Whether we think of a board game, an athletic competition in a stadium, a videogame, playful social networking on the World Wide Web, an Alternate Reality Game, a location-based mobile game, or any combination thereof: Ludic activities are, have, and take place in or at, spaces. "Toward a Ludic Architecture" is a pioneering publication, architecturally framing play and games as human practices in and of space. Filling the gap in literature, Steffen P. Walz considers game design theory and practice alongside architectural theory and practice, asking: how are play and games architected? What kind of architecture do they produce and in what way does architecture program play and games? What kind of architecture could be produced by playing and gameplaying? "Toward a Ludic Architecture" is a must-read for analyzing and designing play and games from an architectural standpoint. Such a contribution is particularly applicable in an era when games extend into physical, designed space that is increasingly permeated by devices, sensors, and information networks, allowing for rules and fictions to superimpose our everyday environments. Including a maze-like, episodic, and critical discussion of interweaving "play-grounds," "Toward a Ludic Architecture" is a playful look at the conceptual space of play and games.
You are an architect. Imagine that stones, handles, chairs, handrails, doors, walls, stairs, streets, buildings, halls and towers do not evolve from grasping, lifting, carrying and connecting, but that they are formless, motionless - and symbolically thought - material for games. These games juggle with paradoxes, because logics do not suffice. In an analyzing fashion and for the purpose of construction, these virtualities pervade places, times and materials, and they manifest themselves by the way of movements, forms and, sometimes, tangibly, materially. This extension of architecture into the virtual realm as well as the latter's reconnection into actuality is the foil for Steffen P. Walz's "Toward a Ludic Architecture", an intelligent composition of rhetorical figures that, for the first time ever, succeeds in seriously crossing computer games and built architecture. Congratulations! Prof. Dr. Ludger Hovestadt
Chair for Computer Aided Architectural Design, ETH Zurich
Zurich, June 2009
"Eventually, everything connects." (Charles Eames, Architect) "It's all about connecting the dots." (Ralph H. Baer, Videogame Inventor) 1. Ludic Architecture This book is a theoretical exercise toward a ludic architecture ”" i.e., an analytical and designerly understanding of contemporary play and games through the lens of architectural paradigms. Note that this treatise is not concerned with programming or more technologically-inclined topics. Rather, it suggests a discourse of play and games as human practices in space, seeking to conceptually frame these pleasurable practices as architectural categories and places-to-play - playces , if you wish. Results from digital game studies are worked into these reflections, creating a basis for an analytical framework of games as architectures. This framework serves as the foundation for critically discussing exemplary spatial formats from which play and games grow. As an introduction ”" and for your inspiration ”" read through the following scenes that illuminate the topic. 1.1. Ready! Unfamiliar with Alan M. Turing's work, Konrad Zuse, the solitary German computing machine pioneer, conceptualized and built the first mechanical component of his Rechenmaschine , the Z1, in 1945, nine years before the official inception of the Electronical Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) at the University of Pennsylvania. In the end, the Z1 was just a primitive electro-mechanical device, far less reliable than its successor, the Z3 ”" the first working Turing-complete computing machine. Both systems, however, consisted of a mechanical memory storage component, a calculating component, a command controller unit, a number input, and a number output ”" core elements of today's computing machinery. The Z1 was programmed using ticker tapes created from expensive 35mm film stock. For the ticker tape to be input into the Z1, a hand-driven - potentially engine-driven - crank had to perform one revolution. Zuse called the unit of ticker tape revolutions needed to process a Z1 command (such as carrying out an addition or a multiplication) Spiel , or, in English, game (Rojas 1997). In 1947/48, Alan Turing developed a chess machine on paper and also conducted experiments with a chess machine prototype, as pointed to in one of his many seminal papers, Solvable and Unsolvable Problems (Turing 1954). In 1950, his American colleague Claude Shannon wrote a paper titled Programming a Computer For Playing Chess (Shannon 1950), in which he envisions possible use-cases for computing machines based on his game machine. Many of the machines outlined have since come into existence ”" machines for designing, for regulating, for translating, for music-making, for logical deduction. Much earlier, in the 19th century, Charles Babbage had already been convinced that his Analytical Engine would be capable of processing a chess game; to demonstrate simpler mechanics, Babbage conceptualized a Tic-Tac-Toe game machine, cf. Pias (2002:198). The world's first computer game, however, may well be Alexander Sandy Douglas' OXO game ”" a single player Tic-Tac-Toe game also known as Noughts and Crosses . OXO is, without a doubt, the first game with a graphical user interface: gameplay was displayed on the 35x16 pixel cathode ray tube space of the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) computer at the University of Cambridge. There, Douglas implemented OXO in 1952 as an illustration for his PhD thesis concerning human-computer interaction (Winter 1996). See Figure 1, which shows an OXO session running in Martin Campbell-Kelly's EDSAC emulator software. session running in Martin Campbell-Kelly's EDSAC emulator software. Figure 1 OXO , a Tic-Tac-Toe instance: The world's first computer game using a graphical display, written by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952 for the EDSAC computer at the University of Cambridge. The image shows a screenshot of the game running in the EdsacPC emulator, Version 6 for Windows 95 or later. Reproduced by permission from Martin Campbell-Kelly. It is no coincidence that Babbage, Zuse, Turing, Shannon, and Douglas spent time thinking about games and how they could be implemented in the computing of hardware, software, or both. As Claus Pias points out, games ”" the strategy game of chess in particular ”" assisted in envisioning the computer (Pias 2002). This historical argument is seconded conceptually by Juul, who concludes that games' "definiteness in the rules" (Juul 2005:38) suggests that there is a basic affinity between games and computers. Why? Mass-market computers are digital machines that use discrete, i.e. discontinuous values (such as binary data) to input, process, transmit, and store information according to formal instructions. Compare this short and certainly superficial definition against the notion that games are rule-bound systems in which conflictive, goal-oriented interaction takes place under seemingly safe conditions for the player, whose "fundamental motivation (...) is to learn." (Crawford 1982/1997:15). That games and computers are similar in the way they manipulate information has led media philosopher McKenzie Wark to conclude that "All games are digital. Without exception. (...) From the start, games were proto-computers" (Wark 2007:79). Though it could be argued that "Interactiveness is not a binary quantity; it is a continuous quantity with a range of values" (Crawford 1982/1997:11), we can still assume that games are, formally speaking, superbly suited for computational processing and that computational hardware and software architecture represent best-practice instances of ludic application, having much increased the complexity of games and formalized games more precisely than ever before in history. As advanced problem-solving machines with which we can playfully interact, computers are the perfect match for games when we look at the latter as "a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful mind" (Schell 2008:37). 1.2. Steady! In July of 2001, Electronic Arts (EA) published Majestic (EA 2001), a new kind of commercial game that blurred the lines between computer game and everyday life, between virtual space and physical space. A science-fiction conspiracy adventure that included elements of bio-warfare and global terror, Majestic integrated a great number of media and technologies with which the player could experience the game: in addition to an application featuring a Buddy List with bots and other players, indistinguishable from one another at first glance, the game also immersed the player through AOL Instant Messaging (AIM), e-mail and video messages, Websites, phone calls, SMS messages and faxes, cf. Taylor and Kolko (2003). Majestic failed to become a commercial success due partly to technical reasons but also because of some design flaws and unfortunate timing ”" the game was released six weeks before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, causing the publisher to pause the (downloadable) game service. Still, Majestic was a pioneering game ”" a software-hardware architecture that reached beyond the constraints of the classical videogame console-living room experience or the desktop PC-office mélange. In this, Majestic was one of the first games to feature "pervasive" or "ubiquitous" gameplay across diverse media. 1.3. Go! In the summer of 2007, Anna and Peter, a young couple from Zurich, visit Regensburg, Germany. At the tourist information office, they notice the tourist game of REXplorer advertised as a "city-experience" and decide to try it out. At home in Zurich, in preparation for their trip, Peter had visited the Website of the Regensburg Experience Museum REX, watched the REXplorer trailer, and browsed the Websites of high-scoring REXplorer players, where images the tourists had taken were shown, as was their path through the city1. Anna and Peter rent the REXplorer detector and set out to investigate the "paranormal activities" in the city. As they leave the office to start playing, Anna holds the game controller, which reminds her of a Geiger counter. When they turn the corner of the Altes Rathaus , Anna notices a heartbeat vibration indicating that the detector is excited and that the couple has reached a point of interest. Anna knows that there is a spirit here that she can awaken by casting a spell. She looks at Peter, who flips over the brochure map they have with them, looks at the different gestures, and points to "wind." After glancing at the legend to get an idea of the gesture shape, Anna holds down the gesture button and waves the device through the air accordingly. A passer-by stops and stares, open-mouthed. Once the spell gesture is complete, Anna releases the button, and a short "tornado" video with audio playback confirms that she has successfully completed the wind gesture. A figure is shown on the detector screen, and a spirit with a friendly but dark voice begins to speak to the players2: REXplorer! It's nice to see you. I am a salt trader. People like me used horses to pull heavy ships full of expensive salt up the river Danube to Regensburg until around 1820 A.D. Usually, the excursions lasted four weeks at a time. Yep, my life is tough and dangerous. Thieves plague 1 A trailer and other materials are available at http://rexplorer.arch.ethz.ch. 2 Note that the original voice acting is in German, and that passages from the game have been translated by the author. the salt trading routes, but I have a loving wife who constantly prays in a nearby church for my safe return. Only the fire of her love keeps me alive. Would you be willing to deliver a message to my woman? Then show me the appropriate gesture. After listening carefully to the puzzle, Anna understands that she must cast the "fire" spell to accept the quest. She looks at Peter and asks: "Which one was fire, again?" Peter shows her the gesture legend and Anna successfully completes the fire gesture to accept the quest. Then she hears: I thank you from the bottom of my heart! It pleases me that you are willing to deliver my love letter to my wife at the St. Ulrich Church near the Cathedral. Oh! My colleagues are already waiting for me at the river. Good luck! Take care of yourselves. Peter checks the brochure map and quickly finds the next location. He looks to Anna and asks: "Where are we now?" She presses the map button on the detector, which then shows them their current position and the destination of their open quest. After orienting themselves, they start walking towards the St. Ulrich Church to complete their mission. On their way, they stop over at the Regensburg Cathedral, which looks quite beautiful before the bright blue Bavarian sky. They take pictures of themselves and of the monument using the detector's photo function. After an hour and half, Anna and Peter return the detector, which has told them, in its unforgettable, sardonic voice, that it is starting to grow tired and that walking back to the tourist office would be quite swell. Once back at the tourist office, Anna and Peter return the game controller and receive their refunded deposit. The friendly tourist office staff downloads the couple's gameplay session data from their detector, including their route, completed quests, and photos. From this data, Anna and Peter's personal, geo-referenced gameblog Website for the session is automatically created. The URL for the blog is sent to their e-mail addresses and printed onto a postcard they receive before leaving the tourist office. Walz et al. (2006), Ballagas and Walz (2007), and Walz and Ballagas (2007) discuss several aspects of REXplorer in-depth, such as the game's design, its player-centered iterative development including play-testing, and its inherently persuasive strategies that promote game-based learning. Figure 2 depicts two players enjoying REXplorer in front of Regensburg's city core ensemble. The three scenes described above reveal that today, ludic architectures, which in and of themselves are structurally and representationally digital, have now extended into the realm of physicality, creating a hybrid gamespace in the process. In this age of hybrid, connectivist gamespaces such as that of REXplorer , learning(-by-playing) becomes all the more a "process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources" (Siemens 2005:7). Theorizing about ludic architectures, then, means connecting information sources concerned with architecture, play, and games, and examining how all three ultimately manifest as architectural formats Figure 2 Two players enjoying a REXplorer game quest on the Stei-nerne Brücke in front of Regensburg's UNESCO world heritage protected city core ensemble, including the cathedral. 2. About Games, Play, and Architecture The scenes presented above demonstrate that digital games have history and a future ”" when it comes to games, we all "face the development of new typologies of space" (Borries/Walz/Böttger 2007:113): "To choose a game is to choose an architecture" (Wigley 2007:484). This comment has a more profound undertone if you consider that today, commercial games are "the emergent cultural form of our time" (Wark 2007:22) that will eventually surpass even the movie industry and other entertainment media. Games are, perhaps, "architecture's final frontier" (Wiltshire 2007). We can be relatively sure that games are changing our notion of space and time. This is made clear by innovative urban games such as REXplorer that superimpose physical architectures with a digital layer4 or by other recent games such as Majestic that involve different forms of media and sneak unexpectedly into our living rooms. Another example 3 Note that throughout this book, texts from the book Space Time Play. Computer Games, Architecture and Urban ism: The Next Level will be frequently referenced. In fact, Space Time Play ”" co-edited by this author with two colleagues and published by Birkhäuser Publishers in the fall of 2007 ”" can be considered a reading prerequisite to and/or a vademecum for this book. 4 Games such as REXplorer are often and interchangeably called "ubiquitous" or "pervasive" games. IBM introduced the term "pervasive computing" back in 1998 to describe a research and business concept by which computers are embedded into our surroundings. Ten years earlier, the research concept of "ubiquitous computing" had been intro duced by Mark Weiser from XEROX Parc (Weiser 1996). The term encompasses the "third wave in computing" (ibid.), in which one person interacts with many computers ”" as opposed to both the mainframe stage of computing, during which many people shared one computer, and the PC phase, in which a one-to-one rationale was prevalent (i.e. one computer per person ”" or, of course, one person per computer if we regarded the computer as a resource). Mattern has described the differentiation of the terms ubiquitous computing and pervasive computing as follows: "While [Mark] Weiser uses the term "Ubiquitous Computing" rather in an academic-idealistic way, describing an unobtrusive, human-centric vision of technology, the term "Pervasive Computing" has been coined by the industry with a slightly different emphasis: This term also centers around the idea of permeating and omnipresent information processing, but with the specific short-term goal of utilizing it in e-commerce scenarios and web-based business processes" (Mattern 2003 cit. after Hinske et al. 2007:24).is the latest Nintendo console, the Wii, which allows for wireless gestural player input by means of a game controller with built-in accelerometers and a Bluetooth connection. In the tennis game shipped with the Wii Sports (2006) set, the player can swing the controller as if swinging a tennis racket to hit an oncoming ball in real time in a 3D representation of a tennis court rendered onto the TV screen to which the console connects (Kelley 2007b:24f.). Yet the change is also generational. Today, games are not merely for children - they constitute a major adult business, and major architecture is created through them. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the first game generation grew up playing Space Invaders , Pac-Man , Frogger , and Donkey Kong . Indeed, the author of this book will admit that he himself spent quite some time playing games on the world's first video console with exchangeable game cartridges, the Atari VCS (Atari 1977); that as a pre-schooler, he was the proud owner of a Philips G7000 (Philips 1978); and that later, while attending secondary school, he played and learned to program BASIC on the Z80 CPU-based budget home computer Amstrad CPC 61285 ”" the European alternative to 8-bit home computers such as Commodore's C64 (Commodore 1982). With the exception of university and high school labs and networks, PlayNET (1984), an online service for C64s in the US between 1984 and 1987, was the first computer-to-computer online communication network to utilize graphics and interactive menus and deliver computerized multiplayer gaming through a 300- or 1200-baud modem (Morabito 1985). PlayNET licensed its networking soft- and hardware solutions to Quantum Link or Q-Link, a US and Canada-only online service provider for Commodore's C64 and C128 computers that changed its name to America Online (AOL) in October 1991 and went 5 In Germany, Amstrad computers such as the CPC 464, the CPC 664, and the CPC 6128 with a doubled memory of 128K were marketed by the Schneider company and branded as Schneider computers.on to become one of the driving forces behind the evolution of the World Wide Web6. Thus it was the home computer-based PlayNET that helped kick start today's online gaming culture (focused on games such as World of Warcraft as well as on increasingly popular free-to-play browser games) that spans social spaces across the planet. The soft- and hardware of digital games have gone through quite an evolution in the past decades, and scholarly reflection is having a tough time keeping up. But just because games are well suited for rule processing, does not mean all games encompass digital realms. Board games have been played for thousands of years across cultures like analogue rule-processing machines that we players crank, metaphorically speaking, turn-by-turn, movement-by-movement. At the same time, athletic competitions continue to constitute an important aspect of Western civilization. But whether sport competition, computer game, or board game, at the heart of all those formalized, rule-based ludic activities that we call games, is play ”" an anthropological constant and a phenomenon that is, mind, not exclusive to humans. If games are indeed architecture's final frontier, then this book aims to contribute to an architectural understanding and appreciation of play and games. The following problem statement details how this will be achieved. 3. Problem Statement In the past, scholarly discourse has examined games and play, including digitally processed games, from many perspectives in an effort to explain them as cultural artifacts. The so-called narratologists have interpreted games as novel forms of 6 See http://www.qlinklives.org for a historical record maintained by one of the Q-Link co-founders.narrative (Murray 1997; Manovich 2001) or texts to read (Bolter and Grusin 2000). The ludologists have insisted that games should be analyzed sui generis (Aarseth 1997), being mainly systems of rules that govern play, regardless of whether they are digital or analogue (Salen and Zimmerman 2004). Others have suggested a middle ground, arguing that the dualism of narratology-ludology is quite artificial and asserting that a ludological perspective cannot exclude the narratological approach (Frasca 2003). Eventually, this approach was formulated into a model that analyzes videogames as a trans-medium that features both a set of rules and a fictional world (Juul 2005). Thus digital games as cultural artifacts have been alternately understood as rule-bound ludic activities, interactive narratives, trans-medial combinations of the latter, or procedural environments composed of unit-operational software-based objects (Bogost 2006). Each of these attempts implicitly or explicitly assumes that games are, have, or take place in spaces. One could certainly agree that, for example, a rule-bound play activity must take place somewhere; that an interactive narrative immerses the player in a navigable story set in a certain place with certain spatial qualities; and that a unit-operational system creates an environment for the player to play in and with. With the help of more than 140 authors, the book Space Time Play (Borries/Walz/Böttger 2007), co-edited by the author, has broken new ground and attempted to shed light on the relationship between computer games, architecture, and urbanism. So far, however, there is no in-depth treatise that aims to architecturally frame play and games as human practices in space and of space, examining the forms in which ludic activities take place. This book attempts to fill this gap in the academic discourse and to work towards a ludic architecture, i.e. a comprehensive and critical discussion of play and games through the lens of architectural paradigms. Such a contribution is needed to accommodate the development of ludic architectures, particularly when they extend into the physical world as in the REXplorer example. The questions that can help guide us in framing such a ludic architecture include: — — What are the parameters of a conceptual space of play, and how can we consider play as an architectural category? How is play architected? How does it relate to space, and how does it produce space? — — What are the parameters of a conceptual space of digital games ”" what can we gain from locative, representational, programmatic, dramaturgical, typological, perspectivistic, form-functional, technological, and phenomenological approaches in research literature? Are these approaches adequate for our overall task? — — What does a sketched analytical framework for games-as-architectures sui generis look like? — — In what prototypical spatial types are play and games rooted ”" what could we learn from these types via critical and episodic inquiry informed by the parameters mentioned above? 4. Methodology and Overview This treatise on the nature of ludic architecture is structured as follows: — — In the first section, PLAYSPACE , we examine the conceptual space of play, seeking to define dimensions that are relevant in looking at play as an architectural category. We differentiate this conceptual space into an ambiguity dimension, a player dimension, a modality dimension, a kinetic dimension (wherein we strive to define play as a relational human practice in space), an enjoyment dimension, and, eventually, a culture and context dimension. — — In the subsequent section, GAMESPACE , we first consider play as an essential part of games and vice versa. We then review and update existing notions of space and spatiality in digital game (design) research as well as notions and applications of games in architectural research with the goal of mapping a conceptual gamespace. Finally, we sketch out a preliminary analysis framework for investigating the spatiality of games, in which the playspace and gamespace dimensions are set into relation. — — In PLAY-GROUNDS: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF LUDIC ARCHITECTURE , we apply this framework to critically and essayistically discuss "play-grounds", i.e. prototypical and historically persistent spaces of play and gameplay before and beyond the digital game. These play-grounds are connected by conceptual links that can be explored by users/readers and implicitly suggest ludic trajectories and a spatial discourse. — — We conclude this work with the GAME OVER! INSERT COIN section, which offers a summary of our findings and an outlook. 5. Significance and Contribution This book, which frames play and games architecturally, contributes to a number of fields: — — The disciplines of Game Studies and Game Design, as well as related entertainment media and entertainment technology industries. — — The disciplines of Architecture & Computer Aided Architectural Design (CAAD), contemporary Urban Planning theory and practice, and related industries. It is hoped that this treatise will help bridge the fields of Architecture and Game Design to the extent that academia will be able to increasingly work at the intersection of both disciplines. Some rough guidelines for achieving joint progress in an academic context are offered below: — — Throughout their university training, architectural students should be taught to consider games as dynamic, innovative, and challenging architectural outlets that can be design results or components of the design process. The field of CAAD in particular can benefit from games as tools and results; Walz and Schoch (2006) demonstrate how this can be achieved by examining a pervasive game class centered on a location-based learning and meeting game for students and faculty of the ETH Zurich that superimposed and accurately reflected pre-existing sites and usages. Other classes on games and architecture have been taught by the author at the Department of Architecture at the University of Stuttgart, resulting in a number of architectural theses that used game mechanics to create or even automate architectural space, cf. Walz (2006a). On the other hand, game design and development students as well as those students learning how to produce, sell or create art for games and other entertainment media should learn from the get-go to consider games in terms of spatial design. — — In the research context, academically-minded architects should take advantage of games and entertainment media beyond the visualization and performance power of game engines in order, for example, to investigate how a building or a location can become an interactive partner or a narrative to be explored over time ”" as in a biofeedback game prototype in which the player is connected to a physical space's functionalities (Walz et al. 2005). At the same time, research in entertainment media and game design can benefit from ludicly-inclined architects who conceptualize programs geared toward, for example, mobility, place-making, future learning, or problem simulation, regardless of whether the programs are executed virtually, physically, or in hybrid situations, using high or low technology.
