{"id":41410,"date":"2021-07-11T12:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T16:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=41410"},"modified":"2021-07-11T13:01:46","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T17:01:46","slug":"a-theory-of-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/a-theory-of-fun\/","title":{"rendered":"A Theory of Fun: What Are Games?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What are games according to Raph Koster? Why are there so many differing opinions on what games are?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book about the theory of fun, Koster provides his own definition of what a game is along with the definitions of others. He concludes that, in general, games are puzzles designed to teach your brain new patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is what Raph Koster has to say about what games are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

What Are Games?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the book A Theory of Fun and Game Design, <\/em>Raph Koster begins by explaining what a game is. Games involve thinking, and so a good place to start understanding games is to understand how we think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Cognition<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When we think about things, it seems as though we\u2019re generating novel thoughts all the time. In reality, cognition mostly uses your memory\u2014your brain pattern<\/a> matches what you see with past experiences. It recognizes a situation as \u201cjust another one of those.\u201d The purpose of this pattern-matching is to conserve energy. Your brain is evolutionarily programmed to enjoy learning patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author argues that the value of art is to shake up your brain\u2019s pattern-matching<\/strong>. Art forces you to see things in a new way, rather than what you remember them to be. A poem about a tree forces you to reconsider the ruggedness of bark and whimsey of the leaf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noise is any pattern we don\u2019t initially understand. You can, however, learn to find the pattern underneath the chaos. For example, bebop jazz sounds like noise, until you understand the underlying patterns in tempo and musical chord progressions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we\u2019ll learn, games are puzzles designed to teach your brain new patterns<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varied Definitions of Games<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is a huge variety of games, from chess to basketball to videogames. There have thus been lots of attempts to define what a game is. Here\u2019s a selection of definitions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n