{"id":114,"date":"2004-09-06T15:26:23","date_gmt":"2004-09-06T13:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jesperjuul.dk\/ludologist\/?p=114"},"modified":"2004-09-06T16:39:29","modified_gmt":"2004-09-06T14:39:29","slug":"japanese-kids-playing-rules-and-the-enjoyment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/2004\/09\/06\/japanese-kids-playing-rules-and-the-enjoyment\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Children Playing (Rules and Enjoyment)"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I am working on my book manuscript. To prevent myself from simply writing like I always do, I am going to do a series of experimental game writings. In these, it is not strictly “me” speaking – they are rather explorations of possible directions in which to work.]<\/em><\/p>\n

4 Japanese children are playing. As far as I can see, these are the rules: One child (“the guesser”) walks away and closes his\/her eyes. The remaining three perform a clapping sequences and chooses between them who is “it”. The child who walked away returns and has to guess who is “it”.
\nThe guesser can guess as many times as he\/she wants.<\/p>\n

This is a game according to my definition.
\nThere are rules, quantifiable outcome, valorization of outcomes, player effort, player attachment to outcome, and “negotiable consequences” of the outcome.<\/p>\n

But this does not explain why the game would be enjoyable.
\nThere are many things of course:
\n-The shared ritual.
\n-The rhythm.
\n-Playing with distinguishing between people.
\n-The thrill of being special.
\n-The relation between individuality and arbitrary distinctions.
\n-Exploring your emotions towards the other players.
\n-Examining the signals and expressions of the other players.
\n-Trying to conceal the signals that you send.<\/p>\n

The consequences assigned to the game are rather weak. Also in the sense that there is no winner of a game, only an individual performance, but that the game is played multiple times. It would be possible to play 15 games and write down the performance of each player and pick a winner. However, this is not done. Overall performance rating is therefore rather imprecise. This is not a bug, it’s a feature.
\nThe game also contains strong chance element, making the skill of the individual less important.<\/p>\n

As we can see, the formal setup of the game means a lot for how it can be<\/em> used socially and what pleasures can be derived from it. But the other aspect of the setup, that the game is being played many times without the children keeping a score, also makes it a special kind of not-that-competitive game.<\/p>\n

The game is designed collectively by human children, who pass specific rules on because they enjoy the experiences that they get from playing with them.<\/p>\n

Why can’t we play this game as adults? Discuss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I am working on my book manuscript. To prevent myself from simply writing like I always do, I am going to do a series of experimental game writings. In these, it is not strictly “me” speaking – they are rather explorations of possible directions in which to work.] 4 Japanese children are playing. As far … Continue reading “Japanese Children Playing (Rules and Enjoyment)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-experimental-writings","category-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jesperjuul.net\/ludologist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}