[020] Making Games Every Day for a Month, Day 8 of 31: Hook & Ring

"Every new participant in a culture both enters into an existing context and simultaneously changes that context. Each new speaker of its language both learns the language and alters it. Each new adoption of a tradition makes it a new tradition." - James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

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Today we're making the old dive bar classic, Hook & Ring.

I have been thinking about the nature of games during this month-long marathon of game-making. I've been thinking about how games always impose a limitation on the player.

Every game rule is a restriction of choice, action, knowledge, or awareness. There are hidden cards, boundaries to stay inside, objects to avoid, turn orders you must follow. Look at the language in a game rulebook: the player must, the next player will, the pawn moves, the king dies. The language of rules is imperative. Commanding.

Like this Hook & Ring game, for example: to win, you have to get the hook on the ring. You could, if you wanted to, cut the rope with a scissors, or pull the hook out of the wall, or anything. But the true rules of the game impose a limitation. To play the game is to accept restriction.

As far as I know, there are no games (yet) which involve rules beyond the capabilities of the players. The goalkeeper must remain hovering 3 inches above the ground at all times! Wouldn't that be odd? No, every kind of game constricts the mind and the body. If the game is a good one, the constriction is engaging and interesting and is worth the temporary absolution of total freedom to act as thou wilt.

Life often feels like a game. Fill out this form! Wait your turn in line! Collect colored paper to win! Daily life often follows game logic, as if we are little pewter characters doing loops around the streets of our towns, collecting grocery and money tokens. Rules and limitations.

I think a freedom comes to you when a situation can be seen as a game. The rules of the situation are only limiting you, never empowering you. There is a secret alternative to following the rules: you can always flip the table. Even if you never take that choice, it is always available to you. That knowledge is powerful. Don't forget you can always sweep the pieces off the board and end the game right there.

See you tomorrow.

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"An immortal soul is a person who cannot help but continue living out a role already scripted." - James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games