Traditional Games & Material Analysis

One thing I feel I hadn't explained properly in my previous posts was that the game prototype I'm looking to develop is a traditional game, and by this I mean card/board games.The reason for this came about during my research stage in which during Siegel's (2006) research of Auto-Destructive and Auto-Creative art he notes;

“...destruction of physical objects is inherently more valuable an experience 

than the destruction of a simulated object”

Putting it down to the time and effort required to create something physical, compared to the ease of recreating a simulated object.

This plan to develop a traditional game should help to explain some points mentioned in the previous post: the case study of two traditional games (rather than Auto-Destructive video games such as Curiosity (22Cans 2012)), and the material analysis.

In the original Auto-Destructive manifesto Gustav Metzger (1959) mentions a list of potential materials that can be used, as well as mentioning some potential methods of destruction:

"Materials and techniques used in creating autodestructive art include: Acid, Adhesives, Ballistics, Canvas, Clay, Combustion, Compression, Concrete, Corrosion, Cybernetics, Drop, Elasticitv, Electricity, Electrolysis, Electronics, Explosives, Feed-back, Glass, Heat, Human Energy, Ice, Jet, Light, Load, Mass-production, Metal, Motion Picture, Natural Forces, Nuclear energy, Paint, Paper, Photography, Plaster, Plastics, Pressure, Radiation, Sand, Solar energy, Sound, Steam, Stress, Terra-cotta, Vibration, Water, Welding, Wire, Wood."

Using this idea to form the basis for analysis I started doing my own, looking for potential materials that could be used for traditional games, how they can be 'destroyed' and also inherent values to these materials/methods.

Rather than post up a big chart here I'll pop in some (brief, simplified) examples:

Material

Paper

Inherent Values

Easily Obtainable

Customisation

Easy to Destroy (+ ve and - ve)

Can be used to create

Writable

'Ethical' *

Sides

( * Ethical refers to the issue of Auto-Destructive games potentially being consumable and thus costly to the players, (an issue Rob Daviau touches upon in his design for Viking Funeral), ethical materials/methods are either cheap and/or easily replaceable, reducing this issue.)

Material

'Event' Cards

Variables

X-Mas/Religious Holidays

Birthday

Get Well

Congratulations

etc...

Inherent Values

Come with values that can be used for gameplay:

• Year
• Date
• Gender (Too, From)
• Older/Younger (Too, From)
• Length of Message (Lines)
• Word Count (All, Handwritten, Auto)
• Can also be used for is handwritten greater than auto (and vice-versa)
• # of People Too/From
• Colours & Images

See paper, although is slightly less 'ethical', at the same time what else do you do with old cards...

I will be continuing this sort of analysis (with such wonderful things such as Train Tickets and Traditional Playing Cards) whilst also looking at their value for making a game as well.