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Ah, yea America A fucked up country.

Why do you think I'm talking only about america?

I wonder why everyone seems to act like missionary, why not just let them believe what they want...

And let them force their creation myths into science class and blow up innocent people who don't believe in their imaginary friend. Sure.

I get very negative about other people's faith and I don't want to do that. Very easily, I could be one of those loud atheists who make the concept look unappealing and scary. So I still cannot properly express my atheism.

When I started debating with theists I was like "Hey I think you're a total idiot for believing that crap but let's talk", which obviously is not the way to go. If you're hostile towards them from the begining they're not going to listen to you and won't be willing to explain what's behind their faith, no communication will be possible. If you want someone to listen and share their views, you have to be nice to them. This doesn't always work however. Sometimes the mere statement that you don't believe in god is such an offense for some people even if you make clear it's only your opinion and you don't want to force it onto them and you are willing to change it if given proper arguments or evidence. No matter if you're a quiet or a "militant" atheist you're going to be automatically unappealing and scary for some theists. Duh! You DON'T believe in god! You're EVIL! You don't want to talk with someone who's EVIL, do you? I got banned from many theist chatrooms without saying a word just for having "atheist"(or a variation) in my nickname.

Now what about the discussions that do "work"? Honestly I end up being quite annoyed and upset with those people. Most of the time it's dogmatic crap and no logical reasoning at all:

- "How do you know god exists?"
-"Because it's written in the bible."
-"How do you know the bible says the truth?"
-"Because god has written it."

-"How do you know god created the universe?"
-"Because everything that exists needs a creator"
-"So who created god?"
-"God has always existed."

I could go on and on. There's no "argument" for god I haven't heard and most if not all of them are fallacies that crumble in the face of logic. The problem is that belief != logic. And since logic is required for a proper debate, no proper debate with a believer is possible no matter how nice you fake to be. That is why I haven't had a religious debate in ages. It just changes nothing and leaves me very upset. When it comes to the god question, debates are useless. There's gotta be something more powerful than mere words to prove your point to the other side.

And if anyone should ask, I'm a weak atheist(or agnostic atheist).

I don't quite believe in atheism. I myself am not atheist, but then again, I am not much of a religious person too, I don't follow some written manifest. Therefore, I quite cannot understand atheists, how can someone believe in nothing? I know some atheists who tend to believe in ghosts, now how can they be atheists because ghosts resemble some kind of afterlife? I believe that most people still believe in something, be it God or karma, in deep inside, they are just too buzy and happy to think about it.

Let's get some facts right. Atheism = lack of belief in god specifically(weak atheism) or belief in the nonexistence of god specifically(strong atheism). You can be an atheist but still belief in ghosts or the afterlife. Atheism is equivalent to the statement "I don't believe in god" or "I believe there is no god". Ghosts and the afterlife are different subjects and don't fall under atheism.  I think you're confusing atheism with some materialistic world view.

Take signs of zodiac for example, people are always interested what their sign is. And to be honest, by looking at people, it is quite easy to guess what zodiac sign they are and it somehow fits. Now tell me if it is pure science.

Bullcrap.

I agree that death is one of the things that makes us recognize the value of life. But I don't agree that our purpose in life is to die. If that is so, and living life itself has no purpose why don't we just commit suicide to get there quicker? That's such a pesimistic way of thinking. I'm not looking forward to die. I don't know what will happen to me after death. I may go to hell, go to heaven, restart my life, start a new life or disapear into oblivion. Whatever, I don't know. I know life however. So my philosophy is:

"The purpose of life is to live"

or

"The path is the goal"

Also the talking about god and free will and how all religions basically talk about the same may work for you, but it doesn't for me. I've gone through similar contemplations. Anything "spiritual" doesn't do the job for me. I admit that I had a "new age" phase in my life, which means basically cherry picking elements from different religions to build a world view that comforts me. But that is delusional and silly. The world won't become better if you explain it with some wacky ideology. As far as explaining the universe I think science does a pretty good job. Humans may not know everything but we continue to learn more and more. Even if we don't learn all the rules that govern this(and maybe other) universe(s) do we even need to know everything to lead happy and fulfiled lifes?

To sum it up: I'm not thinking about death right now. I will find out soon enough what will happen when I die. My purpose in this life is to make myself, and the people I care for, happy.

104 x 147
No more than 12 colors
<--- reference pic
                         2x


http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z69/space_boy_album/marine_bg_postfx.png

AGS: The engine behind Secret of Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight and Manic Miner!

Don't forget Quake.

I noticed that the name "game" is applied to a very broad range of things(for example Ludo vs. Fallout - two "games" that are [almost] 100% different) while at the same time people seem to look for a very specific and clear definition of "game". It seems to me that most people don't want to define, but redefine games. They don't say what games are, they say what they would like games to be. There have been a zillion things people would call games without thinking twice, but so far there has been no bulletproof definition. Why? If you're not able define a concept that you come across on a daily basis then something is wrong, don't you think?

