What Is The Definition of Play?
Exploring the essence of interaction, fun, and meaning in games
“Are you killing those ugly monsters again?” - That’s what my mom used to say when I was playing Halo.
When it comes to videogames I tend to ask myself many questions starting with the design, all the decisions being after each title, aesthetics, mechanics, soundtrack, etc just to learn from each title.
But I also asked myself about the meaning of Play. This thought started when I observed my friend’s child being curious about all the surrounding things, the sand at the beach, the toys he has, even the moon at night.
That curiosity by using your senses and reacting through emotions without any specific goal is what I would define as Play.
But how could this be applied to videogames?
Playing Moments
Engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.
We don’t need to be back in our childhood days to find those moments. We could be counting yellow cars or just playing the floor is lava in the middle of the square.
Now let’s speak about videogames, which ones actually have those playful moments? How are those moments distributed along the game?
Let me reveal something to you… Game Jams, itch.io and pico8 have so much to teach us on that aspect. Most of those videogames have something in common: they are playful by design, high percentage of the design goes to enjoyment rather than goals.
Playful By Design?
Think about any mechanic, actually let’s take Super Mario 64 as our example
(If you didn’t have chance to play it, please stop reading this lines and look for it)
The Jump action is absolutely satisfying, you can press the button under a specific sequence to combine 3 consecutives jumps, that’s the playful moment.
No goal is behind that action when you first open the game. (Pure Joy)
Your dopamine goes up with the feedback after the jumps (Emotion == pleasure)
But that’s just under a specific mechanic on a wide game full of rules and goals, so those strictly speaking playing moments are happening under certain situations.
Prototypes and Small Games
They are looking for a high percentage of enjoyment, rather than guiding you through goals from the beginning.
Let’s enumerate few examples
Wario Ware Inc (Game Boy Advance)
I love Wario Ware (Nintendo is here again) and it is the perfect example for our definition of Playing. Warioware is a set of minigames where you are constantly exposed to a loop of curiosity, exploration, trial and error like childs do.
The game feel is well designed and everytime you start one of the mini-games you feel that excitment of learning something new, through the playing process.
I really recommend this game if you still own a Game Boy Advance.
Creature Packets (Ludum Dare Jam)
This game has been created thinking about the “satisfaction” (as you can see is a little bit creepy) of the process, that playful state when you are discovering and sorting out what to do and how, at this one we just aim to follow an Order and the game just provide a minimal set of instructions to proceed
Everything moves around the vending machine where you obtain creatures to start a process with them in order to complete your delivery. At this game you have a high percentage of enjoyment and discovery we are actually playing again.
I don’t want to reveal much more about the game as the way it is evolving is really interesting, better you discover by yourself
AAA Titles And Their “Play” moment
AAA-budget games also have their moments of enjoyment, discovery and actually being played, let’s go back to Halo where you are not only shooting to kill ugly monsters but also learning to drive and discovering the world that you don’t know anything about.
Actually later on the game you will be able to fly, which is another pure play moment where your skills will drive the dopamine of that moment.
But thinking across AAA Titles, most of them are designed by systems, mechanics and goals to keep you playing, maybe is not beatiful to say under this emotional context, but they are made to pay bills and have a business. Meaning the percentage of playful moments will be lower than the actual focus on goals and serious moments.
Thank you for reading! 🎮