Playing is a special type of human activity ”" an anthropological constant. In order to think about the nature of play, we must clarify beforehand that there is, of course, a difference between the terms play and games, although languages such as French or German do not differentiate between the two. In German, there is only one noun, Spiel, which is used when speaking of both game and play, and one verb, spielen, meaning both to play and to play a game. Our discussion of play in this book is based on the assumption that play is the foundation of a game, and that neither can exist without We look at games and play as human practices in space, and in doing so, initially examine play in the context of architecture. What are the parameters of play? To what practices does play give rise? How do we design the space of play, and how does play relate to games? What are, in total, the dimensions of a conceptual playspace? In this section, we outline the dimensions of this conceptual playspace in order to move closer towards answering these questions. The approaches applied vary and include theories and findings from a variety of fields so that throughout the course of the examination, we develop our own definition of play by way of the following subsections: Play as ambiguous category: The ideologization of the term play is discussed, on the one hand following up on a prevalent academic discussion initiated by Sutton-Smith (1997), and on the other hand underlining that play is subject to contextual and rhetorical uses all across the sciences. 1. The Ambiguity Dimension In the past, the phenomenon of play has been investigated by many scholars from a wide variety of fields. In Homo Ludens, cultural anthropologist Johan Huizinga argues that human culture itself bears the character of play, suggesting that play is not only of prime importance to, but also a necessary condition for, enculturalization (1939/1971). With regard to the design of the built environment, we read Le Corbusier's oft-cited claim from Vers une Architecture that "Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of volumes brought together in light" (Le Corbusier 1928/2008:102), establishing "stirring relationships" (1928/2008:194). Reflecting on the information age, William J. Mitchell plays on Le Corbusier's belief in progress, stating: "Architecture is no longer simply the play of masses in light. It now embraces the play of digital information in space" (Mitchell 1999:41). But what is play? Developmental psychology, for example, has long concluded that for human children, play involves imaginary situations mandatory for learning and child development (Vygotsky 1978:93). Indeed, Piaget (1951) found that play is important for deep learning, which has led contemporary educational learning theorists to claim that, generally speaking, "players are also learners" (Becker 2007:24), even more so when playing well-designed games that are capable of creating intrinsic motivation in the player (2007:25). In order to better understand play, let us take a step back and consider the words of game design scholars Salen and Zimmerman who point out that many "studies of play focus on identifying the function or purpose of play. The implicit assumption is that play serves a larger purpose for the individual psyche, the social unit, the classroom, the species, and so on" (2004:309). This finding ”" that play is best explained by demonstrating that it defers to another concept ”" can be fine-tuned against the backdrop of an already classic study by Brian Sutton-Smith based on "overwhelming evidence that the meaning of games is, in part, a function of the ideas of those who think about them" (Avedon 1971:438). In The Ambiguity of Play (1997), the social science of play pioneer and professor of education dissects the varied, rhetorical uses of play across disciplines and purposes. Play, Sutton-Smith argues, is an ambiguous term. It is used in different contexts with different underpinnings, often shadowing activities and describing them imprecisely and vaguely, thereby persuading the audience to think of the process or activity ambiguously. Thus play cannot be explained by defining the way it functions, but by identifying those who use it as a means to convey a certain communicative strategy (1997:3). An architectural theorist, for example, is likely to bring architectural meaning to the study of games and play and naturally, will want to define and possibly explain playing in terms of space. In his excellent meta-study, Sutton-Smith goes even further, claiming that "practically anything can become an agency for some kind of play" (Sutton-Smith 1997:6). To support this argument, Sutton-Smith lists activities that are said to represent forms of play or experiences of play, ranging from private to very public: mind or subjective play; 2. The Player Dimension In addition to the ambiguity of play discussed in the past subsection, the playspace we describe here always embodies a player and, by extension, subjectivity. Without a player, there is no play; and even more importantly, subjectivity in play has a particularly important role. Let us briefly investigate this role in the context of both design methods and empirical findings in human-computer interaction. 2.1. The Diversity of Players On the one hand, we can derive this special role of the player from the diversity of players: there are infant, preschool, childhood, adolescent, and adult players, all of whom play somewhat differently. There are male and female players. There are gamblers, gamesters, sports, and sports players, and there are playboys and play-girls, playfellows, playful people, playgoers, playwrights, playmakers, and playmates (Sutton-Smith 1997:5f.). The diversity of players is obvious in less designed and more subjective play experiences, and the audience plays an even more important role in designed play as well as in games. In game design, and in particular in the design of digital games, player-centrism is just one of many approaches ”" like, for example, market-driven or technology-driven approaches ”" favored because it usually produces the most enjoyable experiences (Adams and Rollings 2006). A player-centric approach understands and designs ludic activities from the point of view of the player. Fullerton underlines that playtesting ”" a design method in player-centered design ”" "is the single most important activity a designer engages in (...). Play testing is something the designer performs throughout the entire design process to gain an insight into how players experience the game" (2008:196). Whether conducted quantitatively with the help of questionnaires or game-play log files or qualitatively with the help of video taping, narrative interviews, or participant observation and field diaries, playtesting helps to improve a designed ludic activity. In addition to creating a game experience that entertains, a designer of a ludic product must understand, as thoroughly as possible, the player's expectations, motives, and needs. Another duty of the player-centric game designer is to comprehend the player's background, mindset, and desires and to empathize with the player by imagining what it will feel like to experience the game, cf. Adams and Rollings (2006:38). In an article about pervasive game design, this author has listed a number of questions that illuminate core challenges in considering the player dimension of playspace at the beginning of a project, even before a design idea has come into being: Who is the player? What is the typical player's background? How would you describe the player ”" as a competitor, a contemplator, a strategist, a socializer, etc.? What kind of medial and technological expertise does the player bring to the game? 2.2. Human-Centered Design and Situated Action The concept of player-centered design emerged in conjunction with the concept of a "user-centered" approach to design (Norman and Draper 1986). Today, user-centered design is commonly referred to as a human-centered design approach and appears frequently in interactive system design. Both human-computer interaction experts and game designers have long recognized that human-computer interfaces and interactions should be designed iteratively (Buxton and Sniderman 1980; Nielsen 1993; Gould and Lewis 1985; Adams and Rollings 2006; Fullerton 2008) because the requirements for an interactive system cannot be completely specified at the beginning of the lifecycle (Dix et al. 1998). Instead, designs need to be prototyped and tested by actual participants or players so that any false assumptions or unforeseen problems will be revealed. These problems can then be corrected in the next iteration of the prototype, which should then again be tested to ensure that the problems are truly resolved. The player-centric and human-centered approach are complemented by the concept of "situated action." Together, they have shown empirically that we can only understand human action as the result of a social situation and thus through the subjectiveness of the experience of that situation. This applies to human-machine communication as well. In her book Plans and Situated Action (Suchman 1987), Lucy Suchman develops a human-computer interaction theory that takes into account results from cognitive science research and Suchman's own experimental work ”" including, for example, her studies of and designs for Xerox machine interfaces. In the book, Suchman rejects the view that action is pre-planned and argues instead that plans for acting towards a situation can be seen as resources. Suchman shows that people act not prescriptively, but according to social and material contexts ”" that in fact, their actions are entirely influenced by their situational contexts. Behavior can thus be described as "situated action." Machines, then, are not just "things," but rather co-creators of this situatedness (1987:55ff.). Building on Suchman, Reeves and Nass (1996) conducted empirical experiments that popularized the notion that people treat computers, television, and other media as if they were "real" people and "real" environments, taking for granted that which a given medium conveys. In other words, the notion that media have become indistinguishable from real life: Media are treated politely, they can invade our body space, they can have personalities that match our own, they can be a teammate, and they can elicit gender stereotypes. Media can evoke emotional responses, demand attention, threaten us, influence memories, and change ideas of what is natural. Media are full participants in our social and natural world (Reeves and Nass 1996:251). Stanford University researcher BJ Fogg ”" who studied under Nass and Reeves ”" has taken this kind of research even further. In the context of researching and developing persuasive technologies, Fogg more precisely categorizes how people respond to virtually all computing products: "Interactive technologies can operate in three basic ways: as tools, as media, and as social actors" (Fogg 2003:22). Both Suchman, Reeves and Nass, and Fogg have empirically demonstrated that to a given audience, a medium or communicative properties of this medium are not perceived, say, on a physical-virtual continuum ("More virtual" ”" "Less virtual"), but rather in a straightforward situated fashion. In addition, all three parties recommend that designers take these phenomena into account during their design processes. 2.3. Conclusion: The Player in Architecture The player is central to designing an enjoyable ludic activity. The player is also central to understanding the role of play outside of a particular situation. The player dimension of an architecturally-framed notion of play underlines the humanity of play and challenges architects' thinking about play to include participatory design methods into their repertoire. Beginning in the 1920s, when increasing urbanization of Western society spawned the systematic research and development of modern design, modernists like Theo van Doesborg of the Dutch art and architecture group De Stijl began calling for a system of art and design based on rationality and objectivity (cf. Cross 2007:41), and architect Le Corbusier proposed that a house is an objectively-designed "machine for living" (ibid.). Cross: "[In De Stijl and Le Corbusier's philosophies], and throughout much of the Modernist Movement, we see a desire to produce works of art and design based on objectivity and rationality; that is: on the values of science" (ibid.). Yet, this spirit of merely rationalizing the player is slowly changing. Since the 1970s, several approaches have demonstrated how architecture and urbanism can profit from participatory design thereby creating a new kind of proximity between people and the built environment. Recent examples include: The Kaisersrot[7] research and software developed at the ETH Zurich, which integrates the computer as a "consensus-machine" that generates and optimizes design solutions for both individual buildings and large-scale urban design, processing stakeholder wish lists so that an equilibrial state is reached (Lehnerer 2007). 3. The Modality Dimension As a human activity, the act of playing is naturally subjective. Even in the virtual world of God of War (Sony Computer Entertainment 2005), the player "is" the player-avatar Kratos, though really, he or she is only being represented by a graphical and animated figure. Peter Vorderer has summed up this duality of subjective representation, finding that games ”" and video games in particular ”" synthesize entertainment media and toys, placing the player in the role of witness on the one hand, and the role of participant on the other (Vorderer 2000:30f.). Although we introduced player-centrism as a guiding design and analytical principle in the last section, it is still necessary to differentiate player-centrism into several modalities of playspace representation. This becomes particularly important when we consider the advent of pervasive games, which ubiquitously superimpose physical space with interactable computer-generated interfaces and content. Inspired by virtual-world design pioneer Richard Bartle (2004), we assume the following modalities: Physical: Players, spaces, and objects that are material. Hybrid: That which is not material but has the form or effect of that which is material mixed with that which is material to the extent that one can no longer be separated from the other without losing its form or intended or emerging effect. 4. The Kinetic Dimension The context in which we will discuss play in this subsection is that of movement; the goal is to show how play, movement, and rhythm interrelate and, based on this demonstration, to formulate a working definition. As mentioned above, this approach also attempts to demonstrate how play and architecture share the properties of movement and rhythm at their core. In order to do so, we will now discuss notions of movement and rhythm in architecture, after which we will take a look at an exemplary notion of movement and rhythm in a field closely related to play ”" that is, dance ”" so that finally we can discuss at length the function of movement and rhythm in play itself. 4.1. Notions of Movement and Rhythm By thinking of play in terms of movement and rhythm, we attempt to think of play architecturally as a rhythmic activity tied to and enabled by space and objects in space and itself a producer of space. We hypothesize that implicitly or explicitly, movement and rhythm appear across design ideologies in architectural theory and practice, can be considered to lie at the core of designing a built environment, and serve as a pre-condition for spatiality. In the following section, examples from contemporary and often conflicting architectural theories and practices will prove the truth of this hypothesis. These examples illustrate different ways that we can think about and define movement and rhythm. In the Chartre d'Athènes directed at future architecture and urban planning students, Le Corbusier explains that "Architecture is volume and movement" (Le Corbusier 1962:28). In other words, we wander through architecture, and this modality of movement determines how architecture is experienced. Movement places the visitor into positions and involves him or her in processes, guides views, enforces velocity, and presents or conceals parts of the whole. The way we move through a designed environment is responsible for our expectations of that environment. Thanks to material and immaterial emphases and the ordering of interior and exterior space, movement affects, shocks, or surprises us, reveals secrets, and, most importantly, asks us to actively participate in a space intellectually, physically, and relationally. Le Corbusier believed in dead architectures and living ones; the latter, he argued, present an interlinking of events ”" rhythms, i.e. pauses and tempi of space and light ”" that the visitor experiences. The result is that the visitor is affected by the space and interacts with it (1962:29f.). Fröbe (2004) finds that the described promenade architecturale is the central element in Le Corbusier's architectural and urban designs, programming rhythm into the relationship between user and architecture ”" a play of volumes-in-light for the user, but also with the user. From Marxist and Situationist-related philosopher Henri Lefebvre (1991), we have learned to consider this enacted relationship between a human being and an architecture as more than a rhythmical program of movements without social or political connotation that assumed a universal human being void of ideology. Instead of treating space as a mere aesthetical category, Lefebvre proposes that there are different levels of space, ranging from crude, natural, "abstract space" to "social space," the latter brought forth by the interaction between humans and their surrounding Lefebvre suggests a tripartite constitution of this (fundamentally social) spatiality: the perceived material "spatial practice," the conceived "representation of space," and the "lived" spatiality of the representation itself, called "representational space" (1991:38f.). Lefebvre envisions to evaluate spatial practices with the help of "rhythm analysis" (1991:205), and to experiment with spatial practices rhythmically using the spheres of music and dance. Consequentially, Lefebvre suggests the creation of a "rhythmanalysis" (sic!) discipline (Lefebvre 1996:219ff.), in which the city is analyzed through, for example, the rhythms created by bodies and their movements, daily sleep cycles, gestures, traffic, exchanges, sounds, sudden events such as accidents, festivities, moods, seasons, weather, light and darkness, colors, smells, the present-absent, tides, and waves. In a fabulous application of Lefebvrian theory to the ludic-landscapist realm of skateboarding, Borden (2001) investigates the movements of gyrating, gliding, rotating, miming, performing, declaiming, climbing, descending, and traversing as a particular "skateboarding-architecture" produced by and between skateboarder and skateboarding terrain. Citing Lefebvre, Borden concludes: "Like music and dance, skateboarding creates 'repetitions and redundancies of rhythms' and 'symmetries and asymmetries' irreducible to analytic thought" (2001:113). To Borden, the interaction enacted by and between skateboarders and their terrain allows us to think of architecture "not as a thing but a flow" (Borden 2001:9). Borden thereby suggests that the physical concepts of movement and rhythm relate to the psychological concept of "flow" (Csíkszentmihályi 1975), which many consider to be at the core of gameplay situations capable of absorbing players (Chen 2007). Csíkszentmihályi's understanding of flow includes activities designed to make optimal and, most importantly, enjoyable experiences easier to achieve. Flow-inducing activities such as ritual, play, dance, or art facilitate concentration and involvement by way of controllable rules, skill learning, attached goals, and feedback (Csíkszentmihályi 1991:72) ”" the type of flow that results, we see, is more related to formalized, game-like activities than to playful activities. We will later return to the concept of flow in order to detail how flow is typically induced. Whereas the psychological state of flow is attached to a kind of deep absorption, architectural flow is based on the assumption that a certain type of architecture can cause a rhythmic to-and-fro flow, which need not necessarily result in a psychological flow state. The psychological flow concept is thus not the only way to think about the relationship between player and play-other, particularly not in the context of more lightweight, less formalized play activities. Writing from a far more functionalistic and, like Le Corbusier's, aesthetisizing standpoint, urban planning theorist Kevin Lynch (1960) concerns himself with the look of cities and the way they present themselves to their dwellers as coherent, visible, and clear ”" in total, as beautiful and highly "imageable." Lynch suggests that certain large-scale design elements can heighten the city's legibility and facilitate, for example, orientation. In Lynch's view, the more easily a city can be read, the more beautiful it is. Lynch's suggested design elements for achieving this "imageability" include clear, coherent, and visible "paths" (e.g. streets, canals, railroads), "edges" (walls, shores), "districts," "nodes" (squares, street corner hangouts), and "landmarks" (points of reference such as towers and domes) (Lynch 1960:46ff.). This choice of elements reflects Lynch's belief that fundamentally, "a city is sensed in motion" (Lynch 1960:107). In a later work about the semantics of the city, What time is this Place?, Lynch (1972) investigates humans' innate conception of time and how it relates to change and reoccurring events ”" i.e. naturally-generated rhythms such as sunrise and sunset as well as artificial city rhythms in an ever-changing urban landscape caused, for example, by catastrophe, building activities, or demolishing. Lynch finds that time and change create our sense of being alive, and that it is therefore crucial for time and change to be represented meaningfully in the urban landscape. Beyond the timely order created by watches, the rhythm of change must be celebrated and carefully planned ”" in prototyping environments, for