How unsurprising.

How do I score?

[style]

Now that's what I call style.

That pro-Bush guy that was like 12 years old?

A deadly combination.

[SpaceBoy :]

SpaceBoy :

LUniqueDan: When I try to determine what I find most important in a game I usually do it from my point of view.

Cool!
So, if I'm following you, your real question is :
"What is most important features in a game?"
(And it's a great question too)

Well, yes. Only the problem with this question is that is uses more words than mine while basically saying the same thing.

But If so, can you just explain to me wtf your first graph have anything to do with that question? (precisely the 'Toy' and 'test' parts). And how do you applied it to?

Like I said I like to represent stuff visually, so the graph was just a "translation" of my definition into a venn graph. My point was that if you take a toy(ball) and combine it with a test(can you get the ball into the basket?) you end up with a game(I should also add that I extended my original definition to include rules). Probably adds nothing to the definition itself but yeah, I did it anyway so sue me(or make a parody of it).

So, finally you tell us, that YOU enjoy games who are Fun and challenging.

Cool!
Me too by the way.

Yep, simple as that. Don't we all like simple things? And for people who say "well, that was obvious!". No, it's not. When designing a game the "what would I like to play"- approach is not neceserily the most intuitive one(and I'm talking from personal experience). If you work in the mainstream game industry it might not even be very welcome to think like that. Publisher: "Who the hell cares what the designer thinks? I want to sell the game to my target group, not to the designer!". Ok, it's a business, they have make profit so they have to appeal to their target group. That might work for the automobile industry, but for games it's just degrading. If I'm ever so lucky to make money from my games I don't want to end up in the mainstream.

[Nikolas:]

I cant see either of Space Boy's images; I'm just seeing black boxes of eternal night.

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z69/space_boy_album/bothgraphs.jpg

Nikolas: People who say that games are just for kids and provide no practical benefits beyond entertainment are simply ignorant. Games are probably the most natural way of learning and improving skills.

Blueskirt: You're right, a definition should be objective, but as a game designer you want to make games people enjoy and a technical description of what a game is does not ensure it will be good. What if a game has tokens, resources to manage and a goal if I find it annoying or boring?

Now looking at my definition, something that's fun and challenging for you might not be for others. But that's my point. In the first place you should make the game for yourself, not for others. If you make a game you like you're going to be more enthusiastic about it and put more effort in it. Going by impersonal descriptions, cloning succesful titles or studying surveys is not the way to design good games. My definition might not be encyclopedia material but from a design point of view it's certainly useful for me as it focuses on what I think is the essence of a good game. So even if the meaning of "fun" and "challenge" varies for everyone doesn't mean that the definition has no worth for a designer.

Both above theories deal with games involving two or more players, and as such (unless we stretch the term to allow substituting of AI players), have a limited bearing on single player games, or a person's releationship to the single player experience, which is largely what I would be interested in.

The discussion is about games in general, no matter if it's a single or multiplayer game. Just because game studies limits itself to multiplayer games doesn't mean we have to(in this discussion nobody did and nobody said we should do that). We can concentrate entirely on the single player experience if you want. Since I'm working on a singleplayer game myself I would also find that more interesting.

[LUniqueDan:]

LUniqueDan: When I try to determine what I find most important in a game I usually do it from my point of view. So if I don't find something fun nor challenging I don't call it a game, even if others do. Gaming is quite obviously a subjective experience even if more than one person participate in one game. An objective definition would just describe the mechanical parts of a game leaving out subjective sensations which I think is more important.

LimpingFish: As far as the difference between "normal" games and video games, there is none for me. Video games just make use of the possibilities of computers but the fundamental concept is the same as for non-computer games. Also scotch apparently recognized I was reffering to games in general as he was talking about Chess aswell as Monkey Island and didn't say "you didn't specify whether you mean video games only or games in general!". That's just as relevant as asking whether I talk about Mac or PC games. Also I started with a very broad and modest definition to leave people space for their own interpretations and extensions and so they could share what they think is most important in games(which some people did). With time we would/will get to the most important points. A discussion is supposed to be dynamic, but unfortunately there are people who, instead of contributing in an intelligent manner, prefer to bombard the subject with their angry rants.

Meowster: Generalizations are no argument. Just hold your judgement of my game creations skills until I have actually released a game. Then you are free to tear it apart. And yes, I do play lots of games(I have actually recently taken a break from working on my game and started playing more as I felt kind of uninspired and burnt out). If you want to count all the theoretical game discussions I have ever had just find the topics I started on this forum. Experience in gaming is very important indeed but I like to put stuff in numbers and graphs as I think displaying something graphically can sometimes reveal things that weren't aparent when only playing games. Practice is just as important as theory. If you want to talk about things that you find important in games, do so, but don't act like an angry brat.

