Short Story I - Hero Baneling

Not enough time for a true post so this shorty will have to do. In this game I had pretty much given up hope on winning at 10:00 when a swarm of his units came running into my undefended base.

In Starcraft there are a couple of ways a player can express their positive attitude towards the game in general and their opponent.

Starting of the match with the message 'GL HF' (good luck, have fun) for example.

At about 10:00 into this game I saw death come a' knocking.

I'd tried really hard. I'd given my best, knowing that in ZvZ the balance of power rests on a knife's edge, and I'd lost.

Instead of watching my brand new expansion die, my poor drones get brutally massacred, and a general case of not-breathing spread throughout my camp I decided to call the game. I'd been bested. There wasn't a need for my opponent to spend the next five minutes removing every last building I'd built from the map when we both knew I couldn't possibly recover while his forces swept through my infrastructure like a chainsaw. So I opened my chat and typed 'gg'.

In Starcraft there is a prescribed way of calling the game. The defeated player types 'GG' (good game) or 'WP' (well played) in the chat to his opponent who often graciously responds with a similar message. That player then leaves the match  ceding the victory to their opponent.

In this game I saw more than a dozen of the enemies units swarming of my ramp, and killing off my hastily assembled defenders. I knew that I didn't have enough troops to hold them off and that before I could build more he would destroy my almost defenseless workers and his advantage would become absolute. The only well mannered possibility in my mind was to concede instead of dragging the game out needlessly when he had already won.

So I had the chat open, I had typed 'Hell, GG', and I was resigned to my loss. Then I noticed something. His Banelings (small green suicide units) had just crashed into my newest base and its Queen (an economy focused guardian-type unit) causing almost no damage. His units weren't swarming through my workers or pillaging my base.

What had happened? I decided to check it out.

His units were gone. The Banelings had imploded rather harmlessly and his warriors had disappeared. I knew I'd started my second base far earlier than he had in the hopes of gaining an economic advantage in the long term.

Since I didn't seem to be dead I decided to fight on. A couple minutes later and I was victorious!

What happened? Three Banelings had been building right as his troops swept in. Two of them had fallen before turning into the deadly suicide troops which I'd intended to use against him. And the rest of his units had swarmed around the final Baneling which had through some miracle managed to survive. My opponent was most likely sloppy. At the lower levels of skill where I was playing controlling each unit carefully is often very difficult. He also might have simply thought that none of my units would survive to the point of being a threat, the were outnumbered by at least 5 to 1. However it came about, that one Baneling survived. For less than a second.

And that was perfect. Because the beauty of the Baneling is that when it dies it releases a burst of flesh eating acid in a small radius causing damage to everything nearby. My opponent's units were particularly susceptible to this acid. One baneling was enough to drop more than a dozen of his units instantly, leaving my base safe and sound.

Lucky me.

Only a split second from surrendering I'd just been saved by a stroke of luck. So I've uploaded a video with a little commentary that you can enjoy showing the fateful moment. . . enjoy.

Achilles, the Baneling

Thank you Baneling #754321689 
ACHILLES

Opinion - Why Games? II

All right, we're back. Welcome back.

I felt like the last blog left a little bit to be desired. I want a little more focus, I want a little more coverage, and I like to be a little bit funnier.

But really, who doesn't?

So last time I covered a couple definitions of game. The idea was to gain some common ground upon which to discuss, what else, games. Now I'd like to cover a few short definitions that I feel add a lot toa comprehensive understanding of what a game actually is.

First let's review what we learned two days ago:

1. Games generally involve opposing parties.
2. Games have actions they allow and actions they don't allow.
3. Games have a goal or purpose.
4. Games are recreational.

Let's look at a few short, but elucidating definitions:

"A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal."  - Greg Costikyan, I Have No Words & I Must Design

Here we see a couple of things not present in our previous definitions. A game is a form of art. Decisions must be made and resources are tracked. I like this a lot because I think it's very consistent. I think any activity which involves choice, specifically choices which can be advantageous or disadvantageous, can be defined as an art especially when that activity involves a highly variable process or outcome. I'm not saying all games are art, but I think that many can be defined as such. I also think that resource management is key to almost every day, almost any game can be thought of as a miniature economy. I'd go so far to say every game can be thought this way.

