[MUD-Dev] When is the game a game?

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Mon, 25 Jun 2001 22:49:23 -0400, Travis Casey <efindel at earthlink.net>
wrote:

> Well, my point of view is rather on the philosophical end -- that
> it's a game from the time that it first *could* be implemented.

I was thinking along those lines, but then you sort of run into the
"vaporware" thing.

> I've heard arguments that a game is the game system + people
> playing it -- but we don't call the boxes on the shelves in stores
> "game systems" or "potential games" -- we call them games.  That
> implies that they are games even when there's no one playing them.

I've been thinking along the lines of "what is a game?" and the
answer keeps coming back "something you can play". So I've been
thinking, when does the game become something you "can" play?

Take, for example, the corollary example of a Diku server with no
areas installed. Is this game complete? Certainly, you cannot play
the game as it stands, but you don't need to add *game* to
it... just data.

Or look at a P&P RPG. Without an adventure of some sort, is the game
complete? Given the three "core" AD&D books -- Player's Handbook,
Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual -- do they comprise a
game?  How much can you strip out of the game before it stops being
a game?

Is a set of polyhedral dice a game in and of itself, even without a
set of rules? Is a set of rules which uses those dice a game, even
without the dice?

> Thus, it seems very arbitrary to me to consider it not to be a
> game until someone actually codes it.

I would tend to agree... but then the question of "playable" starts
to get messy. My system includes an autopilot, which is easy to
implement on a computer. But by hand? You MUST be joking. You can't
even map out the game universe in three dimensions; it's
non-Euclidean by nature. You probably couldn't even map it in
four. As a mathematical construct handled by a machine, it works. As
a physical construct examined by people, it just plain doesn't.

Which leads to a corollary question: is a game that sucks still a
game?  How much can it suck before it crosses the line? ;)

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