#community discussion: are ethubs actually a shining example of new games philosophy? email me never to find out

[bellshazes]

Luck is very much fate’s last hope. It is the play of the last chance. It is the play of everyman.… In this sense it is useful to think of games of chance not only as models of the irrevocability of fate but also as fate fantasized. — Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play

thinking very, very, very hard about this. and about last life gambles that are not necessarily games of chance but are plays of luck - fate's last hope.

Playing a game is a dance between a player and the system of the game. When a game is boring, the player’s dance partner feels like a lifeless mass that has to be dragged about the dance floor.

Within this system of social relationships there are a wide variety of roles that players can assume, from arch-enemy to team leader to partner-in-crime. Roles are not fixed and may change many times within the course of a game. For example, in a three-player competitive game with one winner, at any moment during play one player might play the role of fast friend, bitter enemy, cloying annoyance, feared power, or grudgingly temporary ally to the other players. As the game proceeds and the balance of power shifts, these roles change and fluctuate, reaching an endpoint in which one player assumes the role of winner. Games are complex emergent systems. The relationships between objects in the system—between players—is in a constant state of redefinition.

these two hand-in-hand. and then this

The most intense thing about Missile Command, though, was this weird crazy moment near the end, when the ICBMs were raining down and you knew you were just about to lose it, that was totally euphoric. Because you knew that you were going to die, that you were within seconds of everything going black. You’re gonna die in three seconds. You’re gonna die at this instant. You’re dying. You’re dead. And then you get to watch all the pretty explosions. And after the fireworks display, you get to press the restart button, and you’re alive again, until the next collision with your own mortality.