It pains me greatly to think there are people in the world who need to be told what a picture is.

You know you're talking about people from MIT, right? And you know what pains me? That there are people who don't know how to use google and start a topic asking people to look for them. You really shouldn't be lecturing me about what a useful topic is, ok? Let's try and keep further posts ontopic.

Right scotch, but an illustrator demonstrating image construction would not ask the question "what is a picture?".

http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredo/ArtAndScienceOfDepiction/3_WhatIsAPicture/Image.pdf

I'm sure the thread starter won't be terribly surprised that someone, somewhere, didn't like it.

I'm not surprised at all. I bet you're not the only one who doesn't like it. Everyone has their own way to deal with it. Some people ignore it, others draw genitalia. I just explained you the benefits I see in such a discussion. I like to approach "obvious" stuff from a philosophical point of view and i'm perfectly aware this is not everybodys thing. I'm happy there were at least some people who showed interest.

Also anyone who thinks the question is too vague or dull or whatever is free to steer the discussion in a more interesting direction or just let the topic die.

My dad once tried to break linux by launching at least a million programs. Any windows OS would have passed out already but linux fought like a champ. The system started going incredibly slow(a couple of minutes response time) and it took half an hour to terminate all the tasks that had been running(it was far more than anyone would ever need) but after that everything worked fine for the next few hours until he normally shut it down. He didn't even have to reboot it. The only (very few) times linux crashed was when my dad consciously made it.

[LUniqueDan:]

Thanks for the link Anym!

Furthermore, I'm not happy with the set of fun activities summarily labeled as "toys", because many fun (reading,...) can hardly be labeled as such and because games aren't be a subset of toys (see above).

You're right, there probably should be a different collective term for the "only fun" activities. But toys aren't represented in that diagram as a subset of games.

Painting is an activity I find fun and challenging. Is that a game? What about web designing, writing, cooking, sowing, etc.? Is sex a game ?

First of all sowing is not really what I would call challenging and fun. And what's challenging about sex? As for the rest, I guess under the right conditions(setting goals, scoring) they could be considered games.

A lot of people would add another set to that venn diagram, the requirement that there should be a responsive adversary (be it algorithmic, or human). A crossword is both fun and challenging, but you don't "play" a crossword, you solve it, so most people differentiate between puzzles and games in their definitions. So the question is if you consider a crossword a game. I wouldn't.

Whether puzzles are games probably depends on personal interpretation. A puzzle could be considered a type of game. Solving a puzzle would mean playing a game that tests problem solving skills.

(if you don't know micropul - http://neutralbox.com/micropul/index.html)

Another popular and related one is the requirement for an uncertain outcomes. That's pretty much a given if you include the adversary one, because the things you do will be reacted to, presenting you with different paths. If the progression is always forward towards a defined goal state then many people wouldn't call it a game. Is sudoku a game? Not to me, but I think this condition is redundant.

The interesting thing is when I look at certain things like linear, story based adventure games, even though I call them games (probably because they run on a computer, they come on cds like other computer games, I play them for fun, they look like games), they just don't fit. Something like Monkey Island is a lot more like Sudoku than Chess. It proceeds through a sequence of set puzzles, solved with logic, or luck, and very little in there is a response to my actions. Should I stop calling them games?

If non-linearity was a neccesary condition then most computer games wouldn't be considered games.

Most people would require an agreed ruleset. Your day may have been fun and challenging, but there wasn't a well defined ruleset, or a win condition, or a scoring system. I find that requirement important.

Good point. As I said above that's probably what's missing in my definition. A ruleset that describes the goal and restrictions.

Another set people like to differentiate is competition (like a 100m sprint). Sure, it has other players, and rules, it is often fun, and generally challenging, but because the players can't influence each other, most people don't consider them games. I think this one is covered in the reacting adversary condition.

If you have a challenge and more than one player then competition is going to emerge naturally. Even if the players can't influence each other they may compete for the highest score(tetris, shooting range) or the fastest time in completing a challenge (jigsaw puzzles, 100m sprint). Challenge + many people = competition.

LUniqueDan: I don't agree about removing the fun from games. If something is to stay in games then it's the entertainment part. What you call opposition is probably the same as challenge in my definition. Goal and rules should be one element, like Anym said one implies the other.

Meowster: knowing what makes a game(and what makes a good game) can help game designers focus on the essential stuff. Even if we don't come up with a final definition and even if some people think it's really obvious what a game is, at least we exchange some ideas which may be helpful or even eye opening when designing our own games. And I meant games in general.

Also if it's obvious to you it should be no problem to put bingo and dungeons and dragons(both commonly refered to as games) under one clear definition(that is if your interest in this topic goes beyond stating how useless you find it).

Forums do have rules and those who wish to not be criticized should be respected.

Where on this forum is that written?