditiona values and so on are not aimed at the games themselves. They are aimed ta the dressing. Not all artists agree that art has a social responsibility. ## Where games should go Games have primarily been an arena where human behaviour - ofthen in its crudest most primitive form - is put on display. We should fix the fact that the average cartoon does a better job at portraying the human condition than our games do. **When you feed a player through a game trellis, right now, we know only "fun" and "boring. Mastery of the medium of games will have to imply authorial intent. The formal systems must be capable of invoking desired learning patterns.** **Maturity of games = imply authorial intent** ## Taking their rightful place It's time for games to move on from only teaching patterns about territory, aiming, timing and the rest. These subjects aren't the preeminent challenges of our day. Games: - need to illuminate aspects of ourselves that we did not understand fully. - need to present us with problems and patterns that do not have one solution. - need to be created with formal systems taht have authorial content. - need to acknowledge their influence over our patterns of thought. - wrestle with the issues of social responsibility. - attempt to apply our understanding of human nature to the formal aspects of game design. - develop a critical vocabulary so that understanding our field can be shared. - push at the boundaries. - acknowledge that there is no distinction between art and entertainment. - acknowledge that they are not trivial, childish things. In no other medium do the practicioners assume that just beause they're paying their dues, they cannot create something capable of changing the world. Art and enteratinent are not terms of type, they are terms of intensity. Play developed to teach us about survival. For many cultural reasons, we have allowed it to take a palce in human culture where it is denigrated, minimized and assumed to be worthless.
