Monday 30 November 2009

Lots and lots...

I've been doing some reading for my assignments. All about the 'Magic Circle' and I've just read a paper called "Abandoning the Magic Circle". I had high hopes for this as I was looking for some writings against the use of the 'Magic Circle'.

Now I don't consider myself an expert on academic writing - far from it - but I do expect a little more than what I go from this paper. In talking about the notion that the Magic Circle (i.e. the 'area', physical or otherwise, in which 'play' takes place) can be closed or open (i.e. influenced or affected by the 'outside' 'real' world), his main criticism seemed to focus on the fact that 'geometrically' a circle has no end/beginning and there for it cannot be described as 'open' it must always be closed. o.O Therefore, he argued, the concept of the Magic Circle, in describing the 'area' in which play and games take place, must always be closed and cannot be open and linked by the outside world. A notion he rejects as he believes that play and games are influenced by the 'real world'.

If your academic and intellectual criticism of a concept is based on using mathematical geometry to attack a metaphor then you need to rethink.

Though I hear his next paper is entitled "Abandoning the Snow Blanket" in which he attacks the notion that the description "a blanket of snow" to describe heavy and covering snowfall is incorrect as snow does not have the physical properties required to bind and hold together in the same way material would need to in order to create a blanket...

Tuesday 17 November 2009

A Thought...

Firstly, apologies to my dear blog for neglecting it! My head has been all over the place for the last few weeks with being ill and frothing over LARP (or LRP?), but I’m refocusing now!

I was thinking today about types of games, both computer games and other types, and how everyone has preferences or types/genres that appeal to them. In particular a conversation I had about role play games either computer games or LARP (not so much D&D as I have no experience there) and that they don’t appeal to my girlfriend. This developed in to a conversation about what we used to play as a child. Eliminating predefined games such as board games, sports etc, what did we play? I played lots of what would probably be characterised as role play games such as Cowboys & Indians (Indians ftw!) and war games, and racing games and ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, ‘Ghostbusters’, ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Robin Hood’ (yes, I was a massive tomboy) and hundreds of variations of this where I/we took on the role of a character in those games other than ourselves. My girlfriend never played like this as a child. Though my instant reaction was ‘weirdo’, I started comparing our tastes in computer games now. I love WoW and 3'rd person action/adventure such as Tomb Raider and Resi Evil and fighting games (i.e. Tekken), RTS such as Warcraft, Civilisation and Dungeon Keeper and Madden NFL. She goes for puzzle games such as Professor Layton and games like Sonic and Mario. Oh and, of course, I love LARP! Considering how I used to play as a child it’s a natural progression – what more does a girl want than to dress up and kick monster’s butts in hand to hand combat? Pfft! (Don’t judge it before you try it!)

So in my entirely ‘scientific’ study of 2 people it appears maybe how and what we play as a child influences what we’re drawn to playing now. So how did you play and what do you play now?