I’m an artist by trade, and I love creating things. I grew up wanting to be a Disney animator, and my BFA degree is in computer animation. I also happen to love math, and have spent a fair bit of time as a math tutor. I grew up loving math and the intersection that it has with art in things like Origami, the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci numbers (there is a TON of math in art). I love being able to take “right brain” and “left brain” notions and use them to reinforce each other. It saddens me to see students that I tutor fear negative numbers or fractions. Math and art are both deeply inquisitive ways to look at the world around us, and both have a great deal to offer to those trying to understand life and make their cognitive functions more effective, and to each other as disciplines.
Raph Koster brought “Lockhart’s Lament” to my attention, and it resonates with my experience. I managed to find a deep fascination with math early on, and I persisted with it despite my deep disgust with memorization and busywork. Of course, so-called “Investigations Math” is worse, as it doesn’t bother actually teaching anything, leaving students to figure things out on their own. The truth is somewhere in between; students need to learn how math works, but more important, they need to learn why, and how to extrapolate the critical thinking required for mathematical analysis into other aspects of life. Students need to learn how to think, not how to regurgitate.
Of course this has game design applications, since that’s what I talk about around here. Game designers need to give players tools and show them how they work, then stand back and let players play. Good math is playful, good art is playful. It’s the experimentation and discovery that makes them both fun. Games are very similar; the exploration of the game functions and artistic content is a significant part of the fun that can be derived.
To be fair, that’s not the only way to play (or design) games, or the only reason to do so, but it always bothers me when games quickly devolve into reflex checks or memorization hurdles. Likewise, tightly straightjacketed games with little room to explore and experiment don’t hold my interest for long. This is why level-gated games like WoW bother me; I’ve got to jump through the highly repetitive hurdles of leveling (with very repetitive combat) to see more content and get on with exploring and experimenting.
I think it’s no mystery why The Incredible Machine is one of my all time favorite games, and more recently, why Boom Blox and Crayon Physics are high on my list.
I wish people wouldn’t be afraid of math, or dismiss art as frivolous luxury.
I suppose there’s a tangent to be run exploring linguistics and how writing and wordsmithing is similarly creative and playful while being fascinatingly structured. I do lean on alliteration and creative use of words around here, after all. Perhaps that’s best saved for another article, though.
Have you read Godel Escher and Bach? I think you would really like it. These are the themes is basically talks about but the book is so comprehensive it’s hard to pinpoint an actual subject of the book. But basically, there are common threads in the work of all three, and these also extend to life itself.
I had a history class once where the professor assigned a list of topics, and all he wanted was 3 quick sentences or paragraphs, what is it, why is it important, and an anecdote. I found it depressing how many students around me were having trouble just understanding that they had been assigned storytelling not copying.
I rather tend to agree with you, good design is playful. It’s not about what you want the players to do, rather about the many fascinating things players do when they are empowered to do so. Someone, a modernists of some note I remember, once said that the role of a designer is to cure the disease of bad design around us. In many ways I agree with this, because it’s not a disease that attacks our body directly, but attacks our creativity and imagination. Bad design can make people fear to pick something up, or fear to play with it and turn it on it’s head. It makes us boring.
Not sure if I’m still on topic, but thought I’d add my .02.
In general, there’s a focus on knowing instead of figuring out in most areas, including math and MMOs. A while ago I wrote about programming tests and how writing program snippets with pen and paper and no reference was kind of silly. Real game programming is about tackling a problem and figuring out a solution that fits within the parameters you are given. This often requires a lot of investigation. Sure, if you don’t know how to use common data structures you are probably not going too be as efficient, but you can still be a top-notch problem-solver despite that and accomplish your tasks.
We see the same thing in games. I’ve read a few complaints about “quest helper” type plugins and features in games have taken away a lot of the mystery and fun of exploration in the game. Quests become more like a checklist instead of something fun to do. Again, the focus is more on knowing and completing instead of exploring for reasons of efficiency. The sad part here is this is what many players want, a path laid out before them to follow. Even if you love exploration, your friends and/or competition to get to higher levels may mean that you use the quest hints anyway (even if indirectly from friends who use it too lead the party around).
Interesting to think about the issue, though.
Godel Escher Bach is one of those things I haven’t gotten around to, but really should. Thanks for reminding me about it!
Sara, you’re definitely on topic. Thanks for the comments. I definitely have some education anecdotes that I’d love to correct, and indeed, a big part of that would be to foster experimentation. I feel like Ms. Frizzle sometimes. Learning should be fun, not drudgery.
Brian, I understand the cultural biases in that direction, but I lament them. They are to society’s detriment. I remember a Java class I took where all of the tests asked us to handwrite code. I thought it was lame then, and it was a significant part of why I didn’t take many CS courses in college. I can learn more on my own (faster and cheaper), tinkering with books and experimentation.
Oh, and interestingly, I tend to think that those who are at the top of their game in any competitive venture are those who manage to explore the cutting edge and develop those things that aren’t part of the rote “way things are”. Like Michael Jordan or Michaelangelo, their ability comes with plenty of practice of relatively mundane tasks, but those who truly excel tend to go way beyond the normal, accepted way of doing things.
The correlation, of course, is that those who merely perfect what *is* don’t tend to be among those who redefine what *may be*.
“or dismiss art as frivolous luxury.”
I think you said it best right there. Too often there is a section of society that thinks anything that doesn’t have a practical function has no place in society, but thinking of what the world would be like without the small pieces of art is really what makes life worth living, to resort to a cliche. Everyone indulges in some sort of hobby to some extent or another, some personal pleasure, and at base, I would be willing to say that is only possible through art in some form.
Agreed, Beej. Thanks for stopping by!
I could wax philosophical about art and creativity and how I think they are absolutely necessary to those seeking to understand what it is to be human… but I’d probably risk overexposure to pure nerdiness. Suffice it to say for the moment that I consider art to be essential to sanity and spiritual health.
I agree with you up to a point about “reflex checks” Tesh. On the one hand I find games much more interesting when I have several tactical options available…. on the other hand though, many games would be much less interesting if there were no dexterity to go along with that. Striking a good balance is important for many games.
True, Melf, which is why there are different types of games out there. Some like a Dance Dance Revolution, others like a Final Fantasy Tactics. I’m more of a tactical sort of guy, but I also like Kingdom Hearts 2, which has some Quicktime reflex checks. *shrug*
Perhaps I’m overly sensitive to reflex checks because I have a friend who loves games who happens to be a “high function” quadriplegic, and I have a marked preference for turn-based tactical games that allow me to step away from the game at a moment’s notice to play with my kids.
Ultimately, I’m glad that there are different types of games for different audiences, or for my different moods. I just see pure reflex checks and memorization schemes as being a sort of gaming that doesn’t offer as much rich potential for storytelling that games can offer. It’s still a fun style of gaming, and as you note, a nicely balanced mix can be a great thing. No arguments there.
I studied a lot of linguistics and English in College and loved it.
Today it’s approached mostly as a science.