Thursday 8 March 2007

HOMOLUDENS

John Huizinga devised the term ‘homo ludens’ meaning ‘playing human’. He researched into the aesthetics of play and examines the experience and joy received by a player whilst playing a game. In terms of playing games he describes the characteristics as: “Voluntary, outside the ordinary life boundaries, secluded and limited in time and space” (Aycock and Duncan, 1992 p.20). These characteristics can be adapted to relate to all games, for example my group chose to relate ‘Sonic’ to his theory. It is voluntary as I chose to play the game. It was outside ordinary life boundaries as I was running around a maze as a hedgehog trying to find an escape whilst collecting as many gold rings as possible. I was also limited in time and space, as I only had a set time to complete the level and I was secluded to only being able to get through certain ways. He set out to distinguish why people got the pleasure that they do from playing games, and links play with culture: “The play element is then almost completely hidden behind cultural phenomena” (Aycock and Duncan, 1992 p.20). Implicating that games are a lot more popular due to them being popular culturally and therefore bring social groups together.

Huizinga came up with the notion of a ‘magic circle’ as it is outside the boundaries of ordinary life with fixed boundaries of time, space and rules. He split games into two categories whether they were physical or psychological and when you play a game you enter into the magic circle. Interestingly, he believes that within the magic circle, whilst playing a game you cross a boundary, whereas Wittgenstein believed that when playing games there are no boundaries. Within the magic circle you are safe and convert into a new magical world where you have no limits on what you are able to do. I played on a ‘Wii’ on a Tennis game and crossed into the magic circle as psychologically I thought I was actually playing tennis, and was physically swinging for the ball.

Another aspect of playing games is making the change into a ‘lusory attitude’: “The lusory attitude to be one of accepting the rules because they make the game possible.” (Suits, 2005 p.15) This is seen as a contract between the players, so they are both within the circle together and therefore able to enjoy the game. Whilst playing Tomb Raider I played against an opponent and therefore made the exchange into a lusory attitude by accepting the rules and therefore converted into the magic circle of being able to step outside the boundaries of ordinary life, fighting new found enemies, and it being acceptable by changing my frame of mind.

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Aycock, M. Duncan G. (1992) Diversions and Divergences in field of play, Praeger: Greenwood.
Suits, B. (2005) The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, Broadview Press: London.

Further Reading

Salen, K. Zimmerman, E. (2003) Rules of Play, MIT Press: London and New York.

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