Larry Levy:  Gaming’s Renaissance Men

Just about every game designer is a multi-skilled individual, if only because very few people can make a living creating games full time.  Thus, the vast majority of designers have other professions.  Teuber’s background was in dentistry, Knizia’s banking, Sackson was an engineer, Faidutti is a teacher, and Fitzgerald is a popular New York DJ.  So to some extent, we can call them all Renaissance men and women, since they’ve shown mastery in at least two very different fields.

But I’m interested in designers who’ve gone beyond that and who have had important accomplishments in a field other than game design.  It’s hard enough to excel in one area, so when a person has significant achievements in more than one field, it’s really something special.

I have three individuals in mind, all of whose design efforts date back to the fifties.  I bet there’s plenty more, so I’d love to hear from any of you who can think of other designers with notable works in other areas.

The first of my Renaissance men is Dr. James Cooke Brown.  Dr. Brown was a sociology professor best known for creating Loglan, a constructed spoken language, in the late fifties.  The purpose of Loglan was to test the hypothesis that the structure of an individual’s language influences the way he thinks.  It is culturally neutral and logical in structure.  Loglan has led to a considerable amount of scholarly study and even today, more than fifty years after Brown’s initial work on the project, there are several organizations devoted to Loglan and other constructed languages.

Dr. Brown was also a published author.  His best known work was The Troika Incident, a 1970 sci-fi utopian novel which, among other things, anticipates the rise of the Internet and other open source information repositories.

Brown wasn’t nearly as prolific in the area of game design, but I suspect most of us have played the one title he did get published:  Careers.  Parker Brothers, at the time the pre-eminent game company in the world, first released this in 1955.  Over 50 years later, the game can still be found in stores and is still fairly widely played.

You may not think a roll-and-move game, no matter how popular, is much to get excited about.  But in my opinion, Careers is one of the most innovative games ever created.  Look at what Brown included, way back in 1955:  player-determined victory conditions (which still may be a unique aspect); multiple distinguishable objectives (even in a game like Euphrat & Tigris, the different cube colors are equivalent with respect to the win conditions); movement via cards, rather than always through dice rolls (anticipating what Kramer would do with his racing games two dozen years later); multiple movement tracks; variable number of dice rolled; special powers gained mid-game (through the college degrees); variable salaries; and more.  That’s a tremendous amount that was new and unique for the fifties, and yet it was presented in a familiar enough fashion that it was accepted by the masses and resulted in a hit game.  To me, that’s a significant achievement and makes Dr. Brown a game designer of note.  I only wish I could have seen some of his other game designs.

Renaissance Man #2 is Albert Lamorisse.  This is a name that fans of the European film scene should recognize.  Lamorisse was a well known movie director of short and medium-length films during the fifties and sixties.  Three of his efforts won awards from the Cannes Film Festival over the years.  Many of you have probably seen his most famous film, Le Ballon Rouge, a short subject about a boy who is followed by a red balloon over the course of a day.  It won the Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1957.  Lamorisse also wrote a number of children’s books, including a very popular version of The Red Balloon.

Lamorisse created a game in the early fifties which he took to Miro, one of the leading game publishers in France.  They eventually published it in 1957, with the title La Conquete du Monde (Conquest of the World).  The game came to the attention of Parker Brothers, who purchased it, modified it a bit (cards were added to help speed the game play), and then released it in 1959.  As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, the game’s new title was Risk.

Little needs to be said about this game.  It was an almost instant hit and has become a true gaming phenomenon over the years.  The original game is as popular as ever, but it has also spawned a large number of spinoffs, many of which have found favor with today’s more hardcore gamers.  Risk’s classic design means it will still be around for decades to come.

Risk gives us a convenient link to our third Renaissance Man.  When Miro received Lamorisse’s design, they felt it had some balance problems and hired a gentleman named Jean-René Vernes to put the finishing touches on the game.  Evidently he was successful, as the game designed by Lamorisse and developed by Vernes was an instant hit in France.

But why did Miro choose Vernes to fix La Conquete du Monde?  Primarily because he had designed a similar game two years earlier, also published by Miro, called Rome et Carthage.  This was also a game of conquest, set around the Mediterranean (perhaps the first game to use that very popular setting).  Instead of using dice to resolve combat, though, cards are used to determine results.  This and other features mark this as a game well ahead of its time.  Like Risk, it was eventually republished by Parker Brothers as Méditerranée, first in 1965 and then in a flashier edition in 1974.  No less of a luminary than Bruno Faidutti declares the game to be far superior to Risk, not least because it plays in an hour (another modern sounding feature).

Like our other subjects, Vernes is not a game designer by trade.  He is an academic, and has specialized in the fields of sociology, economics, and philosophy, making contributions in all these areas and publishing several books.  However, those sciences aren’t what I have in mind when I call him a Renaissance Man.  It’s a bit of a cheat, since his other important discovery is also game related, but it’s sufficiently removed from game design that I feel it qualifies.

You see, Vernes is also a noted Bridge player and theorist.  In 1966, he wrote a book in which he presented what has become known as the Law of Total Tricks (non-Bridge players may wish to skip this paragraph).  This states that the total number of trumps between the two partnerships in a hand is an excellent estimate of the total number of tricks in that hand.  For example, suppose you and your partner have eight Spades between your two hands and that that’s your longest suit.  Let’s say that if Spades are trump, you can take ten tricks in the hand against best defense.  Your opponents’ longest suit may be Diamonds, where they have nine combined cards, and were they allowed to play with that suit as trump, they could take seven tricks against best defense.  The total trumps are 8+9 = 17 and the total tricks are 10+7, also 17.  Vernes’ Law says that you can use total trumps (which can often be deduced from the bidding) to estimate the total number of tricks available.  This is an extremely useful tool in competitive bidding and is an important part of modern Bridge theory.  Vernes discovered his Law by analyzing hundreds of deals and the fruits of his efforts are used by Bridge players every day.

I’m sure there’s many more examples of game designers with important contributions in other fields.  I was able to come up with three of them, but I’d love to hear about other Renaissance Men (or Women) of Gaming.

© 2006 Larry Levy

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Comments:

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Very interesting column, Larry. I think I have a good example of a Renaissance Woman: Elizabeth Magie, born in 1866, was a writer and public stenographer, and in 1893 patented a “type-writing machine.” She was also reportedly a gifted actress.  Her most famous contribution, though, was her “Landlord Game,” meant to expose the harm monopolies leveled on society and to promote Henry George’s “Single Tax” proposal.  The game eventually evolved into Monopoly. (For more fascinating info see the self-published book, “The Playmakers” by friend Tim Walsh.  It is soon to be reprinted by Andrews McMeel Publishing with a new title: “Timeless Toys") Posted by Jeff Allers on Aug 12, 2006 at 04:50 PM | #

Yes, Magie certainly qualifies, if only for historical reasons.  By all accounts, she was quite a lady.  Parker Brothers also published three of her other games (part of the agreement they made with her, to ensure she wouldn’t sue over Monopoly), but none of them did well. I can also recommend The Playmakers, which is a hugely entertaining look at the notable toys and games of the 20th century.  I’m glad to hear it’s getting reprinted. Posted by Larry Levy on Aug 12, 2006 at 06:57 PM | #

How about Edgar Cayce, renowned psychic, crackpot and “designer” of Pit? Posted by Brett Myers on Aug 15, 2006 at 02:17 PM | #

You know, Cayce predicted you’d ask that question! Posted by Larry Levy on Aug 15, 2006 at 02:55 PM | #

I knew you’d say that. Posted by Brett Myers on Aug 15, 2006 at 05:32 PM | #

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