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Evolutionary Root of Games: Natural Funativity
Posted on | July 23, 2009 | No Comments
The essence of intelligence is the perception and manipulation of patterns. Tetris excels in letting us exercise this ability. In fact it was the observation of game designer Brian Moriarty (designer of Beyond Zork and Loom) that people love to find patterns in things which led me to this realization. Other games that excel at this range from video games like Bejeweled, through various toys and pastimes like crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, or physical puzzles like Rubic’s Cube. Even appreciating music is a form of mental fun, since music is patterned sound just as poetry and song are patterned words. The Natural Funativity theory suggests that these mental games should teach us something that was useful for survival to our cave-dwelling ancestors. Although the literal action of Tetris is at best a severe stretch to link to survival activities, the more abstract function of quickly recognizing – and acting – on patterns is quite useful.
via Gamasutra – Features – “Natural Funativity” – printer friendly.
Great article recommended in the Game Design Concepts course. That’s one of my goals with GeekStack – make it fun by rewarding what people are already driven to do, while teaching them how to do new things they want to do.
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