example. Lynch's core idea is thus the "architect of time" who enhances the legibility of time in the city by, for example, visibly layering materials from different eras, planning vegetation in the city, designing shadows that passersby can watch move, or publicly displaying image and film stock that documents change (1972:248ff.). In keeping with this metaphor of city rhythm, Rem Koolhaas ”" another, more contemporary European architect (and opponent of Le Corbusier) ”" glorifies tempo and movement (Trüby 2003), but neither as means to create a relationship between a space and a user nor as means to achieve a Genius Loci, a holistic, site-specific, unique architectural characteristic. Rather, Koolhaas sees tempo and movement as expressions of globalization that assure constant change and the promise of (or excuse for) generic architectures without predefined programs (Koolhaas 2003). For Koolhaas and his concept of the Generic City, it is not only the rhythm of spatial impressions that defines architecture, but also the rapid rhythm of change that dictates how an urbanity should be designed so that it can accommodate both that change itself and the movements causing it. We can compare Koolhaas' Hollywood-coulisse of the Generic City with Constant's idealistic New Babylon, a Situationist and radical draft for a future city freed from utilitarian labor in an oncoming ludic age: "Completely covered, artificially climatized and lit, and raised high above the ground on huge columns. Inhabitants are given access to powerful, ambience-creating resources to construct their own spaces whenever and wherever they desire. Light, acoustics, color, ventilation, texture, temperature, and moisture are infinitely variable. Movable floors, partitions, ramps, ladders, bridges, and stairs are used to construct veritable labyrinths of the most heterogeneous forms in which desires continuously interact" (Lootsma 2007). In the urban game New Babylon, the city's very structure is subject to change and movement, and the Homo Ludens constantly adventures through this large-scale, inconsistent playground, always on One current and intriguing example of this vision of mobilizing architectural construction is architect David Fisher's proposal for the Dynamic Towers, two high rise buildings ”" one in Dubai, the other in Moscow ”" made up of voice-controlled levels that self-rotate on a horizontal axis so that the building becomes its own power plant and a kind of housing toy: "When human and spatial form(s) relationships become interactive, Architecture comes alive" (Naos 2000). The architects and urban planners, theorists and practitioners cited above are motivated by contradictory design philosophies, but all acknowledge the key role of movement and rhythm in architecture and urban design ”" whether they understand these as the movement of the user in relation to the built environment, the movement of chance, or the habitual movement of structural play. We ourselves can clearly see how the consequences of the mobile age have rubbed off on architectural vocabulary ”" just think of airports, railways, the Autobahn, motels, car-friendly city planning and zoning, modular furniture, etc. Today, movement ”" or, metaphorically speaking, liquefaction[8] ”" also impacts the architectural design process and building service and maintenance. The CAAD group at the ETH Zurich, for example, develops strategies and tools to overcome the container-space "dictate" by way of a total computerization and liquefaction of the architectural development and operation chain. Design drafts for buildings are programmed to achieve "individuality through movement" (Hovestadt 2006:78); CNC machines are employed to "print" pavilions; and networked, programmable structures and functions not only solve spatial composition problems, but also allow for emergent and adaptable (we can say: rhythmical) systems in architecture in building services, for example. The natures of movement and rhythm interrelate, as can be seen from the above examples, drawn from the fields of architecture and urban planning. They can occur relationally, aesthetically, topologically, navigationally, socially ”" in total: strategically. Yet although these philosophies are distinguishable as design rhetorics, we are proposing that all are implicitly or explicitly based on the following intrinsic assumptions: Architectural Movement Architectural movement is a relocation process of one or more subjects, objects, or spaces in space over time. Architectural Rhythm Architectural rhythm is the variation of measured movements in space We have now outlined and defined how movement and rhythm are considered in architectural thinking and design, but before we examine notions of movement and rhythm in the study of play in greater detail, we will make a little excursion into a bridging field that embodies, at a fundamental level, both movement and rhythm (see Lefebvre and Borden) and play: that is, dance. 4.2. Notions of Movement and Rhythm Play can become a kind of dance. In fact, Huizinga (1987) argues that dance is a particular and particularly perfect form of play: both phenomena are identical in nature. Because this is the case, and because, Huizinga believes, when we mention play, we somewhat imply dance, he neglects to explore the topic at greater depth (Huizinga 1987:181). This is an unfortunate decision on the part of the pioneering game scholar, since a proper understanding of dance would certainly shed light onto the nature of play. Caillois, another giant of game studies, goes a little further, subsuming dance as a kind of play and holding that dancing represents a form of disorderly movement that causes pleasure (and giddiness) and that falls under the greater heading ilinx, play and games based on the pursuit of vertigo (Caillois 2001:25). More clearly than Huizinga, Caillois points at that which constitutes dance: movement. But what is our understanding of movement and rhythm in the study of dance and in and of themselves? Perhaps the most representative and movement-focused research approach is that of Kinetography Laban or Labanotation, a movement notation system similar to music notation that "indicate[s] the accurate rhythm of movement" (Hutchinson 1977:3). It is particularly intended for the field of dance and generally aims to analyze and "record objectively the changes in the angles of the limbs, the paths in space, and the flow of energy [as well as] movement motivation and the subtle expression and quality" (1977:4). Labanotation ”" originally called Schrifttanz, i.e. scribe dance ”" is named after one of the founders of European Modern Dance and community dancing, the dancer, choreographer, and theoretician Rudolf Laban (1879-1958). Laban developed this visual recording system in the 1920s, distilling basic movements from existing movement sequences and translating these movements into a family of icons. Labanotation holds that movement is the result of the release of energy through a muscular response to an inner or outer stimulus that produces a visible result in time and space. Note that Laban's notation does not record the initial stimulus or the exact muscular response; instead, the change produced by muscular action is recorded. This also includes resulting changes such as the placement of limbs in space-time, body shape, or inner body tensions that accompany the initial change. Dance is thus understood as a language of expressive gestures. One way to notate movement using Labanotation is the Structural Form, which records the body and its parts, space (i.e. direction, level, distance, and degree of motion), time (i.e. meter and duration) and dynamics (i.e. quality or texture ”" like, for example, strong, heavy, elastic, accented, or emphasized). Note how Laban's system assumes that the purpose of any action may be to relate to one's own body, another person, an object, or a space (or part of space). The notion of rhythm, eventually, is linked to translating a basic recurrent beat or rhythmic pattern in music into physical action (1977:16). What does this mean in the context of play? Because computing technologies allow for the framing and constructing of motion, in real-time digital games, not only does the player prescribe the movements of the player-avatar (or, more generally speaking, the movements of the player-representation), but at the same time, the software program triggers player movements, detecting collision and scrutinizing whether or not the notational instructions are carried out in an orderly fashion. Reflecting on Labanotation, Pias argues that in this context, we can think of gameplay as a kind of dance (2002:34). Based on Pias, but also on Laban, we can propose a more general and more dialectical way to look at play through the lens of dance. First, a stimulus ”" which can be a solo event, a beat, or a rhythmic pattern ”" provides the player with something to respond to or with which to synchronize; in response to this stimulus, the player enacts a movement. This movement (or rhythm) places the player in a novel relation to another player, an object, or a space, possibly triggering a response. Recently, Laban's system has inspired other notational attempts. For example, in her German language doctoral dissertation, Gesche Joost (2006:65ff.) presents a visual notation system as an alternative analysis and information visualization method for a rhetorically oriented film analysis, intended to serve both as a tool and a language that transcends the composition of an opus. A notational system similar to that of Laban or Joost that would allow for the recording and even designing of play or gameplay has not yet been fully conceived, but will be an important topic in future game Analyzing the relationship between bodily actions and the corresponding responses from technology in two Sony Eyetoy games for the Sony PlayStation 2, Loke et al. (2007) have applied, among other movement-interaction frameworks, the Structural Form in Labanotation according to Hutchinson and other specialists in the field. Their contribution draws on the increasingly phenomenological philosophy in interaction design that all human actions, including cognitive acts, represent embodied action and that the bodily experience of movement is a way to access the world and objects in the world (2007:692). This stance of a "lived space," of course, can be traced back The analysis of the two games ”" a martial arts game and a musical beat mimicking game ”" operationalized gameplay into four basic actions: (a) selection (a wave gesture movement); (b) striking a moving object against a fixed target (a reach or flick movement); (c) striking a fixed target (a slashing or punching movement); and (d) striking a moving target (a slashing, punching, slapping, or swatting movement). The authors found that the existing notation did not allow researchers to capture the "lived movement as performed through interaction with the Eyetoy interface" (Loke et al. 2007:700). Therefore, the authors extended the Structural Form to include interface aspects, differentiating body parts into Hands, Arms, Upper Body, Legs, and Support for the movement transcription. This extension makes it possible to transcribe gameplay performance in reference to what Labanotation classifies as a "Dab" effort ”" a movement light in weight, direct in space, and sudden in time. For example, game events are represented alongside the body staff: a circle represents a flying CD that emerges from the center of the screen moving towards the upper right corner of the screen. In particular with regard to pervasive games that increasingly involve physical body movements, Loke et al. demonstrate how to use Labanotation as an analysis tool and potential game design tool. Given our human ability to move and to both react to and create rhythm, the discussion of play as movement that follows will certainly resonate. 4.3. Notions of Movement and Rhythm In his time, German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was born in Stuttgart in 1770 and who studied ”" together with Schelling and Hölderlin ”" theology in Tübingen, developed a radically new form of logic: dialectic. Dialectic thinking embodies a speculative Denkbewegung ”" in English, a thinking movement. This movement begins when one thinks about something that exists. Then, from the starting point, a difference or "other" emerges. The movement eventually manages to overcome this difference, thereby producing new knowledge and a new starting point. Hegel's dialectic thus not only posits how opposites unite, but also attempts to explain the constitutive movement and process of all things, material and immaterial ”" of existence itself (Ludwig 1997). Hegel, we could say, is not only the philosopher of movement who interprets perfectly designed thinking in terms of movement and, conversely, moving in terms of thinking; rather, he is also the philosopher whose dialectical moving describes a kind of play ”" that is, a speculation between thesis and antithesis that culminates in the (temporary) fusion through movement of the two initial opposites in a moment of concrete universality (Mitscherling 1992). Such a philosophical investigation of play-movement could be criticized as either too esoteric or too speculative (though given Hegel's understanding of speculative philosophy, this would not so much be criticism as praise). Sutton-Smith would maybe dedicate a chapter to Hegel called, "Rhetorics of Idealism." Hegel's identification of the special relationship between play and movement, however, only guided later thinking, helping to pave the path towards a seminal and phenomenological work dedicated to the study of games, play, and movement: F. J. J. Buytendijk's Het spel van mensch en dier als openbaring van levensdriften (1932), published in German as Wesen und Sinn des Spieles (Buytendijk 1933). In the following paragraphs, the German language version is used to describe Buytendijk's concepts. This theoretical work by the Dutch comparative psychological anthropologist presents a structural interpretation of children's and animal's play. Offering many behavioral examples, Buytendijk analyzes how both play and games dialectically transcend the opposition between player and play-other, which can take the form of another player, a plaything, or the environment. Note that this form of dialectical argumentation links Buytendijk to Hegel, although the former does not reference the latter. Buytendijk himself, though, is referenced by Johan Huinzga in the opening pages of Homo Ludens (Huizinga 1971:10). There, Huizinga criticizes Buytendijk for explaining play as a seconding vehicle that serves a biological purpose, arguing that this kind of theory fails to investigate the holistic nature of play and games, what and how they are, and what they mean to the player (1971:12). Given Huizinga's general stance, this is certainly a valid judgment: Huizinga proposes that play and games interrelate with human culture, that they are, fundamentally, the base and factor of culture, finding their expression in myths and rituals, law and order, traffic, handicraft and art, poetry, scholarship, and science (1971:13). Perhaps it is because of Huizinga's unfavorable review ”" and the wide influence of Homo Ludens ”" that Buytendijk's work appears to have never been properly translated into English and is seldom, if ever, cited by researchers. The impression Huizinga gives us of Buytendijk is, however, to some extent misleading. Buytendijk does indeed ask: "What is play? What are games? And why do we play?" (Buytendijk 1933:9ff.). And in the foreword to the German translation of his work, Kurt Lewin, a leading modern pioneer of social psychology, underlines the work's breadth of perspective; "weltmännisch," Lewin calls it (Lewin 1933:8), in English, "urbane," arguing that it attempts to explicate the general lineaments of play and games. Of course, Huizinga is right about Buytendijk's biologistical argument, which mainly attempts to illustrate how play and games span human (child and adult) and animal behavior, connecting the two, and how play and games can be interpreted psychologically and anthropologically as expressions of life drives in both humans and animals. Huizinga dismisses this framework as common knowledge (Huizinga 1971:11). But like Huizinga, Buytendijk understands "man as player" from childhood to adulthood, always seeking to understand play as passively expecting or actively seeking luck in life (see a late article by Buytendijk that appeared in the architectural magazine Deutsches Architektenblatt, in which he examines the meaning of play and games (Buytendijk 1995)). Yet, for Buytendijk, the "primitive" play and the rule-based game both pursue fictional, "as-if" purposes (Buytendijk 1933:159). That Kurt Lewin wrote the foreword to the German translation of Buytendijk's book is not a coincidence; before we proceed with a presentation of Buytendijk's work, we must first make a small digression to introduce Lewin's relevant ideas and briefly trace the history of their reception. This will allow us to better appreciate the impact of Buytendijk's theory of play and games and the concept of movement therein. 4.4. Excursus: Movement by Valence Kurt Lewin's early work ”" the portion on which we will concentrate ”" is concerned with the stimulative nature of objects and environments in relation to a subject. In the 1930s, Lewin tried to develop a formal, non-mathematical heuristic for psychology. The foundations for this language were presented in English in his book Principles of Topological Psychology (Lewin 1936), the first in a series of works dedicated to explaining the situational behavior of a person in terms of the forces (or vectors) acting on him or her. Five years earlier, however ”" that is, two years before Buytendijk published Wesen und Sinn des Spiels in German ”" Lewin had already published (in German) several major ideas inspired by his experiments with children, cf. Lewin (1931/1982). Lewin's central idea from this time is best paraphrased (and best known) as Lewin's Formula, a highly influential principle in perception and design-oriented areas of the social sciences: B=(P,E) where Behavior is a function of the Person and the Environment. Basically, Lewin's formula is an approach to explaining the attractiveness of spaces or objects for motivating behavior in an individual. Lewin's formula builds on the assumption that any given situation models a "force field" in which forces ”" functional possibilities caused by people, objects, or spaces ”" act upon an individual from different directions and with different intensities while, at the same time, the individual acts back. To describe a single defining force in such situations, Lewin introduced the term "Aufforderungscharakter," or "stimulative nature," usually referred to simply as "valence." Valence addresses the phenomenon that properties of objects or environments are either positively or negatively motivating actions and that thereby, objects ”" including toys, the topic of Lewin's research at the time ”" and environments trigger movement and determine the direction of behavior in any individual (Lewin 1931/1982:177). The valence of objects and environments can be attractive or repulsive to a person, thereby determining situational movement ”" for example, reaching for a toy or climbing onto something (ibid.). On a larger scale, valence also causes locomotion from region to region within a field or from one field to another. In all cases, valence adheres to an individual's wants and condition. To describe the sum of force fields in a person's life, Lewin later introduced the term "hodological space." This space can be expressed in the form of a psychologically defined topology in which paths and vectors between fields represent not the shortest paths, but the paths of least resistance (Lewin 1982:66f.). Note that the concept of the stimulative nature of objects and environments was also the inspiration for Gibson's "theory of affordances" (Gibson 1977), which we mention here to demonstrate the historical evolution from Lewin to today. Yet in this work, we will focus more on Lewin's valence theory. Using the neologism "affordance," Gibson explains that physical objects and environments have latent and objectively measurable "action possibilities" that allow and animate ”" i.e. "afford" ”" an agent to perform an action. Affordances, then, can be thought of as natural relationships between an agent and the world. Action possibilities, then, depend on the agent's ability to recognize these affordances and carry them out. Note that Gibson's reading of allowance implies that an object or an environment can become actionable in virtually every way the agent wants it to and is capable of making it. For example, a soccer ball can be rolled or kicked, but also sat on or used for something less obvious. This plethora of possible relationships between agent and object or environment underlines that in Gibson's reading, an affordance need not This kind of natural, objective, and visually-based possibility of interactions between an agent and an object's or an environment's gestalt, surfaces, colors, layout, or textures differs from a second, widely popular approach to the principle of affordance. Norman (1990), in a designerly publication, limits action possibilities to an affordance that is easily discoverable by an individual. Such an affordance "suggests" an activity and, according to Norman, can thus be considered "good" design. The difference between these two understandings of affordance, although not explicitly stated, can be seen in the Affordance entry in the Universal Principles of Design. There, Lidwell/Holden/Butler (2003:20) offer the example of round wheels being more conducive to rolling than square ones and of a door handle affording pulling in that it suggests the act of pulling, by the way of form factor, position on the door etc. Whereas in product design, the designer works with physical objects such as door handles that can have both actionable possibilities and perceived affordances, in screen-based design, designers needs to make sure that "clicking on [the] object is a meaningful, useful action, with a known outcome" (Norman 1999:40). In addition to the principle of perceivable affordance, as exemplified with the door handle, f
the other.