So what do we get from this? Games can be art. Decisions must be involved. Resource management is central to achieving a goal; by corollary this means there is a "game economy" of some sort.

Next.

"At its most elementary level then we can define game as an exercise of voluntary control systems in which there is an opposition between forces, confined by a procedure and rules in order to produce a disequilibrial outcome."  Elliot Avedon/Brian Sutton-Smith, The Study of Games

There is one different factor in this definition that we haven't seen any of the other ones: Games are designed to produce an unequal outcome. Now we can all immediately think of a couple of ways in which very common games can bring about an "equal" outcome. But in all but the simplest of games (I'm looking at you tic-tac-toe) these kinds of outcomes are not the most common. In fact they are often the rarest outcomes, usually associated with games which have a small degree of granularity.

I define the granularity of a game as the number of opportunities presented in the game's current state. The more possibilities available to a player the more granular their position or game state. The less possibilities open to a player the less granular their game state.

Let's take a look at an example: Chess is a great game to look at with what I would term a highly variable degree of granularity. There are 64 positions and 6 unique modes of movement spread among the playing pieces. That's a lot of granularity at the beginning of the game when you've got 32 pieces interacting across the board with all of their varying movement types. Things aren't exactly equal, but they at least seem fair. As most of the pieces have been captured and removed from the board only a restricted set of actions can be taken. Modes of movement are lost, and numbers of pieces are reduced. Now you've reached a very low degree of granularity and ending the game in a stalemate, a draw where there is no winner, becomes a very real possibility.

So what's the take home? My definition of granularity is a good thing to know, but more importantly games are almost universally designed to produce a clear victor.

So there's a fun game I'd like to take a moment to try, a meta-game if you will. Let's try seeing what kinds of activities we can create using only a subset of the four above aspects of what we call games.

Let's list them again with the newer additions from today:

1. Games generally involve opposing parties.
2. Games have actions they allow and actions they don't allow.
3. Games have a goal or purpose.
4. Games are recreational.
5. Games require decisions by the participants.
6. Games have an economy.
7. Games are designed to produce a winner.


Here's my top five. I'll list the numbers of the items above and then the activity I feel they define.

Note: Some aspects are questionable in my definitions and I'm willing to put those numbers in parenthesis for greater clarity on what I mean.

1, 3, 5, 6 - War
2, 3 (1, 5) - Laws
1, 2, 3, 6 (5) - Work
4, 6 - Drugs
2, 3, 4, 6 (7) - (Consensual) Bondage

You may now psychoanalyze to your hearts content. I however, am going to wrap up this post. Feel free to common your own top five list or even your own aspects of a game, I'd love to see them.

So we've at least managed to capture some important aspects of games. We've establish some common ground between games and other activities that we directly or indirectly participate in. So let me leave you with what I think is one of the most important associations between games and the reality that, via their recreational nature, people tend to divorce games from.

A game is one of the best preparations a human being can make for an intended undertaking or an unforeseen circumstance. Considered in a broad scope, the act of playing a game and making decisions which have consequences sharpens our ability to deal with our rather unpredictable wives.

Dragon, that was unnecessary. You know I meant lives. Where's your root directory at anyway... I've got a mean right-click I'd like to introduce you to.

Thanks for reading! See you next time ;)

Opinion - Why Games?

Opinion Definition - Why games?

Dragon can you type for me? Sweet, thanks. So this is my first blog post, I'm recording it with the Dragon software by Nuance. Which was conveniently capitalized by Dragon when it types it, and I'm recording on my computer which I've named Ray.

No Dragon it's with an E.

Rae; much better.

So that's pretty much the cast of characters here. If you disagree with any of the opinions you find on this blog it's Ray's fault. No, that's with an E Dragon. Rae. Better. If it's a spelling grammar check, its Dagon.

Nice. Anyway...

So here's my first topic - Why games?

This is an opinion piece (because what else is a blog for?) about why I think games are important to, let's face it, pretty much everyone. I hope to follow through on each topic with an opinion piece, a historical outlook, a scientific inquiry, and of course a story (drawn from my own questionable experiences).

