Luderary terms

[obipam]

Luderary, adj. Of or related to video games or gaming. From the Latin "ludus", meaning game, or sport.

I was thinking about how nobody in academia really takes video games seriously as an art form. This might come as a surprise, but even the modern novel wasn't considered "high art" until somewhat recently. For instance, Dickens' _Bleak House_, which is now generally considered a masterpiece, was considered to be just the latest trendy, ephemeral thing, with not much lasting value. At their conception, operas were about as seriously received as Jerry Springer is today.

So what is it about high art that makes it high art? The most obvious thing is that most high art has been around for a long time. But most criticism of high art has an extensive vocabulary to help discussion. Not only that, but there's also usually quite a bit of theory behind what makes a literary or musical work appealing.

So to be considered seriously, and to facilitate discussion, maybe we need to start developing our own vocabulary. The first one, Luderary, is above.

Luderary appeal - n. An aspect of gameplay that makes a game enjoyable or have artistic or luderary merit. The luderary appeal of "I wanna be the guy" mainly consists of challenge for the sake of challenge.

Phalid - n. 1. A luderary appeal meant to satisfy the gamer's repressed violent or sexual urges. Allows gamers to vicariously go through experiences that would be socially irresponsible otherwise. Duke Nukem is a highly Phalid character
adj. 2. Of or related to these luderary aspects. The luderary appeal of God of War is mostly phalid in nature.
From the Sanskrit, phalita, meaning "fulfilled", and id, from Freudian psychology.

Praedis - n. Refers to the desire of the gamer to "win" or complete some goal. A luderary appeal.
A game would be insufficient if its only appeal was praedis.
Praedisical - adj Of or related to this desire.
The appeal of Achievements on Xbox Live is mainly praedisical.
From the latin, praesto, meaning "fulfill", and the sanskrit "dista", meaning goal.

All these terms also attempt to answer the question: what makes games enjoyable?

 

[More Fun To Compute]

There is a new world language in town, it's called English. Get hip with it daddio.

Edit: If what you are saying is so facile that you are embarrassed to say it in clear English then say something else. Don't try to make it sound smarter by inventing new latin words.

 

[obipam]

Yeah, I'm trying to expand English to more easily encompass some simple ideas from the gaming world.

I don't like vocabulary for the sake of vocabulary either, but I think these words would speed up discussion.

EDIT: Like, I was surprised that I couldn't find one simple word for "Of or related to video games". There's no obvious concise way to say that outside of a new word.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Are you looking for terms that only academics are going to use? They already have Game Studies academics with their own papers and whatever. They sometimes use the term Ludology instead of game studies. For gamers, even easily understood concepts like splitting role-playing games into Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist elements gain little to no traction with video game players. Most gamers fail to understand the difference between action gameplay and strategy gameplay.

 

[obipam]

Yeah, I guess that's what I was looking for. That's awesome. Thanks.

 

[Alex_P]

For gamers, even easily understood concepts like splitting role-playing games into Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist elements gain little to no traction with video game players.

Enh, that's a good thing. The big ideas behind GNS ("The Big Model") are worthwhile, but the categories themselves aren't very good at describing tabletop RPGs and pretty worthless for media where the creation of shared fiction (the "SIS") isn't the primary goal.

-- Alex

 

[More Fun To Compute]

For gamers, even easily understood concepts like splitting role-playing games into Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist elements gain little to no traction with video game players.

Enh, that's a good thing. The big ideas behind GNS ("The Big Model") are worthwhile, but the categories themselves aren't very good at describing tabletop RPGs and pretty worthless for media where the creation of shared fiction (the "SIS") isn't the primary goal.

-- Alex

It's better than every other poster coming up with a false dichotomy to make their own favourite aspect of interactive computational entertainment modules (ICEMs) seem better.

 

[Alex_P]

It's better than every other poster coming up with a false dichotomy to make their own favourite aspect of interactive computational entertainment modules (ICEMs) seem better.

GNS is less bullshitty but it, too, is a manifesto. It's very focused on Narrativism, the most narrowly-defined of the creative agendas. Gamism is a separate category because it's easy to remove, and Simulationism is the kitchen-sink dumping ground for everything else. It's kinda like how GDS (the RGFA theory) turned into a manifesto about Simulationism.

-- Alex

 

[Da_Schwartz]

Smartest thread ever.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

Any terms will probably just rise out of technical terms used, or be borrowed terms from other mediums. As videogames don't have the heritage of the older artforms, most new terms will probably develop from english. Any faux-academic grandeur derived from attempting to create latin/greek/other classical language terms will just be a pretense, pandering to the artistic insecurities of the medium.

 

[Alex_P]

Any terms will probably just rise out of technical terms used, or be borrowed terms from other mediums.

This glossary of fun [http://www.amagi-games.org/?p=6] for tabletop RPGs makes good use of borrowed terms. Many of them are adaptable to video games.

-- Alex

 

[More Fun To Compute]

GNS is less bullshitty but it, too, is a manifesto. It's very focused on Narrativism, the most narrowly-defined of the creative agendas. Gamism is a separate category because it's easy to remove, and Simulationism is the kitchen-sink dumping ground for everything else. It's kinda like how GDS (the RGFA theory) turned into a manifesto about Simulationism.

You are more familiar with them than me. I'm more interested in the basic idea of trying to break down games into different elements but it sometimes isn't possible to neatly separate them. I'm sure that when building a game engine it is possible and recommended to separate the sim code from the game logic as much as possible.

I was also thinking that it would be nice if someone wrote some more theories about how games can be great when the game is deep and the simulation and narrative elements are as simplified as possible. Those theories would probably not be as effective at communicating the idea as games like Chess, Poker, Tetris and Pac-Man though.