Play as subjective experience: Without the player, there is no play in space, and when designing (game)play, participatory design methods are crucial to creating an enjoyable ludic activity (Fullerton 2008). This subsection elaborates on both these assertions.
Play as modality: Beyond the subjective experience, play takes place either in a physical, imaginary, virtual, or hybrid setting. A model inspired by Bartle (2004) is introduced that organizes these aspects of playspace.
Play as rhythmical kinesis: In this subsection, we develop an architecturally-framed definition of play. Towards this end, we briefly consider notions of movement and rhythm in architecture before examining dance as movement because it allows us to speak of both a spatial and a playful activity. Eventually, with the help of Game Studies pioneer Buytendijk (1933), we propose looking at play as a particular kind of rhythmic movement that can be physical or virtual and that connects the player with the play-environment and a play-other. This way of looking at play allows us to think and speak of it in terms of space and architecture.
Play as enjoyment: Against the backdrop of our kineticist model of play, we reflect on and cross-compare pedagogical, anthropological, and game design taxonomies of play stimuli and player types (e.g. Fritz 2004), deriving an extended model of play pleasure. In addition, we review representative aspects of play enjoyment, including absorption and perceived difficulty.
Play as designed phenomenon: We discuss, representatively, how given physical environments are perceived to be play-suitable and feature positive valence (Hendricks 2001).
Play and games ”" games and play: We elaborate on the interrelation of play and games in order to bridge to the following section, in which we scrutinize both the formal nature and spatiality of games.
Taken as a whole, this section prepares us to identify and review existing concepts of space and spatiality with regard to games. In this context, games are understood as formalized systems of play.
solitary play;
playful behaviors;
informal social play;
vicarious audience play;
performance play;
celebrations and festivals;
contests, i.e. games and sports;
risky or deep play (ibid.).
Based on Sutton-Smith, we could presume that there is no such thing as a biological nature of play, since a given rhetoric of play only serves as a communication strategy ”" that is, a means to an end. The Ambiguity of Play reminds us that whenever someone uses the term play, we should pay careful attention to the context in which the term
is used.
and Player-Centric Design
What are the player's primary and secondary activities before, during, and after the expected game situation? What are the player's motives for being where he or she is and doing what he or she does outside of the game? How will the game change this?
What are potential concerns the player may have with regards to playing? What is the player's "gameness," including allotted time, budget, theatricality, and constraints?
(When) Does the player have company?
Where is the player, and how does he or she move about? At what pace? What is the activity space of the player in his or her current location? (Walz 2007:106).
Two historical roots of player-centrism in digital games will be briefly outlined in the next two sections. Understanding these roots is a prerequisite to reflecting on the role of participatory design in architecturally-framed play, as we will see in the last subsection of the player dimension discussion.
When used for participatory city planning, "scenario games" in the spirit of Buckminster Fuller's World Game can contribute to successful placemaking as well as increase awareness for environmental hazards (Bunschoten 2007).
Rule-based, participatory urban planning implies "a partial loss of authorship" for architects and urban planners, but gives individuals more freedom to choose and influence sites (Christiaanse and Lehnerer 2007:373).
As the built environment becomes increasingly computationally equipped, the player dimension of playspace will become more and more important for architectural design. Designers should always be aware that they never design the actual player experience, only the framework wherein that experience will take place.
Imaginary: That which is not material.
Virtual: That which is not material but has the form or effect of that which is material.
From this model, we can deduce that "Virtual worlds are places where the imaginary meets the real" (Bartle 2004:1). Virtual worlds are implemented by a computer ”" or a network of computers ”" "that simulates an environment" (Bartle 2004:1). In our reading, this notion of virtuality includes Web phenomena such as Websites. Pervasive ”" or, interchangeably, ubiquitous games ”" pervade virtuality so that play activities are (permanently) superimposed on the physical world. As a result, a new modality emerges, which we propose to describe as follows:
Using these modalities, we can say that a player plays in a physical, imaginary, virtual, or hybrid modality and thereby encapsulate the modality dimension of playspace. From the subjective perspective of the player, though, modality will not matter much as long as the player experience remains playful and unbroken.
in Architectural Theory
space (1991:26).
the move.
over time.
in Dance Notation
design research.
to Lefebvre.
in the Investigation of Play
and Affordance
be visible.
Games and play are interrelated phenomena. Salen and Zimmerman, for example, argue that games are a subset of play in that they formalize play, on the one hand, and on the other hand, that play is an essential game component (Salen and Zimmerman 2004:303). Without one or more players, there is no play; and without playing, the formal system of a game is not set in motion, but sits idling. This reciprocity is complemented by the concept of "meaningful play": in games, players can participate with "designed choices and procedures" (2004:60), and these programmed choices are made explicit to the player, like following the rules of a board game or using a game controller to move an avatar. Player choices result in game system outcomes, and the relationships between actions and outcomes are specified by rules. In digital games, these rules "are buried in layers of program code and are often difficult to identify" (2004:148). From these action, outcome units, interactive meaning, and, in turn, meaningful play Other research further complicates the peculiar relationship between play and games. Game theorist Jesper Juul, for example, holds that games contextualize play actions, and that in games, rules facilitate actions by differentiating between potential moves and game occurrences (2005:18f.). Raph Koster, lead designer of the massive multiplayer role playing game Ultima Online, suggests that playing a game implies pattern recognition, and that playing a certain kind of game involves recognizing and learning to master a particular kind of pattern (Koster 2005:36). In a likewise pattern-based approach to game design research, researchers Björk and Holopainen write that "playing a game can be described as making changes in quantitative game states, where each specific state is a collection of all values of all game elements and the relationships between them" (Björk and Holopainen 2005:8). Rules, in this reading, limit the actions a player can take while playing as well as limiting the game's boundaries, thereby governing how game components are instantiated in the game (2005:15). Furthermore, players perform actions in a game through varying modes of play, which are associated with goals, achievements, and other game components. For example, in the game Pac-Man (1980), the player can play either in a single- or two-player mode. The player moves the ever-moving Pac-Man up, down, left, or right to change direction, or until a wall is hit; on a higher action level, the player avoids ghosts, eats pills, and hunts ghosts after eating power pills. Direct interaction gameplay and cut scenes after loss of a life offer alternating modes of play (2005:28f.). Maybe it is precisely because the relationship between play and games is quite staggering that there are so many definitions of games, each with its own shortcomings and strengths, as Björk and Holopainen note. They themselves refrain to define games and instead offer an entire game design pattern systematics and all its implicit assumptions (Björk and Holopainen 2005:8). What is the solution to this jungle of definitions? To add another definition? How can we architecturally approximate games? From our model, we see that the conceptual game-play relationship builds on how the kineticist relationships between player and play-other are regulated and limited and how valence triggers play. Salen and Zimmerman's aforementioned model of meaningful choice somewhat resembles our concept. In our discussion, though, we have accentuated the notion of space: We have derived our definition of play from movement in space and the way that the player plays with a play-other (which can be a space). In the following section, we will first review and update existing notions of space and spatiality in digital games based on recent game and game design research as well as on architectural research. The goal is to map a conceptual gamespace. 1. Approaches to Space Given that games formalize play (a human practice in space): What are the dimensions of a conceptual gamespace? In order to answer this question, in this section we will frame gamespace by reviewing recent and architecturally relevant works in the field of game design research as well as by looking at architectural research concerned with the role of space and spatiality in games. The goal of these reviews is twofold: To filter the major existing contributions towards a spatial understanding of games, and to identify the shortcomings of those contributions. We will focus on the following approaches from the field of game studies and game design research: the concept of the magic circle in which games take place as well as a game's space of possibility (Salen and Zimmerman 2004); Next, three recent approaches from the world of architectural research are highlighted: A rhetorical discourse claiming that architectures turn into games. In their magnum opus Rules of Play. Game Design Fundamentals, Salen and Zimmerman (2004) developed two spatially inspired concepts that are relevant to 1.1.1. Space of Possibility A game designer creates game rules and a game structure and defines the context of a game. The designer thereby constructs, indirectly, a "space of possibility" (Salen and Zimmerman 2004:67). Salen and Zimmerman coin this term to express a number of concepts: the nature of a game as a designed context; 1.1.2. Magic Circle The magic circle is an idea introduced by Dutch anthropologist Johan Huizinga, adapted by Salen and Zimmerman (2004:94ff.) and since then widely discussed and accepted in game studies and game design research, cf. Adams and Rollings (2006:7). In Homo Ludens (1971), Huizinga writes that All play moves and has its being within a play-ground marked off beforehand either materially or ideally, deliberately or as a matter of course ” This arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart (Huizinga 1971:10). Although the magic circle is only one example in Huizinga's list of "play-grounds" and is referred to as an equivalent of ritualistic spaces, Salen and Zimmerman use it as a shorthand to describe how games create special ”" we could say contractual, i.e. rule-bound, voluntary, and agreed upon ”" distinct places in space and time that feature boundaries. The concept of the magic circle adumbrates "in a very basic sense (...) where the game takes place" (Salen and Zimmerman 2004:95). The concept of the magic circle may seem vague at first, but can be exemplified: Games as a framed reality of their own safeguard the player from an external reality; see Crawford, who asserts that "Conflict implies danger; danger means risk of harm; harm is undesirable. Therefore, a game is an artifice for providing the psychological experiences of conflict and danger while excluding their physical realizations. In short, a game is a safe way to experience reality" (Crawford 1982/1997:Chapter 1). When entering the reality of a game, a player crosses the frame, i.e. the boundary of a game. When pausing a game and resuming it shortly thereafter or a year thereafter, the player steps out of the magic circle of the game and its formalized activities (Salen and Zimmerman:95). Thus within or inside the magic circle, there is a game; without or outside the magic circle, there is no game. Notice how the concept of the magic circle seems to serve as a means of separating the "real" world from the "gameworld," as if games were safe havens. In fact, this protectionist view declares games to be non-secular, special, and ultimately, holy. Oerter (1999:17f.) argues that games and rituals are related phenomena and that we can observe overlaps between the function of rituals in games and the function of rituals in religious practice. Rituals are signified by both repetitive behavior and self-aggrandizement; they appear to have clear phylogenetical roots ”" that is to say, they are biologically founded. Paradoxically, rituals set up a rigid, secondary structure prescinding us, Oerter argues, from the uniformity of everyday life in order to help us deal with our existence. Quotidian uniformity is therefore temporarily and spatially replaced by ritualistic uniformity expressed through existentially heightening activities such as playing or worshipping. Salen and Zimmerman's concept of the magic circle is the equivalent of our kineticist notion of the play-ground that springs forth from the activity of play. But Salen and Zimmerman reserve the magic circle category solely for rule-based play, thereby diminishing the role of playing for the sake of formalization. Still, we can name this approach to space in games the locative approach to gamespace. 1.2. Allegory Pioneering ludologist Espen Aarseth has stressed that "the defining element in computer games is spatiality" (Aarseth 2007:44), arguing that computer based games are essentially concerned with representing and negotiating spaces and, more to the point, that spaces in digital games are allegories of physical space: "They pretend to portray space in ever more realistic ways, but rely on their deviation from reality in order to make the illusion playable" (2007:47). Aarseth does not expand upon the original meaning and usage of the term allegory, but we will now do just that, as it is important for this discussion. In the classic academic discipline of rhetoric, the allegory ”" from the Greek eirein, meaning to speak ”" is the rhetorical figure of false semblance, i.e. of extended and sustained metaphor. The metaphor, for its part, can be defined as a comparison made by referring to one thing as another. A textual example of a metaphor is, "Life is a beach." An allegory, by rhetorical definition, is an extended or sustained comparison made by referring to one thing as another. In Roman rhetoric, the allegory was known as the Latin words allegoria or permutatio, and Quintilian, an orator and course book author of the 3rd century A.D., considered the allegory a conceit (Fuhrmann 1990:129). Allegories often appear over the length of a whole discourse or piece of content. To return to our previous example, "Life is a beach," consider that a novel about life would take place at a beach and, in describing beach situations, would actually refer to life situations such as birth, sleep, hunger, love, and death. According to Aarseth, a gamespace is but a reductive operation that leads to a representation of space that is not spatial in and of itself, but symbolic and rule-bound. A computer game, then, represents a set of automated rules expressed in space. This reductive operation, which constitutes the gameworld always as an allegory of space, has one objective, argues Aarseth: to serve (and to defer to) gameplay (2007:45). In more architectural terms, we could say that a given gamespace renders the game's rule base and programs gameplay. Adams suggests that "Games, whether computerized or not, may be thought of as lying along a continuum between abstract and representational. The more abstract the game, the more it relies on arbitrary rules to define the game world and the gameplay. The more representational it is, the more it relies on similarities between real-world situations familiar to the player, and game-world situations." (Adams 2003:2). As we work towards achieving our goal of framing gamespace, we will term this approach the representational approach to gamespace. 1.3. Contested Space "(...) most often, critics describe games as narrative art, as interactive cinema, or participatory. But perhaps we should consider another starting point, viewing games as spatial art with its roots in architecture, landscape painting, sculpture, gardening, or amusement-park design (...). Game worlds are totally constructed environments" (Jenkins and Squire 2002:65). Putting aside the question of whether or not computer games can be qualified as "art", as we are not concerned with it here, let us focus on the fact that Jenkins and Squire consider the totally constructed digital environments of games to be hybrids of the following "contested spaces" (ibid.): Sports, in which players often contest over goals or respective positions on a field. Being less etymologically minded, we consider it highly questionable that all digital games contain contests, especially considering of our discussion of play pleasures. We are also skeptical of the assertion that all games are inspired by sports. Consider, for example, activities such as role-playing or exploration, which do not necessarily involve the attempt to beat an opponent. The most valuable observation, in my opinion, is made by Jenkins and Squire when they argue that some games have "hard rails" while other games have "soft rails." The former tightly program the player's movements, while the latter allow for multidirectional play (2002:69). Some games consist of predetermined paths that a player must follow in order to reach an objective; others program the player to explore solutions using many different paths and often feature various alternate endings. Game environments, in other words, can be divided into proposed promenades and imposed promenades. Overall, however, Wigley is right, even where emergent gameplay is concerned: "To choose a game is to choose an architecture (...)" (Wigley 2007:484). If we think of digital games as totally constructed environments, we can think of this approach towards gamespace as the programmatic approach, the approach closest to Le Corbusier's promenade architecturale in that it traces the actual process of gameplay during a game ”" traces, that is, how kinesis and play rhythms are organized over time. 1.4. Narrative It has been argued that not all games have stories and that though many games have narrative ambitions, it is unlikely that they will tell stories the way other media do. In the pioneering Interactive Book. A Guide to the Interactive Revolution (Pearce 1997), my colleague Celia Pearce coins the term "narrative architecture". Pearce argues that architects, when designing a building, knowingly or not, create "nonlinear experiences with variable paths or outcomes." (1997:26) Pearce extends her argument, looking not only at physical architecture as a medium - a "spaceplay" (ibid.) the designer has come up with ”" but also at virtual spaces, multimedia works and games; the latter which, from her perspective, can be aligned with theme parks. Players, so to say, enter an environment, visit locations in a certain order and begin to make use of the space so that it comes alive. Games can thus be seen as narrative spaces in which storytelling takes places environmentally (Jenkins (2007). Jenkins claims that there are at least four ways that "spatial stories can evoke preexisting narrative associations; they can provide a staging ground on which narrative events are enacted; they may embed narrative information within their mises-en-scène; or they provide resources for emergent narratives" (2007:57). Jenkins not only points out that narrative possibilities can be mapped onto and into gamespace, but also that games are often embedded into larger narrative systems that communicate story information with the help of books, comics, films, and other media (2007:57f.). This model reveals that the narrative space of games unfolds within the games themselves, but also around the games and that the way a game's story is told environmentally has both functional and structural implications. In Hamlet on the Holodeck, Murray argues that digital environments such as those in digital