How Imaginative Are You?
Patrick
to others about games, they often wonder why I'm so fascinated with
them--because what they like about games doesn't coincide with what I
like about them.
Years ago, I taught myself to play bridge on the computer. My wife
(who had played bridge the regular way--with three other people)
looked over my shoulder and offered a few tips. Then, when I balked
at following her advice, she said, "That's a very unimaginative way of
playing."
Last night, I played a few games on my Nintendo DS--an Advance Wars
scenario, then some dominoes and solitaire. I scored a "B" in the AW
game--which pretty much means my play was mediocre (it's usually not
hard to get an "A," and the top score is "S"). And what surprised me
was that I was OK with that. I mean, my ego was hurt; I felt I
deserved top marks. But when I thought about what it would take to
earn those top marks, I didn't want to do it. After all, it's just a
game.
I regularly encounter people who claim to easily triumph against AI
players in most any computer game. It just comes naturally to them.
Then there are those who put a lot of thought into creating killer
Magic decks, studying chess openings, and so forth. For them, the
whole joy of gaming seems to be a process of *improvement.* They want
to get better and better at the game, and they'll apply their creative
imagination to the task, coming up with new approaches and trying them
out.
In contrast, I'm very boring. Yes, I know I could do some creative
deck building in Blue Moon or the PC game Astral Masters. But it's a
bother. I'd rather just grab one of the standard decks and play. And
yeah, I know I could improve my backgammon game if I studied the odds
and took time to count points and make more careful decisions; but I
just want to play the way I've always played.
I don't want to have to think ahead so much. I don't like to plan. I
prefer to just push pieces around the board and watch what happens.
To me, planning and meticulous play adds up to *work.* And I don't
want to ever work at a game; I want to just play it.
That's one reason I've been drawn at times to wargames and other
heavily themed games. Immersion in the theme is one reason to play
games like that. You don't have to fiercely compete, so you don't
have to think so hard. Anytime I play a wargame, I'm spending at
least half my time just observing--watching the spectacle as it
unfolds on the map. If I can make things go my way, all the better (I
do prefer to win, of course). But I'm just not the kind of guy who's
going to dedicate a lot of brainpower to optimizing moves.
Sometimes--especially when I'm tired--I even enjoy mindless games
where the decision making is trivial. I'll just play mechanically and
enjoy watching what unfolds. Even a game like Snakes & Ladders might
be interesting enough then.
I guess I'm pretty unimaginative overall, especially when it comes to
gaming. I'm content to make the same line of moves over and over in
every game I play, and I'll change my approach (reluctantly) only if I
finally get tired of losing and feel I *have* to do something
different. Repeated failure either forces me to change or causes me
to become discouraged with a game. But unlike many gamers, I do not
look forward to change or welcome opportunities for improvement. I
like to believe my level of play is good enough already.
--Patrick
John McLeod
>I don't want to have to think ahead so much. I don't like to plan. I
>prefer to just push pieces around the board and watch what happens.
In this case it seems to me that you should prefer games that are
reasonably elaborate, and involve quite a few decisions, but where the
outcome is largely a matter of chance, and the decisions have only a
minor effect. That way if you lose you can always ascribe the result to
bad luck.
Interestingly, this is almost the opposite of what many people think
makes a good game: simple rules with deep strategy and much skill
required. Probably you should avoid Go, Chess and Bridge. There are
plenty of board and card games better suited to your preferences. Maybe
I'll suggest a few if you agree with my analysis.
I notice that my reply above does not have much to do with imagination,
and on rereading your initial post, I'm not sure that does either. You
seem to be equating imagination to analytical effort. I suppose that
successful analysis often requires some imagination as an input, but it
requires other skills too, and in the case of difficult games a lot of
mental effort which you are quite reasonably unwilling to expend. If you
indulge in a fantasy based on the theme of a game - mentally traversing
the galaxy or marshalling your troops for battle - that is exercising
your imagination even though you just watch the game play out as it
will, without greatly influencing the outcome.
--
John McLeod For information on card games visit
jo...@pagat.com http://www.pagat.com/
Patrick
> >I don't want to have to think ahead so much. I don't like to plan. I
> >prefer to just push pieces around the board and watch what happens.
>
> In this case it seems to me that you should prefer games that are
> reasonably elaborate, and involve quite a few decisions, but where the
> outcome is largely a matter of chance, and the decisions have only a
> minor effect. That way if you lose you can always ascribe the result to
> bad luck.
such game at least once. Most recently I bought Runebound, Second
Edition. From all I read, it sounded like an "immersive" game with a
big chance element and not a lot of deep decision making.
But I played it once (solo) and stopped halfway through the game. It
got too repetitive for me, and it bothered me that it didn't seem to
matter where I moved on the board most of the time. I suppose some
people enjoy reading the text on the cards and imagining the story as
it unfolds, but I got bored with that early on and stopped reading the
card text. From then on, it was just a runaround.
Someone on BGG posted a variant that makes a better solitaire game of
it. But it does so by tightening up the game and making the "puzzle"
of it harder to solve in time. I'm not sure I want that. If I liked
puzzles, I'd probably be happy with ordinary solitaire (patience)
games.
