09 NOV 2019 by ideonexus
A Quantum Game
Bell came up with “nonlocal” games, which require players to be at a distance from each other with no way to communicate. Each player answers a question. The players win or lose based on the compatibility of their answers.
One such game is the magic square game. There are two players, Alice and Bob, each with a 3-by-3 grid. A referee tells Alice to fill out one particular row in the grid — say the second row — by putting either a 1 or a 0 in each box, such that the sum of the number...09 NOV 2019 by ideonexus
Variable Ratio Schedule for Getting Kids Addicted to Boar...
In light of the above, here’s a solid Variable Ratio Schedule for playing board games with your kid:
the first time you play a particular game, let the kid win.
thereafter, let the kid win some of the time. 60% of the time is good to start (you can dial it down slowly as the kid improves if you want).
make the sequence of wins and losses as random as possible.
critically, make the outcome as close as you can every time, especially when the kid loses. She should always feel like she bare...04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Metagame
Metagaming refers to the relationship between the game and outside elements, including everything from player attitudes and play styles to social reputations and social contexts in which the game is played. Post-game locker room conversations about the match are metagame interactions. Memorizing words in the Scrabble dictionary is a metagame activity, the honing of in-game skills. The typical playing strategies of a particular Go master are metagame information, useful if you are playing agai...04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Developing Child's Understanding of Games
During the first stage, beginning around age 5, the child does not yet understand there are fixed rules to the game. Children of this age will play Marbles in an improvisational way, possessing a vague notion of rules but not yet understanding the idea of fixed rules.
In the second stage, around ages 8 to 10, the child comes to know that there are rules, and will regard these rules with a near religious reverence. The rules are felt to have their own implicit authority, which cannot be quest...04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
The Pleasure of Entrainment
If entrainment is a form of pleasure, it is a pleasure at once structural and experiential, both mathematically regular and playfully flexible. Entrainment is not a phenomenon completely unique to games, but it does come very close to identifying the curious structural pleasure that all game experiences seem to contain: the meditative patterns of Tetris; the turn-taking, clacking cadence of Billiards; the rhythmic shooting pattern of Space Invaders; the pulsing flow of cards, hits, and chips ...Folksonomies: entrainment
Folksonomies: entrainment
04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Verbal Tennis
Verbal Tennis is an unusual game in which two players carry on a conversation, taking turns making statements. The only rules are that each statement must be in the form of a question and cannot repeat another statement that has already been made. If a player gets stuck and cannot make a coherent response to the previous statement, he or she loses. A game might begin as follows:
PLAYER 1:Are you feeling well today?
PLAYER 2:Don't I look well?
PLAYER 1:If I knew that, why would I have asked y...04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Defining Play and Transformative Play
Transformative play is a special case of play that occurs when the free movement of play alters the more rigid structure in which it takes shape. The play doesn't just occupy and oppose the interstices of the system, but actually transforms the space as a whole. A cyberfeminist game patch that creates transsexual versions of Lara Croft is an example of transformative play, as is the use of the Quake game engine as a movie-making tool.
Although every instance of play involves free movement wi...Folksonomies: play transformative play
Folksonomies: play transformative play
04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Degenerate Strategies and Cheating
Why isn't using a degenerate strategy considered cheating? Degenerate strategies take advantage of weaknesses in the rules of a game, but do not actually violate the rules. What kind of player would play in this way? The answer is both a dedicated player, who is overzealously seeking the perfect strategy, and an unsportsmanlike player, who has found a hole in the rules to exploit, even though he understands that he is not playing the game the way it was intended. These two kinds of players ca...Is the same true of memorizing algorithms to solve the rubiks cube?
04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus
Dice Rolls are Suspect
It is true that every aspect of the role of dice may be suspect: the dice themselves, the form and texture of the
surface, the person throwing them. If we push the analysis to its extreme, we may even wonder what chance
has to do with it at all. Neither the course of the dice nor their rebounds rely on chance; they are governed by
the strict determinism of rational mechanics. Billiards is based on the same principles, and it has never been
considered a game of chance. So in the final analysis...Folksonomies: games randomness
Folksonomies: games randomness
04 NOV 2018 by ideonexus