games feature four unique and essential properties: they are procedural, participatory, spatial, and encyclopedic (Murray 1997:71). According to Murray, digital environments are procedural because the defining, intrinsic ability of the computer is "to execute a series of rules" (ibid.), which are fed into the computer engine in the form of algorithms and heuristics. Murray further holds that digital environments are participatory because they are responsive to input ”" an observation that, when considered together with computers' inherent capacity to process rules, "is what is most often meant when we say that computers are interactive" (1997:74). Digital environments represent space we can move through: "The computer's spatial quality is created by the interactive process of navigation" (1997:80). Finally, the infinite expanses of digital environments, all potentially networked, enable their fourth characteristic ”" namely, that they induce encyclopedic expectation whereby "all the world's resources seem to be accessible, retrievable, immediate" (1997:84). Both Jenkins' and Murray's framework allow us to look at digital games as narrative, dramaturgical spaces. Pioneering adventure games such as (Colossal Cave) Adventure (1976/1977) or Zork (Infocom 1980; originally developed by MIT students 1977-1979), for example, are presented entirely textually and serve as outstanding examples of the way game uncertainty is organized spatially and fictionally and the way a game can be viewed as an integrated narrative gamespace. Both Adventure and Zork exemplify Jenkins' claims that spatial stories can evoke preexisting narrative associations. In Zork, for example, the player encounters a text-only interactive underground world filled with technological and fantasy elements. "The surroundings particularly enrich the game and give context to the puzzles and figures encountered, providing backstory and helping to defamiliarize the everyday" (Montfort 2007:65). Both Zork and Adventure can be said to be strongly narrative in that they are quite textually descriptive and that their stories are embedded into their mises-en-scène. Though Jenkins doesn't mention it, there is also a technological explanation for the latter phenomenon: both Adventure and Zork took advantage not only of the then prevalent command line paradigm, but also turned a weakness into a strength by turning the uncertainty created by the textuality of both games into a positive experience of exploring both game narrative and gamespace. Murray analyzes Zork in the context of her properties of digital environments, considering the game to be a fantasy world of dungeons that responds to typed commands. Based on Zork, Murray suggests that the key to creating a compelling participatory narrative world (something we would call positive valence) is to script the interactor ”" in our terms, to provide a formulaic, comprehensible, and usable repertoire of play-movements like, for example, "Go north," "Open the window," and "Drink water," and to further extend this repertoire (Murray 1997:79). At the same time, Zork is traversable; its space is navigationally created by the interactor (1997:80). An event in Zork such as a trapdoor crashing shut after the player has gone "Down" through it is directed at and caused by the player ”" that is to say, the play-other responds in a surprising way. Together, participation and navigation on the basis of the computer processing rules co-create dramatic power, or that which we could call the dramaturgical approach to gamespace. In contemporary digital games, we can find an abundance of Murray's encyclopedic property. In the interactive and cross-media fictions of Alternative Reality Games, players visit Websites to find clues, use databases to research puzzles, and chat with other players to collaboratively solve the fiction's challenges. In fact, these games require that all the world's resources be accessible, retrievable, and immediate in order for the narrative to successfully unfold. 1.5. Typology In a manner similar to Jenkins and Squire (2002), who were mentioned earlier in the Contested Space section of this book, Wolf examined screen-based digital gamespaces, concentrating on gameplay modalities reflected by visual representation (2002:51ff.). Though later, Boron critically extended Wolf's observations (2007), Wolf was the first to attempt to set different representations and particularities of gamespace into relation, and name them. In the chapter "Space in the Videogame" of his book The Medium of the Videogame, Wolf lists eleven types of gamespaces, ranging from no visual space/all text based, to interactive three-dimensional environments: One screen, contained. Still, a typological approach to gamespaces should reflect the many different ways a game can take place with or without the assistance of computing technologies. Note that the cited authors discuss digital display-based, i.e. visual spaces only. Adams (2003:4f.) mentions that even in digital games, we cannot think of visual space without auditory, tangible, olfactory, or other sensually evoked spaces. And in a pioneering study, Stockburger (2007) reflects on how sound affects the spatiotemporal nature of games, finding that in each game, there is an intrinsic rhythm that creates a sonic space that "aurally traces and defines the outer borders of the gameplay process and thus links the player's body to the machine" (2007:112). Type, then, can be analyzed according to the following two major inquiries: What are the primary physiological ”" i.e. exteroceptive and proprioceptive ”" methods by which the player perceives the game? For humans, exteroceptive possibilities include vision, audition, gustation, olfaction (see, for example, the Noble prize winning paper by Buck and Axel (1991), whose research opened the door for the genetic and molecular analysis and design of olfaction), tactition (see Robles-De-La-Torre (2006), who investigates the role of touch technology in several application scenarios), equilibrioception (i.e. balance), and, although not everyone may be able to perceive fluctuation in magnetic fields, magnetoception. Proprioceptive methods include the way a game is perceived body-internally, mainly by the relative position of the body and/or limbs, independent of vision (again, see Robles-De-La-Torre (2006)). Other senses are called interoceptive senses. One example of such a sense is nociception, i.e. pain reception, a term coined by Charles Sherrington in The Integrative Action of the Nervous System (Sherrington 1906), offering a design space for games that has been successfully examined with the help of the PainStation (2001) game machine installation. PainStation penalizes players of a Pong arcade game using heat impulses, electroshocks and a miniature lashing whip built into the machine. 1.6. Perspective Panofsky's (1927) influential essay tied the idea of perspective to the idea of how an artistic image depicts space, how the image is produced technically, and how it is perceived, as opposed to classifying the depicted form. What role does perspective take on in our context? It could be argued that our eyes render a physical space as a series of images, that this stereoscopic image projection can be mathematized, and that like everything else we see, it is subject to perspective. However feasible this argument, speaking of a physical experience solely in terms of an image experience ”" which, if one takes pervasive games into consideration, can be partially computer generated, thus complicating the issue ”" seems far too narrow to explain the experience of (formalized) play practices. In the context of digital games, we can, however, discuss the way that a space and a navigator through this space together produce types of perspectives. Naturally, this discussion would resemble Le Corbusier's discussion of the promenade architecturale as well as our discussion of play as a co-created activity. Schwingeler (2008) focuses on the way perspective is rendered in computer game "images," adapting Wolf's typology for demonstrating the concept of perspective games and building theoretically on Manovich, who contends that Computerization of perspectival construction made possible the automatic generation of a perspectival image of a model as seen from an arbitrary point of view ”" a picture of a virtual world recorded by a virtual camera" (Manovich 2001:389). And further: "The perspective algorithm, a foundation of both computer graphics and computer vision, is used to generate perspectival views given a geometric model and to deduce the model given a perspectival view (Manovich 2001:395). So according to Manovich, geometric, i.e. algorithmic vision, is subject to automation. Schwingeler suggests a name for this hyper-subjective view of the player in games: arbitrary perspective (2008:140ff.). Perspective in videogames is simulated and fully mathematized, as Wolf and Boron demonstrated. Manovich and Schwingeler, for their part, show that in comparison to Renaissance perspective, the construction of perspective in videogames engenders infinite possible points of view. This finding can, in turn, be related back to Salen and Zimmerman (2006), who commented that "space, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder" (2006:67). Taking all this research together and relating it to our modality dimension of play, we suggest three possible player perspectives for primarily visually transported games or play situations: A first-person perspective for fully physical experiences. McGregor (2006) suggests that we use architecture as a tool for analyzing the spatial qualities of games. She furthermore outlines (2007) a collection of six dominant, recurring patterns of spatial use in screen-mediated games. The following patterns, McGregor claims, represent overarching configurations of gameplay and gamespace, and the six serve to "describe the majority of gameplay and game space interactions" (2007:539): Challenge Space: Where the environment directly challenges the player. Overt challenge spaces, McGregor argues, are "present in our urban environment yet for practical and safety reasons are isolated from everyday spaces. (...) In challenge spaces architecture is an adversary and the landscape an opponent" (2007:549f.). Küttler (2007), on the other hand, mentions the adversarial potential of gamespace ”" for example, in skateboarding ”" as a possible gameplay enabling function.[19] This comparison between challenge-space-as-function and challenge-space-as-enemy demonstrates that when space itself becomes the player's challenge, it can be viewed from at least two perspectives. The first is the game designer's perspective on gameplay, in which the spatial trope of space-as-challenge is a function of the design that blocks unhindered movement. The second is the player's perspective on gameplay, in which the function turns into an adversary and the hindrance is recognized only partially ”" that is, from challenge zone to next zone. Designers use space to model activity; players play in order to experience space (in addition to other elements that shape the play experience). McGregor's patterns are interesting, yet serve mainly to spatialize Caillois' basic model. In addition, by stating that "videogames display recurrent patterns of spatial use, taken from reality, formalized and altered by the demands of gameplay" (McGregor 2007:8), McGregor echoes Aarseth's finding that computer games are fundamentally concerned with forms of spatial representation with which we are already familiar; in short, that the spatiality of computer games is always allegorical (Aarseth 2007:44ff.). There are, however, two interesting exceptions in McGregor's model, that go beyond Caillois. These are codified space and backdrops. Codified space, argues McGregor, serves gameplay as a conduit. In strategy games, for example, data is spatialized as terrain, building, or object. Terrain, building, or object are then used as menus that can be accessed by the player precisely because they all represent forms of spatialized data. By manipulating the spatial representation, the player manipulates the data. McGregor herself realizes that the concept of codified space can be linked to Henry Jenkins' concept of the embedded narrative, according to which elements of narration are read through spatial elements (2007:6). If we accept codified space as a category of its own neither derived from Caillois nor covered by our play pleasure categorizations, then the question is: What kind of other stimulus or stimuli can stand in for this playspace? Or is this category based on a unique, as yet unidentified play type? On the one hand, it could be argued that the first and foremost play pleasure in strategy games is by definition strategizing, which means testing tactics over time. On the other hand, it could also be argued that all games, unless they contain elements of chance, require strategizing in that during gameplay, the player must continually test out actions that may or may not help reach an objective. It could also be argued that strategy games feature the play stimuli of problem-solving, directing (as in managing), and achieving in equal measure to strategizing and that codified data manipulation is not a gamespace pattern per se, but an activity prevalent when playing a computer game, in which each individual activity ”" say, riding a horse ”" represents the manipulation of data ”" in the case of the horse, horse data. All objects in computer games are subject to data manipulation, and all are, formally speaking, represented by something other than themselves. In videogames, visible architecture is, as is argued in Learning from Las Vegas, neither a duck symbol nor ugly and ordinary (Venturi/Scott Brown/Izenour 1977), but a rendered and more or less interactable and/or navigable entity made of data. Backdrops are architectures that neither affect nor form gameplay directly; there is no direct play rhythm that springs from them. McGregor thus calls them "spatial pastiches" (McGregor 2007:8). As a category for speaking about gamespace and game spatiality, McGregor's backdrop is a valuable conceptual contribution. We suggest, however, that one instead look at atmosphere in the context of function, as outlined in the following section. In summary, McGregor's approach can be called a qualitative one in that it studies how gameplay and gamespace interact to generate re-occuring spatial qualities. 1.8. Function In this subsection, we will briefly introduce and critically discuss what we will call the functional view of ludic space, exemplified by Adams (2002) and Küttler (2006), who expands and modifies Adams' model. 1.8.1. Primary and Secondary Functions of Ludic Space In an article for online game development portal Gamasutra.com, Adams (2002) introduces the concept of architectural functions to the discussion of space and spatiality in videogames. In a hands-on discussion mainly directed at professional level and game designers, the term architecture is used to connote the "traditional role of designing constructed edifices and landscapes" (Adams 2003:3). According to Adams, then, architecture embodies graphically constructed ludic space in videogames. Adams distinguishes between two different functions of architecture in videogames. The first function is to present the player with challenges and shape and support the actions available; in other words, to support the gameplay of the game. The secondary function, on the other hand, is "to inform and entertain in its own right way" (ibid.). Table 5 paraphrases the most important forms crucial to each function. From our perspective, these functions are kinetic properties that determine how play rhythms come into being. Note that the "exploration" fails to describe what Adams means in architectural terms; as a substitute, we suggest using the term "orientation," which also embodies the concept of disorientation (i.e. that the spatial situation affords limited orientation or none at all). Adams (2002): Functions of architecture in videogames Primary function Gameplay role Constraint Provide boundaries; guide player; constrain player; challenge. Concealment Offer protection to player; hide game elements from player; surprise player. Obstacles or tests of skill Challenge player's logic and observation; challenge player's hand-eye coordination. Exploration Orient player; help player understand gamespace; in mazes: disorient player - orientation Secondary function Gameplay role Familiarity Offer place and event related cues to the player. Allusion Refer to real architectural styles to evoke mental images. New worlds Create a sense of unfamiliarity. Surrealism Warn player about game's surreal rules. Atmosphere Inspire an emotion via an object that gives visual form to that emotion. Cliché Set scene and establish / meet player expectation, but without referring to real-life architecture (see familiarity). Table 5 An overview of functions in relation to their gameplay role after Adams (2002). One could argue that Adams' general view of architecture as landscape and structure, as well as his view of architecture in videogames, seem quite conventional. Although Adams himself even suggests as much, it is undeniable that his contribution has been highly valuable, at least for the field of game design, in that it helped establish a vocabulary of spatial configurations and their effect on gameplay. In our opinion, the underlying assumption of Adams' model can be traced to the father of architectural modernism, Lewis H. Sullivan, and his widely known design law, derived from natural observation, that "form ever follows function" (Sullivan 1896). So how does Adams relate to Sullivan? We can illustrate the relationship between the two by applying Sullivan's "law" to an ideal videogame. A design brief for such a hypothetical game would likely mention that the desired result should: have a form that makes clear to the player what type of game it is (for example, an action-adventure game); 1.8.2. Additional Primary Functions In her German language master's thesis in architecture at the University for Applied Sciences Bochum, Küttler (2006) refers to both Sullivan and Adams ”" so implicitly to the former, explicitly to the latter. Küttler expands Adams' model and makes some valuable observations that complement his functional hold on gamespace. Unfortunately, Küttler dismisses Adams' orientation function without clearly explaining why. We can understand Küttler's categorization as a hands-on and helpful approach to aspiring designers for considering kinetic forms embedded into the gamespace. Because Küttler argues descriptively, often forsaking a structured and obvious system of sub-classification, we have here supplemented her categorization with the Boundaries: Adams calls this category constraint, cf. Adams (2002). A game needs borders. These can be macro borders that define the gameworld (e.g. an ocean shore as the end of the world) or micro borders that guide, restrict, or divert the player (e.g. a street, an open door, obstacles blocking the player's path). In a very concrete sense, boundaries are representations of the demarcational concept of the magic circle. Küttler (2006) provides four
arise (2004:63).
We have shown that the concept of play rhythm is spatial at heart in that it builds on measured movements over time.
We have demonstrated that fundamentally, play-as-movement affords a space where play takes place over time.
Taking this architecturally framed notion of play as a starting point, the following relational roadmap traces a plausible path towards the architectural framing of games:
We will then suggest an analysis framework for investigating the spatiality of games, in which the filtered dimensions are set into relation with the dimensions of playspace.
Finally, in the main section, we will use this framework to critically and essayistically discuss "play-grounds," i.e. prototypical and historically persistent spaces of play and gameplay.
Throughout the discussion, we will refrain from explicitly defining games. But by the mere fact of following this roadmap, we are creating a defining spatial discourse that leads toward a ludic architecture.
in Game Design Research
the notion of spatiality in digital games as an allegory of physical space (Aarseth 2007);
the view of games as narrative architectures (Pearce 1997; Jenkins 2007; Murray (1997));
the understanding of digital games as the art of contested spaces (Jenkins and Squire 2002);
attempts towards a typology of computer gamespaces (Wolf 2002; Boron 2007);
the discussion about the role of perspective in digital games (Manovich 2001; Schwengeler 2008);
the use of architecture as a tool to analyze the spatial qualities of games (McGregor 2007);
functionally inspired frameworks of gamespace (Adams 2002; Küttler 2006).
