Why we invent games ?



Adi my 2 year old nephew likes to play whenever we meet. He currently is fascinated by a ball. He quickly makes rules asking me to stand still in a place, stretch my legs so that i look shorter and he throws me the ball. In turn i have to throw him back. He is persistent that i do not budge!

Well he just invented a half game! He made simple rules so that he can maximize his play. He has no sense of counting, so there are no scores. But fairly large part of the game is already designed by him. He has made great rules so that he can maximize what he likes to play, that is throwing the ball, catching it back, running around, trying to win by getting the ball right. In a couple of days he also improved his skill of throwing and catching. He now knows, if not distracted improving his skill can be a obsession.

Once he will learn to count, i am sure he will use the knowledge of the count again to maximize his play. He might be lost in the concept of win may be all through out his life but certainly if he concentrates on his feeling rather than his thinking, he will come back in inventing rules to maximize the play.

The goal of the rule is to maximize the play excitement
The goal of the rule is also to challenge an action and increase the skill
The goal of the rule is to engage in a function (like play) very abstractly like adding, subtracting etc and maximize the play again

We call it game play, game mechanics etc

Its just great when we see children inventing rules at their own comfort to maximize the excitement of play

Comments

Samir Bellare said…
Very true Kiran. One of the people I interacted with at NID was Mr.Jinan. Here's a video I found on one of his blogs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFM-uUzqE8
August 6, 2010 at 4:08:00 AM PDT
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Google made the engine, let me make the train!

Last five days has been exhausting! I was involved in interviewing craftsmen who came from all over India to attend a Bamboo Workshop at IDC. The Bamboo Lab with collaboration with IGNOU organised a week long workshop for craftmen working with Bamboo. I got an oppertunity to introduce the participants to the world of internet. All of them were novices, some of them had hardly seen a computer. This situation is quite normal here. I used a LCD projector to show them the screens, explained the files, folders and the usage of the mouse etc. I asked them to click on the "e" button of the internet explorer and showed them various kinds of resources which is possible to get from the intenet. The participants were excited and loved the computers. Many were hesitant as they could not read English, some with the usual recluctancy to technology - "What if it spoils?" syndrome. I showed them, shops, forums, blogs, company websites related to bamboo and all were pretty thrilled.
Read more

Divine Whip

Image
I should have listened to my uncle when he asked me not to buy this whip. I didnt believe quite then that the whip had dark powers and could trouble the inner balances of oneself. I bought it because it looked so lovely. A whip in the form of a cobra. Just 200 years ago almost all objects had gods on them. Nut Crackers, Utensils, Furniture, Bullock Cart, Houses were smeared with the gods. Todays satellites too! as the belief still remains. Poojas & rituals has remained but the ideas of shapes derived from the gods have almost dissappeared. Todays objects dont have gods even in some new temples. I didnt listen to my uncle when he said that to buy this whip requires a special ritual and only the farmer who uses should buy. Socially it made complete sense but modern me simply dismissed the logic. I was eager to show it to my professors and make it an object of study as it contained nuiances of ritualistic mysticism, godly forms, ritual object, post modern interest etc etc. It was simp
Read more

Madhumad Sarang

My sister many times calls fellow young musicians to her practice den and they practice and discuss together in a good spirit. Yesterday a young talented and enthusistic lad - Omkarnath Havaldar came over to sing along few devotional songs which they had to perform in a concert. Me and my sister wished to listen to his classical talent. He was nice and he sang rag Madhumad Sarang which was one of his favourites. The rendering and swar patterns were amazing and after the brief recital, all three of us stood silent for a long time to sink in the idea of the beautiful rag. Ofcourse this was due to his excellent rendering. While he sang, I noticed sound being present all over the place. Even behind the artiste. I went out to test and realised that, the musical sounds were present almost in every part of the space all around him upto aound 25 feet. This was a breath taking experience for me since I was enjoying the sound very pecularly in all directions. There was no use of mike. I felt li
Read more