Week 3- Direct Actions and Indirect Accidents

Week three of my Game Design for Play class and we tested our folk games with our peers. My favorite game was the movable musical chairs, even though I got a little too excited and almost went face-first into a carpet running for a chair, it was worth it. The high-quality Jeopardy music made the game's constraints all the more fun, constraints are “limits on player actions and interactions with the objects, other players, and the playspace with the intention of creating a play experience.”- Chapter 2. Basic Game Design Tools. The music acted as a constraint by not allowing a player to sit in a chair until it had stopped, once the music had stopped the director of the game would call out a number and each player would have to form a group equal to said number. My class had a lusory attitude towards the added challenge which made it all the more fun. A lusory attitude is when “players are willing to accept, and even invite, less efficient or logical means of engaging with a game in exchange for the potential of the play experience.”- Chapter 2. Basic Game Design Tools. By accepting the less efficient rule that we not only had to get in a seat but also group to form a certain number of people we were able to experience movable musical chairs in a new and fun way. I am not a very active person yet for some reason folk games bring out a sense of adrenaline that allows me to play rounds and rounds of games without needing a break, that was until the folk game Cat and Mice. Essentially it was based around the rules of tag with the two taggers being the cats and the rest of the players being mice. The Mice’s goal was to find all the scattered bean bags and take them back to base without getting tagged. I failed of course but had fun nonetheless. Running has never been a strong suit of mine, yet my peers managed to create a game where I ran so fast I almost head-butted a tree limb, literally. I managed to duck down at the last minute and do a cool baseball slide to the ground, showcasing my impeccable clumsiness and also the indirect actions of the game. Indirect actions are actions “without direct contact by the player or the primary objects they use while playing.”- Chapter 2. Basic Game Design Tools. Directly I was supposed to find all the bean bags and run away from the Cats (taggers), however, I ended up indirectly dogging the trees around me as well. Overall this week was fun and I’m glad to note my classmates are very creative when it comes to game design, I can’t wait to test out what they come up with next.