Note that the body of research in this area is still limited. All cited discourses are based on publications in conference proceedings or book chapters or sections. So far, there is no integrated, full-length theory of spatiality or space in games, not to mention an overview like the one we are about to present. Nitsche (2008), albeit a major achievement, focuses on the use of 3D graphics in video games, asking how and through which qualities particularly the third dimension achieves to generate fictional environments in the player's imagination." Also note that the term spatiality is used particularly in relation to the Lefebvrian and associated notions of lived space
(Lefebvre 1991).
An experimental approach that uses game technologies to create architectural virtual reality models.
A cross-disciplinary discourse meant to pair the two design disciplines of game design and architectural design, framed with the help of the book Space Time Play (Borries/Walz/Böttger 2007), which was co-edited by the author.
1.1. Space of Possibility and Magic Circle
our discussion.
all possible game actions that can occur during gameplay;
all possible meanings that can emerge from the game design;
all possible relations between game elements that render a system;
the interactive functioning of this system, which allows for navigation and exploration (ibid.).
The space of possibility, in short, describes the fact that games are interactive systems that create meaning through player action and that a game structure can play out in many ways, some of which are unpredictable. Salen and Zimmerman do not provide a more formal or mathematical definition of their umbrella term; the space of possibility, although charming as an image, remains vague, as it mixes a variety of dimensions that would be hard to compute or visualize. Therefore, the concept ”" which represents so holistic an approach that it can no longer really be applied in a concrete way ”" will not be further exploited in the following sections.
Board games, in which contests are won and lost depending on movements on the board.
Literary and cinematic works that climax in spatial contests such as shoot-outs or space battles (ibid.).
Jenkins and Squire further argue that computer gamespaces, as totally constructed environments of contest, offer affordances, encourage activities such as exploration, provide resources, effectively evoke emotions, and, overall, provide a stage that programs play. We agree with many of their observations, some of which resemble, from the point of view of play, topics that have already been discussed, such as play pleasures. From a narratological perspective, their suggestion that games constitute a mix of sports and story is all the more convincing when highlighted by another source: "The most common form of game ”" the agôn, or contest between opponents ”" is also the earliest form of narrative (...). The Greek word agôn refers to both athletic contests and to dramatic conflicts, reflecting the common origin of games and theater" (Murray 1997:145).
One screen, contained, with wraparound.
Scrolling on one axis.
Scrolling on two axes.
Adjacent spaces displayed one at a time.
Layers of independently moving planes (multiple scrolling backgrounds).
Spaces allowing z-axis movement into and out of the frame.
Multiple, nonadjacent spaces displayed on-screen simultaneously.
Interactive three-dimensional environments.
Represented or "mapped" spaces.
Wolf's typology is inconsistent, although it manages to comprehensively map the historical evolution of gamespace from text spaces to one-screen spaces to 3D environments. In an attempt to formulate a spatial taxonomy, Wolf mixes qualities of gamespaces such as depth of space and point of view or traversability/navigation and representation of space. But though he mixes diverse spatial qualities of game experiences within his analysis, Wolf does not foresee or at least discuss mixed types, i.e. hybrids. Combinations of types 4 or 5 with 6 are, however, quite frequent, in this case serving as the basis of a typical sidescrolling Jump-and-Run game. Boron (2007:28), for example, complements Wolf's rather rigid ”" but, all in all, helpful ”" typology by introducing more types of gamespaces, like, for example, isometric yet 3D-look-alike gamespace.
An arbitrary perspective for fully computer-simulated, i.e. virtual experiences.
A hybrid perspective for experiences involving both physical and virtual experience.
1.7. Qualities
Contested Space: Where the environment is a setting for contests between entities.
Nodal Space: Where social patterns of spatial usage are imposed on the game environment to add structure and readability to the game.
Codified Space: Where elements of gamespace represent other non-spatial game components.
Creation Space: Where the player constructs all or part of the gamespace as part of gameplay.
Backdrops: Where no direct interaction between the gamespace and the player occurs.
McGregor herself realizes that there are major correlations between Caillois' typology and her patterns of spatial play. However, she only considers these correlations to be overlaps that "remind us that videogames are both play and a space to play" (McGregor 2007:1). Let us look at McGregor's patterns in more detail.
express to the player both its inner life ”" "the native quality" (ibid.) that many would agree is the game's rule-base ”" and the nature of its materials, construction, and purpose;
reveal its structure when played;
avoid unnecessary decoration (cf. Sullivan 1896).
Although (or because) Sullivan's "law" may indeed be somewhat conventional and has been widely criticized as a principle of a biologistic Modernism, it is part of the accepted architectural discourse and a compulsory topic in architectural and other design schools.
italicized terms:
Game content and game goal: Architectural design and urban planning can be both the content and objective of a game. The game's main function, then, is designing, constructing, and managing, all of which are embodied in the "creation" play stimulus, as mentioned earlier (Fritz 2004). Adams and Rollings (2006) suggest a whole genre for this function, which they call "construction and management simulations." Likewise, Küttler, Adams and Rollings cite Sim City as the most typical computer game that represents free-form construction and construction from default settings (Adams and Rollings 2006:596).
Challenge and opponent: Adams calls this category "obstacles or tests of skill" (Adams 2002). Küttler means that architectures in games often represent challenges that must be overcome by the player or sometimes even opponents that must be vanquished by the player. Küttler offers the example of the Tony Hawk skateboarding game series, in which a player must look for a ramp on which to perform an ideal stunt; for that player, the environment actually becomes the opponent against which one must play. In her contribution to the book Space Time Play, Küttler reviews Tony Hawk and, in doing so, clarifies the terminology. When architecture in Tony Hawk becomes the challenge of the game and topography the opponent, Küttler explains, the role of architecture can also serve as ally. When the player spots a perfect edge for carving (Küttler 2007:125), for example, the environment is not longer foe, but friend. Küttler suggests we call this phenomenon an utilizability function. But is Küttler's characterization sufficiently precise? Not all environmental challenges, topographical or not, automatically render an environment an opponent. Thus we suggest differentiating between degrees of functional opposition. Depending on the type of kinesis involved, these degrees could be characterized
as follows:
Challenge: The gamespace or property thereof minimally challenges the player (for example, a gap to jump across).
Opposition: The gamespace or a spatial property thereof opposes the player in a problem situation for which a solution exists.
Antagonism: The gamespace or a spatial property thereof strongly oppose the player throughout gameplay or for a portion of gameplay.
Assailantism: The gamespace or a spatial property thereof attacks the player.
Protection: In Adams' model, this is known as "concealment" (Adams 2002). As the player's ally, the gamespace can protect or support the player in performing an activity. For example, environmental shading in stealth games serves the protection function. Similar to the degrees we have defined for functional opposition, we can also detect varying qualities of spatial support, which we can term functional support. We suggest some exemplary, architecturally sound terms to describe positive interactions between player and gamespace: alliance, adjustment, support, etc.
Symbol: Like McGregor (2007), Küttler recognizes the symbolic function architecture can have in gameplay and cites construction simulations in which functionalities are symbolized by architecture.
Game progress reward: Graphical representations can serve as a reward and, simultaneously, an incentive. In both God of War PlayStation 2 games, the lavishly beautiful graphics encourage the player to keep on playing, to explore the next section in the game. The same can be said of the architecture in ICO (Team Ico / Sony Computer Entertainment 2001). Pre-rendered cut scenes serve a similarly encouraging function.
Architecture as an interface to player reality: In designated digital environments such as Second Life (Linden Research 2003), player-created content such as clothing, houses, vehicles, animations, or games is not only permitted, but constitutes the basis of the world's attraction. Today, we understand that a game such as Spore (2008) takes the idea of player creation much further, letting clients create not only world objects, but also creatures, which can then be shared with other players during gameplay. Players create their own gameplay and gameplay world within the constraints of the game's design. Because Küttler's term is a bit clumsy, we suggest renaming this category player-created architecture.
1.8.3. Summary: A Merged Model of Functional Forms
PLAY-GROUNDS: AN ARCHAEOLOGY OF LUDIC ARCHITECTURES "There is a long cultural tradition of spatial games ”" games like hide-and-seek and treasure hunt (...) which, of course, go back centuries before the computer" (Mitchell 2007:408). Are spatial games, then, only to be thought of in terms of hide-and-seek and treasure hunts? In the following pages, a number of architectural formats are presented and considered as spaces that allow for or embody play activities or even games ”" in other words, ludic practices in space well beyond treasure hunts and hide-and-seek. To a certain extent, this short inventory also serves to illustrate precursors to (ubiquitous) games ”" these precursors can serve as design metaphors that designers can consider for their work. Yet, the role of computing technologies is not the main focus of these discussions; games are sometimes referenced, but not always. Rather, we intend to present an archaeology of playspace and gamespace as a means to achieve the overall goal of formulating a ludic architecture ”" a non-exhaustive pool of possible spaces that represent ludic qualities. Pay special attention to links between entries, which are bolded and underlined to indicate that they represent interesting trajectories. One inspiration for this episodic organization are the writings by Georges Bataille, the brilliant, crazy, and highly entertaining poet-theorist who interpreted architectural metaphor and form as means to cement an existing order and "literal manifestation of social structuration" (Leach 1997:20). In light of this view, architectural theorist Neil Leach deems Bataille "a theorist against architecture." But Leach is mistaken; Bataille, especially in the short and episodic entries in his still-incomplete Documents dictionary, aimed to express, often drastically, the way that architectures in and of themselves can express the soul of a given society ”" a kind of space, that is. We call the following ludic constructions of space play-grounds, a term we borrow from Huizinga (1971:10) and prefer to the concept of the magic circle or Buytendijk's playing-field mentioned earlier in this work. Using the magic circle concept would be inappropriate, for our discussion aims to discuss the ludic qualities of physical spaces rather than analyze these spaces as gamespaces. In the following episodes, games are only referenced where appropriate. As Alberto Iacovoni points out in Game Zone, a marvelous pamphlet on the interplay of play, games and architecture: The term playground generally indicates the areas that are set aside in gardens and urban parks for children to play: delimited, controlled spaces that are protected from the intrusion of the adult world by a high rail fence (...). The desolation of these playgrounds is the mirror image of a society which leaves very little space to playing, unless it is behind a fence, beyond the box office of a theme park, imprisoned and neutralized within the confines of "free time" (Iacovoni 2004:19). In this book, by contrast, the term play-ground expresses the possibility that play can take many forms and take place in many locations. Note that play-grounds are not immediately game-grounds, which is why we refrain from applying Salen and Zimmerman's concept of the space of possibility to our discussion. The inventory of architectural formats is structured as follows: first, we discuss the role of the previously outlined concepts of game spatiality in this inventory; In the following discussions, we will, time and again, include aspects from the analytical framework that combine playspace and gamespace dimensions. This means that we will refer to categories of enjoyment, to kinesis and play rhythms, and to aspects of game spatiality such as allegory, contest, narrative, type, perspective, and function. We consciously apply the latter despite the fact that it is derived from digital games because we consider play-grounds as being subject to the inherent digitality that games entail, and as being subject to an overall computerization of physicality as has been demonstrated with the game of REXplorer. Before we begin our discussion, however, we will offer a few words on the concept of allegory. From Aarseth's (1997) point of view, the concept may only be used as a lens through which to view computer games. Yet, physical spaces can be allegories of other spaces as well. This is certainly true of built environments created during the Baroque epoch, where allegorical architecture symbolizes a structure of complexity wherein images and meaning are interwoven like a net to create illusionary spaces (Burgard 2000). Baroque architecture and landscaping ”" and the allegory as the epitome of Baroque design ”" are particularly interesting for us and will appear frequently throughout How, you may ask, did we choose which entries to include in this inventory and which to exclude, especially given that the inventory is by no means intended to be exhaustive? Sometimes entries were chosen for their architectural expressiveness (e.g. the Trompe l'"il or Folly), sometimes for their unique designs (e.g. the Tessellation or the Panopticon). Some were chosen for chronological reasons, (e.g. Cave, Labyrinth (and Maze)), others for their ability to specifically express play, (e.g. Stadium, Kindergarten, and Playground), yet others for their imageability as cultural myths ("Nature"). All entries are archetypical, and their uniqueness is therefore discussed. Some of the entries encompass more than one type of play-ground. The Casino, for example, embodies qualities that can be found at the midway, the tavern, or the arcade; Bogost (2007) mentions this as well. Other major play-grounds may seem to be missing from our inventory, but are, in fact, present. The street, for example, is mentioned in the context of the urban Playground entry, and the (pleasure) garden and rollercoaster fall under the Amusement Park heading. The inventory is thus a play-ground in and of itself: its interconnections must be questioned and puzzled over by the reader, by you. Note that the results of the design and playtesting phase of REXplorer are woven into the play-ground entries where appropriate, as are some game prototypes the author has been designing over the past years. This game-like linking of play-grounds represents an application of the connectivist learning theory introduced by Siemens (2005) and mentioned in the introduction of this work. Our ludic trajectories also take into consideration the videogame inspired learning theory of "conceptual playspaces" introduced by Barab/Ingram-Goble/Warren (2008), which suggests using game(-like) mechanics for structuring educational content. 1.1. Utopia A utopia is a counterspace, an ideal society that is either intentionally established (Sternfeld (2006), for example, collected contemporary quasi-utopianist attempts in the USA in a beautiful photography book) or theoretically conceptualized, typically in a piece of literature. Early texts on the topic of utopia include Plato's De Republica and Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religious writings about the Garden of Eden, all of which can today be considered forms of political and religious utopianism. But the term utopia itself was coined by a book of the same name, written by Sir Thomas More and published in 1516. In the book, the imaginary island country of Utopia ”" derived from the Greek ou-topos, meaning not-place ”" is described by a traveler. The island is home to a society based on a perfect socio-political and legal system. All aspects of communal living are perfectly programmed, there is no such thing as private property, religions are tolerated, and atheism is outlawed. Two aspects of Utopia are most relevant to our context. The first of these is More's explicit intention to provide delight, which is expressed in the actual and full title, originally in Latin: "On the Best State of A Commonwealth and On the New Island of Utopia. A Truly Golden Handbook, No Less Beneficial than Entertaining."[21] _The second is the way that the island's capital Amaurotum was not only societally, but also spatio-constructively designed as an allegory of the perfect city. We would thus content that Utopia is a piece of fiction whose goal is to delightfully immerse the reader in the rules of a perfectly organized game. Utopia describes not only a physical space meant to entertain those who read about it, but also a perfect living space meant to delight those who inhabit it. A utopia programs perfect behavior and therefore, perfect enjoyment. Zinsmeister (2004:78f.) traces the way that Utopia not only directly inspired Renaissance literature and design, but how the urbanistic designs depicted in the book also anticipate the ideal of the modular, gridded, controllable city, which, in combination with Leonardo da Vinci's Homo Vitruvianus, still informs an architectural politics of total functionalism and measuring. In a 2001 keynote address to the London based Sustainable Placemakers Forum, architect Bernard Hunt reminded his audience that "Such people as Ebenezer Howard with his book Garden Cities of Tomorrow, Le Corbusier with his Ville Radieuse, and Frank Lloyd Wright with Broadacre City set out utopian visions of a better world made possible by man's progress in placemaking ”" and, for better or worse, their thinking inspired their times and profoundly influenced the shape of development in the 20th century" (Hunt 2001). Venturi/Scott Brown/Izenour (1977:134) state that Vitruvius held that architecture is a question of firmness, commodity, and delight, and that Gropius ”" or maybe only his Bauhaus followers ”" taught that firmness (structure) plus commodity (program) equals delight (form). In this reading, then, form is equal to delight. But can applying the suburbanizing principles of social reformist Howard actually and inherently produce delightful dwelling? We can tell that Howard's garden city model inspired Walt Disney's original urban designs for a city in Florida called EPCOT, in which everyone "will have the responsibility to maintain this living blueprint of the future" (Disney 1966). And let us consider: Do Le Corbusier's principles of seriality and modularity (Le Corbusier 1975:59) really guarantee environmental enjoyment in the sense of a play or At least one thing is sure: functionalism caused the Situationists to break the rules, to invent and practice their own rules and thereby create psychogeographically-reflected play-grounds for the drifting player-flaneur of dérive (see also the Society entry in the inventory below). Hou Je Bek (2007) describes how computation can take hold of this practice and become a critique to functionalized space in itself: The Universal Psychogeographic Computer (UPC) suggested by the Dutch group socialfiction.org lets participants solve a jigsaw puzzle or calculate the number Pi while taking a walk: during the walk, participants follow walking instructions written in pseudo computer program code (Hou Je Bek 2007:308f.). There is a clash between, on the one hand, play-grounds that only allow for delight and playing because they have been totally functionalized and therefore exist perpetually on the brink of dystopia and, on the other hand, play-grounds that come into being because they are intended to serve as a critique of the other, quasi-dystopic play-grounds. And yet neither type of play-ground can exist without the other. This conflict can be traced in movies such as The Truman Show, which "anticipates the computer game The Sims (...) and thematizes the closed and fully controlled space of life-simulation on the basis of a normative canon of values and consumerist strategies for success" (Nohr 2007:470). The conflict is certainly embedded into the way we design nature and the way we feel overwhelmed with the designedness of our environs. The PS2 game Shadow of the Colossus (2005) features a twist on this conflict. In it, a battling player-hero must climb, fight and slay harmless colossi that are completely non-assailing, often with the help of the surrounding environments of ruins and geological formations, see Figure 8. The game, then, is really about "man versus nature, the player versus the environment as represented by the colossi" (Thomas 2007a:461); it has been described as "perhaps the most extraordinarily and unearthly of evil videogame architectures (”). Lairs within lairs." (Rossignol 2009). Because the player avatar kills the behemoths, one could argue that the player becomes the evildoer himself, transforming an untouched utopian setting into a dystopian one by the way of playing the game. However, because in order to play the game, the design of the game forces the player to kill (and, in the very end, punishes the successful player for his wrongdoings with death), it is the game designers who ultimately induce evilness and moralistic dilemma into the player's actions, interweaving them with the game's architecture. That colossi, albeit less (or presumably) evil ones, are intended to please and astound the masses has been shown by the utopianist drafts of French Revolution architects such as Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Whereas Ledoux's architecture parlante has been accused of being representative of the Ancien Régime (which funded his work to a great extent), Boullée preferred the grand and abstract yet still playful and revolutionary design gesture. His 150 meter (500 ft) high perforated Cénotaphe sphere for Sir Isaac Newton (Figure 9), which simulates the spherical surface of the starry sky, stands out as an example of an architecture expressive of its purpose and as a stage of enlightenment that offers play pleasures such as vertigo, adventuring, and problem-solving. It is an allegorical dramaturgy that is also a technological statement of utopianist immensité. Utopian cities and spaces rather often represent the notion of an enlightened-delighted, perfect, superhuman society that has battled nature by design in an attempt to achieve perfect square form-functions and perfect superhuman circles and spheres. But perfection is not what we get: "In reality, architects and builders have no choice but to proceed in the opposite direction. In the absence of an ideal society, they turn their attention to the shell, the city itself, as an ideal form. And in the twentieth century, this is increasingly replaced by themed entertainment, arcades, mega-malls, and amusement parks" (Herwig and Holzherr 2006:15). And, one might add, by the digital game, either virtual or, increasingly, hybrid. 