But we can't just jump right into the opinion part yet, no, we must begin with an actual fact. Or at least we have to establish some sort of common ground: What is a game?

Fortunately for myself and Dragon I came prepared. Because, let's face it, Dragon sort of Salk's at punctuation.

Don't play games with me Dragon, I definitely said salts. Insubordination!

Ray. We are uninstalling him immediat- your really pushing it. Just wait. just u weight.

Ugh. Anyway, I took the liberty of finding a number of definitions for the word game before I even picked up the microphone. Let's explore:

Here's a good one...

From: [http://www.scientology.org/wis/wiseng/gloss.htm#g]

Scientology - game: a contest of person against person or team against team. A game consists of freedoms, barriers and purposes, and there is a necessity in a game to have an opponent or an enemy. Also there is a necessity to have problems, and enough individuality to cope with a situation. To live life fully, then, one must have in addition to "something to do," a higher purpose, and this purpose, to be a purpose at all, must have counter-purposes or purposes which prevent it from occurring.

So, having read the Scientologists definition of the word game, what do you think? Unfortunately you can't answer, Dragon can only say what I tell it to, and Rae is a slave to my input. We'll just have to go with what I think.

"a contest of person against person or team against team."

Well, in the first line I see they've defined a game as a contest between people. At least two people, or possibly a team. That strikes me as a little narrow. I've definitely heard the term single-player game before and spouted it myself numerous times, oh well, they could be right. I suppose that could be a puzzle if there's no active opponent. Let's not yet dwell on the whole "why must we fight" question, there are better lines for that.

"A game consists of freedoms, barriers and purposes, and there is a necessity in a game to have an opponent or an enemy."

In the second line we see something that I found to be quite common among the definitions of the game. A game consists of freedoms and barriers towards a purpose. Now, I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's what they meant. Unless Scientologists have somehow transcended standard grammatical syntax and unlocked some sort of superposition of verbage here. This I can agree with; every game I've ever played has come with restrictions and consequent open choices for the player to take advantage of. I think one of the great appeals of playing games IS the limited world or reality that games are played in. It's easy to be King of the simple reality (thanks for capitalizing that Dragon). As you might have already guessed I don't agree very much with the second half of this line, it sounds too much like some sort of hard-liner rhetoric.

"Also there is a necessity to have problems, and enough individuality to cope with a situation."

In the third line I find myself getting a little lost. I understand the need for problems in a game, and individuality sound like a good thing to have when coping with problems but. . . in an effort to stay on track let's just assume that they're talking about adaptability and opportunities to use it. Those things seem to be a big part of the addictive nature of games. But really the descent into madness starts with this line.

"To live life fully, then, one must have in addition to "something to do," a higher purpose, and this purpose, to be a purpose at all, must have counter-purposes or purposes which prevent it from occurring."

Now here things just get out of hand. The Scientologists have gone from talking about a game to defining what a full life is and how your higher purpose, "to be a purpose at all", must have an opposing force which prevents it from occurring. That's both wrong and off-topic, I don't believe your life has to be directly opposed to anything. Dragon, get us out of here.

From [http://dictionary.reference.com]


game - [geym]  noun, adjective, gam·er, gam·est, verb, gamed, gam·ing.

noun
1. an amusement or pastime: children's games.
2. the material or equipment used in playing certain games: a store selling toys and games.
3. a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators.
4. a single occasion of such an activity, or a definite portion of one: the final game of the season; a rubber of three games at bridge.
5. the number of points required to win a game.

Let's focus on 3:
Alright. Here we see a good bit of agreement with the Scientologists. Two or more people, competition, and skill/chance/endurance as the deciding factor. No solo games, fine, it seems decided that people must contend to have a game? At least it's not subversively pitting our life meanings against each other.

And of course the master of the modern definition, Wikipedia, shall have the last say:

From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game]

"A game is a recreational activity with a set of rules."

How could you disagree with that? A game is a non-work activity with rules. Simple. E z.

Dragon? Seriously.

This is a little bit longer than I meant for it to be so I'm going to cut it off here and put my personal opinion in another post, at another time.

We'll see you then.