A more promising game is one that I have set up right now: Lock 'n
Load: Heroes of the Blitzkrieg. It's a light, fast-moving spinoff of
Squad Leader--which I used to enjoy quite a bit, years ago. I've
played a couple small demos of the game, and they were fun. There's
plenty of detail to grab the imagination, a lot of dice rolls to add
variety and surprises and keep me from overthinking--and it's a
subject I like more, I guess, than the fantasy world of Runebound.
> Interestingly, this is almost the opposite of what many people think
> makes a good game: simple rules with deep strategy and much skill
> required. Probably you should avoid Go, Chess and Bridge. There are
> plenty of board and card games better suited to your preferences. Maybe
> I'll suggest a few if you agree with my analysis.
and Bridge at various times. Bought books and software and set about
learning to become a decent player.
I admire these games more than most others. But I always reach a
point where it starts to feel like more work than play. Then I ask
myself, Why am I doing this? Play is supposed to be fun. Racking my
brain, struggling to work out a tough puzzle, and growing ever more
frustrated--that's not much fun for me. It's a satisfying relief when
(and if) I finally do make the winning moves or work out the solution
to a problem. But the headaches I experienced along the way seem to
outweigh the reward at the end.
Sometimes I turn to games like Backgammon instead, hoping the chance
element takes the edge off competition. It does, to some degree. But
I'm always aware that I ought to be taking time to count points and
calculate odds if I want to play well. Then I'll buy a book on the
game, study it--and eventually get frustrated just as I do when I
tackle a game like Chess.
> I notice that my reply above does not have much to do with imagination,
> and on rereading your initial post, I'm not sure that does either. You
> seem to be equating imagination to analytical effort. I suppose that
> successful analysis often requires some imagination as an input, but it
> requires other skills too, and in the case of difficult games a lot of
> mental effort which you are quite reasonably unwilling to expend. If you
> indulge in a fantasy based on the theme of a game - mentally traversing
> the galaxy or marshalling your troops for battle - that is exercising
> your imagination even though you just watch the game play out as it
> will, without greatly influencing the outcome.
of fantasy, while other times it refers to the ability to envision an
outcome and a path or method that will lead to it.
I can be very imaginative in the fantasy-flight sense. Even a thinly
themed game like Lost Cities can get me picturing archaeological
expeditions to exotic places.
But my imagination often fails me when it comes to visualizing a Chess
position I want to create three moves from now, then filling in the
specific steps that will lead to that position.
--Patrick
David Parlett
>Yes--"imaginative" is a curious word. Some use it to refer to flights
>of fantasy, while other times it refers to the ability to envision an
>outcome and a path or method that will lead to it.
>
>I can be very imaginative in the fantasy-flight sense. Even a thinly
>themed game like Lost Cities can get me picturing archaeological
>expeditions to exotic places.
>
>But my imagination often fails me when it comes to visualizing a Chess
>position I want to create three moves from now, then filling in the
>specific steps that will lead to that position.
On this point, and as a matter of terminology, perhaps I may quote from
an article of mine on chance and skill in games:
Here we find ourselves talking about the forward visualisation involved
in combinatorial games like Chess. What do we mean by forward
visualisation? At first sight we mean looking ahead to our next move and
to the sequence of moves likely to result from it. This has been
described as examining the branches of the strategy tree, and is
something that computers are very good at. In human terms it seems like
a form of memory, only in reverse, in that we are following a sequence
forward into the future rather than backward into the past. I have
always described this ability as mental projection, in that we are
projecting ourselves into the future. Abrahams (in The Chess Mind)
refers to it simply as vision. But in fact future recall or reverse
memory is a pretty good term for it, as experiments have shown that
exactly the same parts of the brain light up as when it is engaged in
tracing backward memories. (See Jessica Marshall, "Future recall: your
mind can slip through time", in The New Scientist, 24 March 2007, page
36-40.)
--
David Parlett
Peter Clinch
> Here we find ourselves talking about the forward visualisation involved
> in combinatorial games like Chess. What do we mean by forward
> visualisation? At first sight we mean looking ahead to our next move and
> to the sequence of moves likely to result from it. This has been
> described as examining the branches of the strategy tree, and is
> something that computers are very good at.
Perhaps "can be" rather than "are": they're certainly better at
some games than others, Go being a notable example where computers
haven't yet got /that/ good. And Arimaa was designed specifically
that computers would be bad at it.
OTOH we have games like GIPF, where a single move changes lots of
on-board relationships. I've just been trashed /again/ by the gf1
program on level 2 (level 1 is practically random moves, there are
8 levels) in part I suspect because keeping track of all the
changes is easy for a computer but very hard for me!
> But in fact future recall or reverse
> memory is a pretty good term for it, as experiments have shown that
> exactly the same parts of the brain light up as when it is engaged in
> tracing backward memories. (See Jessica Marshall, "Future recall: your
> mind can slip through time", in The New Scientist, 24 March 2007, page
> 36-40.)
Fascinating! thanks for the pointer.
Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net p.j.c...@dundee.ac.uk http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
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