1.2. Heterotopia In his 1967 lecture Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (Foucault 1997), Michel Foucault investigates how space becomes institutionalized and how structures of power are demarcated. Foucault is, in fact, looking for those places in society that actually lie outside of society, but which can still be localized. Foucault is looking for spatial arrangements of the everyday ”" cinemas, cafés, beaches ”" that are simultaneously "represented, challenged, and overturned" (1997:352). Foucault, we could say, is looking for societal play-grounds. He finds that we cannot localize utopias ”" they have no real space and are totally perfect, rendering them unreal spaces. But society does have spaces, spanning various ages and contexts, that fit Foucault's profile ”" realized utopias that "perform the task of creating a space of illusion that reveals how all of real space is more illusory (”) forming another space, another real space, as perfect, meticulous and well-arranged as ours [is] disordered, ill-conceived and in a sketch state" (1997:356). Foucault's examples of these heterotopias ”" simultaneously demarcations and inscriptions of the everyday ”" include the museum, the brothel, the cemetery, and the epitome of all heterotopias, The ship floats ”" moves, in fact, in tune with the rhythm of the ocean ”" from port to port. The ship is a closed program poised in the infinite, dramaturgical space that is the ocean. Along with the ship come dreams of economic growth, treasure, and desire. From the beginning of its existence down to the present day, the ship has always been a reservoir of our imaginations. There is an enduring heterotopia that Foucault could not and did not identify: the played. In other words, the realized play-ground of play pleasure (see the Playground entry above). When not played on or with, a play-ground remains an empty space ”" it needs a player, and sometimes one or more spectators, to come to life. Although the played play-ground is, formally speaking, demarcated from everyday space, using Foucault, we can read it as a heterotopian other feeding from and mirroring the everyday. We can thus think of playing as a heterotopian practice or, to extend the concept of Lefebvre's veçu, as a form of veçu miroité, i.e. mirrored lived space (1991). This much we know: Just as Foucault has identified heterotopian types, we can identify heterotopian forms and programs typical of the computer game. To name a few, we will mention the tennis court, the dungeon, the mansion, the carnival, the castle (see the Castle entry), the shadow path, the panzer, the small town, the mushroom kingdom, the noir urbanity, the island, and the planet (see the World entry). Heterotopian computer game forms can also be abstract; think of geometrical space, sonic space, and, of course, mirroring Foucault's metaphor of desire, the space ship. All these heterotopian types program but also cater to a particular set of ludic activities. The dungeon programs and caters to role-playing in a system of maze-like tunnels wherein treasure is hidden and monsters such as trolls may be encountered and battled. The space ship programs and caters to six degrees of freedom-floating, trading, and encountering other space ships, species, and specimens of space. In computer games, any given space can become a heterotopian space of simulation ”" as long as this heterotopia defers to the game's design and rules and, ideally, simultaneously programs ludic activities set forth by the game's design. 1.3. Dystopia Utopian thinking and writing has given rise to the creation of anti-utopias as well. If utopias typically manifest counter-everyday spaces that supposedly provide their inhabitants with a happy life, then dystopias are societies characterized by extreme negative qualities such as repression, poverty, hunger, violence, or environmental hazards ”" challenges, we could say, to be overcome. Early milestone fictional dystopias include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World from 1932 and the classic silent film Metropolis by Fritz Lang from 1927. The latter is set in a Gothic skyscraper corporate urbanity state, where desperate underground workers (the "hands") sustain the lives of the ruling and privileged class (the "head") that lives high above them in luxury. Many videogames have embraced similar and explicitly dystopian themes. Consider, for example, the first-person shooter role-playing game BioShock (2007). In the brutal and disquieting but highly moralistic game, the player roams through the beautifully inscenated, Art Déco-inspired underwater city of Rapture. Rapture was originally intended as a Garden of Eden by its builder and overseer Andrew Ryan, but then became populated by aggressive, genetically modified mutants and robotic drones. In other words, it transformed into a flawed utopia in which ordered society collapsed. By the way of the decaying narrative architecture, the player is led to believe that is is Ryan he must eliminate. Yet, "as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that, although you [the player, spw] will inevitably kill Ryan, his architecture tells you nothing about the nature of the enemy you face. Indeed, the true enemy has nothing to do with the stylized nature of this lair at all" (Rossignol 2009). Dystopias, whether stylized as in the case of Rapture or as lairs in themselves, are play-grounds that feature inherent conflicts and thus inherent goals for player-heroes to achieve in that they exhibit word-flaws or imbalances that the player must overcome in order to turn the dystopia at least into a regular, if not a heterotopian world. The dystopian play-ground that encourages the player to sustain the dystopian condition and to prevent other players from taking control provides an exciting reversal on this conflictive topos of overcoming given circumstances. In consideration of dystopian worlds as a basic form of ludic architecture, we draw your attention to the following interview excerpt, in which ubiquitous computing theorist Adam Greenfield, now Head of Design Direction at Nokia, argues: Cities are all about difficulty. They're about waiting: for the bus, for the light to change, for your order of Chinese take-out to be ready. They're about frustration: about parking tickets, dogshit, potholes and noisy neighbors. They're about the unavoidable physical and psychic proximity of other human beings competing for the same limited pool of resources...the fear of crime, and its actuality. These challenges have conditioned the experience of place for as long as we've gathered together in settlements large and dense enough to be called cities. And as it happens, with our networked, ambient, pervasive informatic technology, we now have (or think we have) the means to address some of these frustrations. In economic terms, these technologies both lower the information costs people face in trying to make the right decisions, and lower the opportunity cost of having made them. So you don't head out to the bus stop until the bus stop tells you a bus is a minute away, and you don't walk down the street where more than some threshold number of muggings happen - in fact, by default it doesn't even show up on your maps - and you don't eat at the restaurant whose forty-eight recent health code violations cause its name to flash red in your address book. And all these decisions are made possible because networked informatics have effectively rendered the obscure and the hidden transparent to inquiry. And there's no doubt that life is thusly made just that little bit better. But there's a cost - there's always a cost. Serendipity, solitude, anonymity, most of what we now recognize as the makings of urban savoir faire: it all goes by the wayside. And yes, we're richer and safer and maybe even happier with the advent of the services and systems I'm so interested in, but by the same token we're that much poorer for the loss of these intangibles. It's a complicated trade-off, and I believe in most places it's one we're making without really examining what's at stake In contrast to the all too perfect utopia (that which pervasive computing may bring upon us) and the heterotopian space that allows for playing out alternative realities, dystopias provide pleasure by setting up entirely unenjoyable, i.e. frustrating places that must be playfully escaped, saved, destroyed, or equilibrated. Utopias, heterotopias, and dystopias can all be measured by their artificial and conflictive, i.e. problem-solving potential. Whereas utopias are idealized, hyper-artificial spaces that we may never reach (a problem in and of itself), heterotopias temporarily realize our imaginations. Dystopias, eventually, encourage us to be involved in their systems in order to partially or fully dissolve them. The interview excerpt discusses the way that, ludically speaking, the quasi-dystopia of the city can become a utopia that may turn out to be a dystopia. In the following section, we will examine play-ground topoi that resemble qualities described in the above section, thus further problematizing the dialectics of ludic architecture between control and agency. 2. Possible Worlds Hegelian philosophy suggests that everything starts with an idea, with a possibility, and that all that is real is just a realization of an idea. We can imagine playing. That is, with our minds, we can make ourselves believe; and this pretense is a signature feature of our very being. In fact, the basis of games is our capability to imagine a possible situation and to construct a new and secondary kind of reality, according to both Oerter (1999:9ff.) and Piaget (1951). Game designer Noah Falstein describes this practice as "mental fun": "We practice and improve our mental abilities in our leisure time just as we exercise our muscles and build social relationships" (Falstein 2004). We can compare Falstein's concept of mental fun to Jesse Schell's concept of games that take place in zero dimensions, i.e. without a board or a manifest site. As an example, Schell points to the conversational game Twenty Questions, in which Player One imagines an object, and Player Two asks "yes" or "no" questions in an effort to guess the object (Schell 2008:134f.). What is the coordinate system of the imaginary modality? What is its locale, its program? Are possible worlds always subject to mental realms? In an investigation of immersion (induced by virtual reality) and the affinity of the immersion concept to theories of fiction based on the notion of possible worlds and ludic make-believe, Marie-Laure Ryan observes that all these theories share: A reliance on the semantic model of a set of possible worlds in which a privileged member is opposed to all others as the one and only actual world. The distinction actual/non-actual can be characterized absolutely, in terms of origin, or relatively, in terms of point of view. In the absolute characterization, the actual world is the only one that exists independently of the human mind; merely possible worlds are products of mental activities such as dreaming, wishing, forming hypotheses, imagining, and writing down the products of the imagination in the form of fictions. VR [Virtual Reality] adds to this catalog of "accessibility relations" a mode of apprehension that involves not only the mind, but also the body. For the first time in history, the possible worlds created by the mind become palpable entities, despite their lack of materiality (Ryan 1999:117f.). We have to disagree with Ryan. This "bodily mode of being in the world" (1999:137) is a phenomenon that, well before the invention of virtual reality and interactive media, was achieved by many architectural spaces that, form-functionally, aim at make-believe or serve as a stage for make-believe. Some of these play-grounds have been collected in the non-exhaustive inventory presented here. From our perspective, computer simulation (which enables virtual reality) makes possible the development of different, new, and more complex types of games. Furthermore, computerization serves as a strong reminder that for thousands of years, we spatially and culturally demarcated play and games from everyday life, designated them as our "little feasts in the quotidian" (Bausinger 1999). With computerization, this dichotomy between The Game and The Quotidian ceases to exist; heterotopias can become pervasive, and, eventually, maybe even quotidianized. Let us briefly meditate on the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip "There's treasure everywhere!" to illustrate this hypothesis. The cartoon ”" written and illustrated by Bill Watterson (1996) ”" shows the six-year old, imaginative boy Calvin and his stuffed and energetic pet animal, Hobbes, who has come alive. Hobbes is Calvin's partner in crime, not only anthropomorphing into a best friend, but also into a sardonic commentator ”" a play-other. In this strip's particular flight of fantasy, Calvin digs for buried treasure. In the first panel, Hobbes asks "Why are you digging a hole?" Answers Calvin, streaked with dirt and wearing a tropical hardhat: "I'm looking for buried treasure". In the second panel, Hobbes continues to ask: "What have you found?". Calvin lists, "A few dirty rocks, a weird root, and some disgusting grubs," handing Hobbes a sample. Taken with the rock he looks at, Hobbes smiles in the last panel, again asking "On your first try?". Beaming, Calvin responds: "There's Hobbes is interested not only in the activity ”" hole-digging ”" but also in the objects Calvin encounters, which may not seem appealing to most readers. To Calvin, though, the items are treasurable; they possess high affordance. What for, we don't know, and Calvin and Hobbes may not know either. That is because as objects, the treasures come alive only in the moment in which they are instantiated in a certain context. It is interesting to note that in this strip, Hobbes does not represent Calvin's potential maturity and externalized conscience as he normally does. Instead, both characters are immersed in the fascination of pantopian play. "There's treasure everywhere" then, is also a motto that is, at its heart, Situationist (see the Society entry of the inventory). It also implicitly reads: "Everything can be treasure!" ”" and, by extension, enjoyable. Calvin and Hobbes are participating in a situation of indeterminate possibilities, of an infinite amount of possible kinesis with magical rocks, roots, grubs, pets, holes, treasures, and games. The excitement that is at play here is the in-the-moment excitement of possibility ”" or, as Jorge Luis Borges describes it in his short story, The Garden of Forking Paths: "At that moment I felt within me and around me something invisible and intangible pullulating" (1962:99). Whereas the permeating of computing technologies allows "possible world every-whereness," we can also understand the comic strip as a call to understand any given space as a possible play-ground. Think of all those risk-taking City exploration activities involving, for example, forgotten utility tunnels, abandoned subway stations, or inaccessible urban network structures such as pneumatic mail or pneumatic transportation[22]. In a clarion call to "acute exploration" of the metropolitan landscape, Stilgoe (1998) suggests that one go for a walk or bicycle ride in order to critically probe how certain places and processes, such as main streets and the postal service, are taken for granted, and to thereby become aware of "the mundanity of social interaction, of the built environment, and the technologies that bridge both" (1998). Eventually, you, the player, negotiate where, with whom, and with what you draw the magic circle to play-move within a possible world of possible worlds. Note, however, that in the comic strip, we only see the play-ground in which Calvin and Hobbes are immersed, not the context and culture in which that play-ground is situated and not the parties who may be repelled by the imaginary modality. So in the spirit of Rosa Luxemburg, let us design possible worlds in which freedom is always the freedom of dissenters, and lived imagination is always and exclusively imagination for the one who imagines differently. Enforcing possible worlds onto non-players may liberate the latter from social conventions and help them see their environment in a new light; but a Kantian improvement of the world by way of gameplay must reflect that universal and particularistic interests must be brought together. It would be wrong to believe that political, social, economic, communication, or game systems in place of everyday release our selves per se. These systems simply win over users, replace the conquered systems, and introduce new rules, which other possible programs then attempt The game REXplorer, which helps tourists explore the history of Regensburg, Germany, can serve as prime and temporary example of a groundbreaking game system and gameworld. In REXplorer, as described in the introduction, historical spirits are stationed at points of interest throughout the physical city of Regensburg, and players use a special "paranormal activity detector" (i.e. a device composed of a mobile phone and GPS receiver encased in a protective shell) to interact with location-based and site-specific spirits. A novel mobile interaction mechanism of "casting a spell" (i.e. making a gesture by waving the wand-like detector through the air) allows players to awaken and communicate with the spirits in order to receive and resolve quests. The game is designed to make learning history fun for tourists and to influence their path REXplorer is a part of the Regensburg Experience (REX) museum, which is full of interactive exhibits that allow visitors to experience different aspects of the city's cultural heritage, such as medieval music and poetry. REXplorer is designed to extend the visitor experience beyond the museum walls and to showcase the most significant attraction of Regensburg, its mostly Gothic and Romanesque urban silhouette and architecture. Regensburg is a UNESCO World Heritage site and the best-preserved medieval city in Germany, mostly untouched by the widespread bombing campaigns of WWII. REXplorer changes visitors' perceptions of their destination by enabling players to narratively and physically link city sites, thus creating an interconnected The target audience of REXplorer mainly consists of younger visitors with German language proficiency. The theme of the game is techno-magical: Visitors are asked, as scientific assistants, to examine paranormal activity recently discovered in the Regensburg medieval city center over the course of an hour. Fictional scientists, the players are told, have discovered that the phenomena are somehow linked to a child's gravestone inscribed with a mysterious secret language shown in Figure 10. The gravestone is a real artifact in the Regensburg Cathedral, and real historians have determined that the symbols, used instead of letters, were meant to cover up the identity of the buried child, who is thought to have been the illegal offspring of a Regensburg cleric ”" a scandal in the 16th century! For field research, the scientists have developed a special detector device that is able to measure paranormal activity at specific sites in the city center. The detector has artificial intelligence capabilities and is able to talk directly to the players. This makes the device a character in the game, anthropomorphically encouraging players to relate to it as a team member trying to help them achieve their goals. The detector reacts to a variety of gameplay situations including, for example, when the player idles for a longer period of time. Most importantly, the detector notifies players when they are in the vicinity of paranormal activity (and points of historical interest) through its own excited heartbeat, which serves to further emphasize its human qualities. The detector When near a historically significant site, players draw one of the gravestone symbols through the air as though they were casting a spell with a magic wand. Each symbol draws power from one of four medieval elements (earth, water, fire, or wind) and establishes a communication channel to the spiritual world, allowing the either historical or mythological spirits to tell their cliff-hanger stories through the device's loudspeaker. Each story challenges the players to fulfill a quest by going to a different point of interest in the city. Players need to listen carefully to the spirits in order to capture the verbal clues that indicate which gesture to use to accept a quest. When the quest is completed at another site by interacting with another spirit, the original cliff-hanger narrative is resolved, and a new quest is offered. For each completed quest, players receive points, which allow them to level up from a rookie research assistant to a master research assistant during the course of their game session. The player's progress during a game session is tracked and used to create a personalized player blog through which the possible world of the game lives on. In short, REXplorer superimposes an informational, ludic layer upon the physical city of Regensburg. 