W. Eric Martin: Playing in the Dark

Yesterday I finished writing 10,000+ words for chapters in a book that I’m ghostwriting with others. This assignment was on top of other rush work, and I now have two more rush assignments due March 7. Not that I should be complaining about quick money, mind you…

Aside from work, my free time has been spent shovelling snow. Concord, New Hampshire has had 102 inches of snow this winter, only 19 inches short of the record set in 1870-something – and we’re supposed to receive another 6-10 inches in the next 24 hours. Ideally we’ll nail the record after only one more snowfall, then we can crank the sun up a few notches and melt all the two feet of snow that covers everything.

All of this activity has equalled little time for games and game news. One game that I did get to explore was the video game/computer game Portal. I finished more than half the challenges (the easy half, of course, as I was starting from the beginning) before the extensive head motion involved with the first-person perspective made me nauseated. I won’t describe the game because as my friend who owns the game told me, it’s better to play for yourself and discover what Portal is. No, really – don’t look for reviews or comments from others. Just trust that the game is unique and puzzling and entertaining, then get it and play it.

Maybe I’m an easy mark, but when I take an interest in something, I don’t have a problem placing my trust in the hands of the artist and seeing what results. For example, when a friend mentioned last week that director Michel Gondry had a new movie coming out called Be Kind, Rewind, I said, “Stop! Don’t tell me any more.” If I like an author or director and plan to read or see a new work, I prefer to know as little about it as possible. Instead of being assaulted with reviews and editorial opinion ahead of time, I want to let the work unfold as the artist intended, then see what I think.

After all, sometimes knowing a movie’s genre is enough to clue you in as to how the story will play it or at least where the turning points will be. Knowing nothing more than the title, I wasn’t primed for romantic comedy or horror or mystery or anything specific. The artistic experience was unspoiled by expectations.

For the most part, however, this attitude doesn’t work for board and card games. With books, movies, music, and art, you can jump into the experience without preparation and start absorbing it. Knowing how to read is enough to prepare me for any book in English. Games don’t work that way; while knowing how to play games may give me tactical advantages in a game I’m playing for the first time, I still need to learn the rules prior to playing – and once I hear the rules, I’m already running through scenarios in my head and plotting out the first turns.

The key difference between games and these other media might be that games have goals. You’re not merely an observer, as you are with music and movies, but you’re a participant. The nature of playing a game requires you to know what you’re trying to achieve.

Or does it? Perhaps this expectation to know the rules ahead of time is another false element in defining what games are, just as Yehuda Berlinger pointed out that games are not required to be fun in order to be games. Portal, although not a tabletop game, succeeds fantastically in immersing you in an environment and giving you the tools and skills you need to play and win during the game itself.

As for non-electronic games, Fluxx comes to mind as perhaps the best example of a game that you can play without knowing how to do so. The game includes a “Basic Rules” card that tells you to shuffle the deck, deal three cards to each player, have a random player start, and (on each turn) draw one card and play one card. Each type of card – Action, Rule, Goal, Keeper – has a short description at the top that tells you how to play that card. Once you’ve read that text a couple of times, you’ll ignore it from then on.

Many gamers don’t like Fluxx, complaining that it’s random and strategy-free. Fine, if you don’t like the game, no one’s going to force you to play it – but I’d argue that each game of Fluxx is like a new book or movie in that you know how to read or know the language of film, but the pieces are being put together in a new way each time. I like discovering card combinations as I play, working towards a goal (yes, you can do that) by playing cards X, Y and Z in a certain order, and responding to my opponent’s plays when possible. I appreciate the experience of playing and the variety of the game.

With a tiny set of game design language, Andy Looney created an environment that has a larger variability than many of the other games I play. Not knowing what’s going to happen before you look at those three cards is no different than having the lights go down after the final preview and starting to discover what Be Kind, Rewind is all about. I would hope to have more such games to explore and discover in the future.

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