3. Impossible Worlds Possibility implies impossibility and vice versa. In the history of architecture, impossible worlds have fired the imagination of many designers. Impossible spaces are also representational spaces that can be found in digital games and that need not comply with the laws of the physical world. Dungeons, for example, can be located at sites where they simply could not exist if the normal rules of physics were followed. Impossible worlds are worlds that play with programmatic illusion, created, for example, perspectively. The Sony PSP game Echochrome (2008) serves as one example of a game whose creators delighted in impossible environments. Echochrome, from the Japanese , meaning infinite corridor, takes advantage of the Object Locative Environment Coordinate System[23] (OLE Coordinate System), a virtual environment engine created by Jun Fujiki. In OLE, movement constraints in virtual environments are not only defined by the 3D coordinates of objects, but also by the camera's position in the gameworld. The result is that an object such as a stairway has a different meaning depending on the angle at which it is viewed. In Echochrome, the player must safely guide a lemming figure through 56 impossible world constructions that take full advantage of the possibilities of the OLE engine. The ultimate goal is to touch the shadowy figures spread out all across the level. See Figure 11. Echochrome is clearly inspired by the works of the artist M. C. Escher. Escher's famous Waterfall lithograph, first printed in 1961, for example, is an instance of another impossible object, a Penrose triangle, or so-called tribar. The tribar's property of irregular, conflicting perspectives allows Escher to construct a waterfall that splashes into a basin, from which an aqueduct leads downhill in sharp turns, only to end up back at the top of that same waterfall and thereby create a paradox loop (Ernst 2007). Waterfall plays with our visual sense, creating uncertainty and defying the laws of geometry. The result is that we seek to problem-solve the impossible and the vertigo it entails; an impossible world, you see, is a play-ground of illusion. To better understand this type of Playground ”" the illusion with which we crave to dance in our everydayness ”" see Casino. In an impossible world, the world itself is the puzzle; together with the player, it co-creates illusionary movement and play rhythm. 4. Body Let us investigate examples of how the body ”" biologically, culturally, and as an element of an interactive system ”" can be viewed as a play-ground. Note that for the purposes of this book, the investigation rests on the assumption that kinesis is integral to the way we relate to the world and to others. Today, physical and computational worlds are being increasingly integrated. In light of this fact, human-computer interaction design researchers hold that the physical body plays "a central role in shaping human experience in the world, understanding the world, and interactions in the world" (Klemmer/Hartmann/Takayama (2006:1). In cosplay, short for costume”"play, people dress in costume and then dramatize and re-enact their favorite Manga comic or videogame characters. The videogames are thereby spatialized and brought to the streets (see Figure 12, which shows two cosplayers at the Tokyo Game Show 2005). Cosplay as a form of re-enactment thus belongs in the tradition of live action role-playing, which typically relies on pen and paper media for its rule base and costume as the main medium through which it is conveyed. Cosplay is particularly popular in Japan and other Asian countries, where the activity is socially acceptable. Architecturally speaking, the body in cosplay is a space covered by a costume façade, which creates a superficial fantasy similar to the Trompe l'"il. This represents one of many possible representational functions of the body as play-ground. Our bodies and bodily functions can create enjoyment as a result of play activity that involves the body on many different levels. These levels can be roughly divided into: physical play-grounds (see also Buytendijk 1933): Figure 13 shows how participants in a pervasive game workshop led by the author use the physical body to create games; In Chinese reflexology, the foot, like a Board (see Figure 14), is divided into acupuncture points and areas. By pressing the right spot, at the right angle, with the right amount of pressure, with the right finger posture, reflexologists claim that they can stimulate and unblock flows in the patient's body ”" because acupuncture points are Mapped to specific parts of the body ”" and thereby improve blood circulation or alleviate ailments like indigestion, diarrhea, or menstrual pain. Whether relief is achieved because nerve circuits are stimulated or because endorphins are released is unclear. Scientific evidence, however, suggests that reflexological techniques can reduce stress and be useful for relaxation (Natural Standard and Harvard Medical School 2005). Thus if an actuator skillfully presses the right spot, a feeling of relaxation can result. The body, in other words, has been treated like a sensual and zoned play-ground. Similarly, in the technological project Massage Me (2007), buttons sewn into a massage jacket interpret back movements and pass these on to a videogame console as control signals: "Otherwise wasted button-pushing energy is transformed into a massage and the addicted game player becomes an inexhaustible masseur" (Perner-Wilson and Satomi 2007). Buytendijk (1933:121ff.) describes the Liebesspiel ”" in English, flirtation ”" as the purest of all games. We would go one step further and say that flirtation involves all aspects of the body-as-play-ground. Note that the German term describes not only playful flirtation, but also the acts of mating and love-making ”" that is, the act of, literally, love-playing itself. The play-ground of "loveplay" is created at the confluence of physical, emotional, mental, and sensual enjoyment, which, in western societies, often takes place in bed. The architecture of the bed is particularly fit not only for mating, but also for horizontal body programs such sleeping, dreaming, waking up, recovering, resting, giving birth, and dying. The construction of a bedroom, however, to separate the bed architecture from other spaces (and thus separate the related bed programs from other programs, such as cooking and eating) is a relatively novel housing concept that only became commonplace in the 19th and 20th centuries[24] (Dibie 1993). The play-ground of the body and the architecture it inspires are subject to the way culture frames space. This relationship is taken to a new level when body functions such as heart rate or skin conductivity are connected to a physical space. The design technique of coupling player and environmental play-other was executed by a group of students supervised by the author, who created the biofeedback game prototype Bioplay5000, whose biofeedback hardware couples the player with computer-integrated building functionalities such as light control as well as with a camera based motion recognition system, (see http://www.building-ip.ethz.ch/education/Biofeedback as well as Walz et al. (2005)). In Bioplay5000, body and space achieve a new and intimate programmatic entity achieved via play and enabled by Technology. In the case of the REXplorer game, the player's body and the game's play-other (i.e. the game controller) form a new kind of interactive unit in that the game uses a novel, ubiquitous mobile interaction technique of casting a spell by way of gesturing. Hummel (2000) has found that the physical movement of gesturing with the arm is more likely to create an engaging play experience than merely staying still. In REXplorer, as has been mentioned earlier, players gesture while holding the game controller, an aluminum shell wrapped with a protective, soft, and stretchable textile that houses a Nokia N70 smartphone and a GPS receiver. The textile overlay transforms the standard phone keypad into an eight-key game interface. Players must hold down one of these buttons while performing a gesture and release it to indicate the end of the gesture. Gesture recognition is accomplished using camera-based motion estimation, as in Ballagas et al. (2005). As motion samples are collected, they are rendered on screen so that players can see their gesture progress in real time. Once the gesture is complete, the motion trail is normalized, and the data is passed through a gesture recognition algorithm. A legend of gestures is provided in a souvenir brochure that players receive at the beginning of the game. The spell vocabulary consists of symbols inspired by a mysterious secret language from a historical artifact, a gravestone located in the Regensburg cathedral. In designing the game, we carefully selected a few relatively simple symbols whose motion vectors were as orthogonal as possible to simplify the gesture recognition process, for which we developed a specific gesture recognition algorithm. Once we had devised the spell-casting concept, we used an iterative player-centered design process to ensure that the spell-casting input would be intuitive, enjoyable, and appropriate to the game's concept targeting tourists as well as to the game's narrative. At several stages in the design process, we conducted and video taped playability testing with several integrated prototype iterations both off and on site. These tests were followed by focus group interviews, which we used to identify patterns of behavior. Our main findings regarding the acceptance of gesture input follow: Players were surprised by the high level of gesture tolerance. Aaron: "What I thought worked really well was even when you made a round 'C', the device still would recognize it ”" in any case, it has a really high tolerance."[25] 5. "Nature" Orienteering originated in 19th century Scandinavia as a military exercise and developed into a competitive sport around 1900. We can think of it as a predecessor to all standardized scavenger hunts and an influencer of pervasive games involving point-to-point quest solving. We can think of it, in other words, as a mix of contesting, adventuring, and problem-solving, as pure terrain kinesis. Swedish Major and Scout leader Ernst Killander, the "father of orienteering," organized the first large-scale event in Stockholm in 1918 and continued to develop the rules of foot orienteering thereafter (Palmer 1997). Today, all Scandinavian countries host national orienteering championships, and many national and international competitions and events offer courses that vary in difficulty from beginner to advanced. Orienteering is a physical, running-intensive game in which players read and interpret a specialized topographical Map (see Figure 15, which shows a representative map used by acquaintances of the author during a Bay Area orienteering run in 2005), use a compass to orient themselves, and choose routes in physical space in order to locate and visit a series of control points shown on their map. Whoever reaches the finish line in the shortest amount of time, checking in at the control punch stations, wins. Because the shortest path from one point to another is not necessarily the fastest, players not only compete over respective fitness levels, but also over mental skills such as navigation and map reading. In fact, the main challenge in orienteering is to navigate while running, i.e. to coordinate oneself. Unsurprisingly, a 1997 member survey of the B
we next discuss the overarching spatial principles of play-grounds in the context of the phenomenological ideas of utopias, heterotopias, and dystopias;
finally, we present the inventory in list form organized according to the ludic quality of each play-ground ”" for example, what type of play does the play-ground program? Often, the form of the entry is that of a collage: it is linked to other entries or presented as a compilation of remarkable features. This allows readers, in a certain sense, to play and be inspired. The general organizational rule for the entries is architectural scale ”" from the mind to XXL scale (the World), and beyond.
1. About Play-Grounds
our discussion.
game experience?
the ship.
(Greenfield 2008).
treasure everywhere!"
to break.
through the city.
mental map.
character is made even more accessible and entertaining by the voice actor who plays it in so highly expressive, excited, and often self-ironic a manner.
emotional play-grounds (Lazzaro 2004);
mental play-grounds (see the Possible Worlds entry in the inventory);
sensual play-grounds.
Let us look at examples of how body enjoyment is achieved. Traditional Chinese foot massages ”" in western countries, a branch of so-called alternative medicine ”" belong to the last category, i.e. sensual, player-centered play-grounds. These massages can be quite painful for a first-timer, but may turn out to be a first step down the path towards better health. Many medical doctors criticize reflexology for a lack of scientific evaluation and proof of efficacy. In Switzerland, for example, only licensed medical practitioners are permitted to perform reflexology; this, it is believed, will raise and guarantee therapeutic quality on the basis of accepted medical knowledge. This is not the proper place for a thorough discussion of the medical accuracy of foot massages, however. Rather, let us look at reflexology from a game and interaction design perspective as a sensual
play-ground.
In noisy environments, the smoothness of the gesture trace visualization from the motion data was very important to the spell-casting experience because players had preconceptions about the robustness of the recognition system. Smoothness was improved over time by, for example, employing a momentum heuristic.
Because some players experienced repeated recognition failures at locations with a lot of motion noise, we introduced an alternative spell selection mechanism with a one-button interface.
Older players in particular found the publicness of the gestures socially awkward. The vast majority in the target group, however, mentioned that the gestures were an important part of the experience, adding, as they did, to the sense of magic and mystery. In a focus group interview, Maria said, "We had fun with the fact that it was hard to trace out the gestures. When it works every time, then it's boring. It shouldn't be too easy."[26] _ Emotional reactions were also common when players successfully performed a gesture. During a game session, Irene commented, "Bravo...yeah!" after performing a gesture correctly.
Ballagas/Kuntze/Walz (2008) as well as Ballagas and Walz (2007) discuss results from playability testing REXplorer in detail. The coupling of bodily gesture and game interaction, so much is clear, instantiates the play-ground that is the body.
"The real key to the architecture of gamespace, like any other architecture, is the entrance and the exit" (Wigley 2007:486). 1. Summary In this book, we have set out to architecturally frame play and games, both analytically and, where appropriate, designerly. We have structured the treatise according to three main sections, all of which contribute to our task of introducing the notion of a ludic architecture. In the first section, we investigated the conceptual dimensions of the space of play, differentiating between an ambiguity dimension, a player dimension, a modality dimension, a kinetic dimension, an enjoyment dimension, and, finally, a culture and context dimension. The major finding and contribution of this section consists in a novel approach towards play that couples play with architectural thinking and practice. A second contribution is the introduction of F. J. J. Buytendijk's work to the game studies and the architectural community. In the second section, we reviewed and updated existing notions of space and spatiality in digital games based on recent game and game design research, as well as on architectural research, with the goal of mapping a conceptual gamespace. In the concluding sub-section, we sketched out an analysis framework for investigating the spatiality of games. In this framework, we related dimensions of playspace to dimensions of gamespace; the resulting matrix can be considered the main finding of this section. In the third section, we applied our framework where appropriate in our critical and essayistic discussion of "play-grounds," i.e. prototypical and historically persistent spatial topoi of play and gameplay. The major contribution of this section consists of the enumeration of these play-grounds and their conceptual linking. 2. Final Remarks Games and play are here to stay. With technological developments, games and play will further evolve, and so will the gamespaces they produce and augment. Ultimately, some of us will live fully immersed in ludic machines ”" hybrid environments made to be played in, similar to Le Corbusier's vision of houses as machines to live in (Le Corbusier 1928/2008:170). The question is: Will we play to dream or play to work? Alexander/Ishikawa/Silverstein (1977:Pattern 58), writing on entertainment, suggest that in a world where rites of passage have diminished and where circuses and carnivals have died out, there is an even stronger desire to live out dreams. Architects and city planners, then, are supposed to accommodate this desire and build dreams straight into the city in the form, for example, of an amusement park, where competitions, dance, music, tombolas, street theater, and one's own non-everydayness can take place. In many ways, digital games in all modalities are a realization of these dreams. The crazy games that Alexander et al. want to see ” well, put simply, they are already here. But as dream worlds, games have a societal function. "Dream worlds are a reflection of our society, its desires and fantasies. As such they are not utopias, but play their part in the search for meaning" (Herwig and Holzherr 2006:17). What makes off-the-shelf games such as Grand Theft Auto IV (2008) so appealing for the masses? Commercial digital games seek to sell optimized dreams, which, to borrow from another context, "represent an ideal order. Reality is spontaneous, chaotic, and parallel; dream worlds are, by contrast, controlled and sequential, a precisely planned route without detours or shortcuts, so the visitors can be sure of replicating that same experience as often as they like, in the spirit of the notion that happiness is nothing other than the desire for repetition. Satisfaction guaranteed" (Herwig and Holzherr 2006:17). In the case of GTA IV, this optimized dream takes place in Liberty City, the fully traversable re-design of New York City ”" a shadow of the urbanity and an ironic interpretation at once. If we assume that games as dream worlds have the potential to stabilize society because, as Crawford has put it, they frame "a safe way to experience reality" (whether or not reality is seen as too chaotic or too controlled), what will be the stabilizing factor if games become 100% pervasive? What will happen if we meet Super Mario in real life? How will we dream within an everlasting dream? Or if the political goal of pervasive games is to destabilize or at least transform, then what kind of society do we want? What are our options? The "complete environment" of a New Babylon, as Constant would have described it? The ones who criticize control, but propose control as a solution will either govern a post-revolutionary world or maybe be the first ones eaten by their own revolution. Just as utopias always tell their own story as well as the story of a counter-concept of the space and times during which they were created, the fantasies that play out in games tell us something about the world in which we play our game fantasies. Back when digital gaming first hit the mass market in the 1970s, movies such as Star Wars, the Star Trek TV series and movies as well as games such as Space Invaders, Defender, or Asteroids fired our imagination with "the infiniteness of space" (Schütte 2000:9) ”" and every since, games from independent as well as from commercial developers continue to do so. The impact of games onto culture has also led to games inspiring physical architecture. For example, London-based architectural practice FAT has conceived a community building and landscape for an economically underprivileged town on the outskirts of Rotterdam, Netherlands. Employing participatory as well as interventionist design tactics toward a suburban regeneration effort, FAT's Heerlijkheid project in Hoogvliet displays bubbly, colorful and videogame-like elements such as a golden portico. The design not only explicitly resembles the Super Mario Bros. (1985) gameworld; it also reflects the residents' stories and dreams, thereby manufacturing a place in a double sense. Surely, Heerlijkheid is "an archetypal decorated shed, using sign-like popular imagery to communicate to its audience" (Long 2008). At the same time, attacking Modernist masterplan architecture, both the building and the landscape are emblematic of participative design as well as of videogame culture at least on the façade, the material and the topological level. What of the structural level? With Marcos Novak's transArchitecture theory and related projects, we came to think of cyberspace and physical space as merging to create an architecture beyond architecture: "The significance of this transition into, then through and eventually out of the looking-glass is the exploration of ideas and phenomena such as the fourth dimension will not remain limited to computer screens and head-mounted displays but will occupy the actual spaces we inhabit" (Novak 1996). Now that pantopian games such as REXplorer exist, what will feed our fantasies when the fantasy can be anywhere? How technological will these fantasies be, and how technologized do they have to be, really? See Figure 62, which displays the low technology example of the bronze "Glockenhopse", a popular nine-tone glockenspiel lowered into Berlin-Spandau's market square. Will we use games to jazz architecture, as Ludger Hovestadt (2007) suggests? Will we construct greater Liberty Cities to spice up games ”" or re-construct as well as augment the everyday with ephemeral, yet sustainable game rules and fictions to turn our networked, sensor- and actuator-rich urban environments into, potentially, neverending games or game-like experiences? While "we are struggling to fully comprehend the possibilities of cross media experiences" (Davidson 2008:163), on the next level, where Game Design and Architectural Design truly merge, the questions become: who will be the architects of ubiquitous dreams, and what kind of ludic architectures will they build, for us to play?
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