Sophisticated Play and the Limitied Ludic.

Reclaiming play as an open, exploratory, and material act distinct from the increasingly codified and immersive domains of game design.The Surreal or the Unreal

"This essay examines how the concept of play as used in artistic practice diverges from the structured and rule-based nature of game design, emphasizing the value of tangible, uncertain, and improvisational play."

The use of play by artists differs significantly from its use by game designers. Artists like Francis Al?s, with works such as Ricochet, and Carsten H?ller, with The Book of Games to Play, approach play in ways that diverge from structured game design. Francis Al?s’s The Green Line (2004) exemplifies the open-ended and improvisational nature of paidia. In this performance-based work, Al?s walked through Jerusalem holding a can of green paint, creating a continuous line across the cityscape. This act, while deceptively simple, engages with complex social and political narratives without imposing a fixed set of rules or goals. The audience’s interpretation and participation—whether by observing, reacting, or engaging with the painted path—becomes an integral part of the piece. Unlike structured game design, where interaction is predefined within rigid systems, The Green Line invites unpredictable responses, emphasizing spontaneity and uncertainty over deterministic outcomes.

Carsten H?ller’s Book of Games to Play (2008) similarly embodies paidia by presenting playful activities that blur the line between art and participation. H?ller’s work encourages audiences to explore games as flexible frameworks rather than structured systems. By creating a “rulebook” for experiences that range from absurd to whimsical, H?ller shifts the focus from achieving objectives to the act of exploration itself. For example, some games in the book rely on randomness or the participants’ willingness to bend or break rules, further distancing the work from the immersive, goal-driven logic typical of game design.

Both Al?s and H?ller challenge the structured frameworks of traditional games by foregrounding improvisation, audience agency, and material engagement. Their works refuse codification, allowing for interpretations and experiences that remain fluid and open-ended—qualities that align with paidia and contrast sharply with the ludus of conventional game design. This highlights the value of playful acts in artistic contexts, where the focus shifts from “winning” or “progressing” to experiencing and interacting with the world in unexpected ways.

?In game studies, the distinction between play and games is well-documented. Game design often involves processes like feedback loops, core gameplay mechanics, immersion, behaviorism, realism, and simulation. These concepts differ from the notion of play employed by artists when creating interactive works. While both involve engagement and activation, it is time to disentangle the idea of play as a tool for crafting cultural artifacts in art and interactive culture from the structured design of games.

Uncertainty is often presented as a core principle of game design. Taxonomies categorize game mechanics, which are then combined to shape gameplay and foster immersion. Games create worlds with defined rules and objectives. However, does play truly belong in these environments? Play, perhaps, resides more comfortably in the tangible and material world than in the ethereal, hyper-real realms of digital simulation. While the Unreal Engine aims for hyper-realistic simulations, play thrives in the tangible and improvisational—consider Walter’s theory of props, which suggests that people enter play worlds through physical objects. For example, a broom can become a lightsaber, enabling imaginative play. Similarly, rather than adapting Harry Potter into a screen-based strategy game, the playful spirit of Quidditch is better expressed on a physical field, with players galloping around with brooms between their legs. This is play. By contrast, adding interactivity to a digital game is not inherently playful in the same way.

Adapting texts to create playful experiences is vastly different from crafting ergodic action, cybertext, or narrative architecture as outlined by Espen Aarseth and Henry Jenkins. Amateur dramatics, such as staging Alien as a theater production, is playful in a way that a simulation-heavy game like Alien: Isolation is not. While the latter meticulously recreates the cinematic world, play is rooted in the tangible struggle to create something monumental without the aid of advanced tools. Play emerges in the effort, the failures, and the improvisations—qualities often absent from the structured, resource-intensive prototyping and playtesting of modern game design.

Play activates experiences, yet the term "play" is often used interchangeably with experimentation or activity. These are separate concepts. Jesper Juul’s The Art of Failure discusses the paradox of failure in games, but failure is perhaps the central axis of real-world play, rather than its digital emulation. failure in artistic play is generative and process-driven, while in games, it’s often pre-calculated and instrumentalized.

Roger Caillois is frequently critiqued for his binary distinction between paidia (open play) and ludus (rule-based play). In his framework, ludus was elevated as a higher cultural pursuit, while paidia was dismissed as less significant. However, with the advent of technology, play and games may no longer exist on a spectrum. They now occupy distinct realms of creativity. Artists and designers approach "play" with different intentions. For artists, play often signifies exploration, activation, and engagement, whereas for game designers, it aligns more closely with structured systems and mechanics.

The New Games Movement, which emphasized cooperation over competition, created playful experiences that differ fundamentally from cooperative digital games like Pandemic. In the movement’s large-group, collaborative endeavors, play emerges in the shared, physical overcoming of challenges. This contrasts with the rigidly designed mechanics of co-op video games, which, while cooperative, lack the open-ended nature of true play. This is a call out to artists, to not fall into the design paradigm, but to reclaim play, before it was collinised by AAA game companies as a thing that basically just activities their products.?

Artistic Play vs. Game Design: Artists use play to activate engagement and experimentation, often embracing uncertainty and failure as part of the creative process. In contrast, game design structures play through rules, mechanics, and systems, which may strip away the spontaneity of real-world play.

Material vs. Immersive Play: Play is portrayed as thriving in the physical, material world, where simple props or activities can foster imagination (e.g., using a broom as a lightsaber). This is contrasted with the hyper-real, digitally simulated worlds created by tools like Unreal Engine, which the author sees as less "playful."

Play and Failure: Real play is seen as embracing failure and imperfection, unlike the designed "paradoxes of failure" in games that are calculated to keep players engaged.

Critique of Cultural Hierarchies: The argument questions frameworks like Caillois' paidia (open play) vs. ludus (rule-based play), suggesting that technological developments have pulled play and games into distinct, separate realms.

Collaborative Play: Movements like New Games (focused on cooperation and physical interaction) are seen as embodying the spirit of play, in contrast to cooperative video games like Pandemic, which adhere to structured mechanics.References

• Aarseth, E. (1997). Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Al?s, F. (2004). The Green Line. [Installation/Performance].
• Caillois, R. (1961). Man, Play and Games. University of Illinois Press.
• H?ller, C. (2008). Book of Games to Play. [Publication].
• Juul, J. (2013). The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games. MIT Press.

Walton, K. (1990). Mimesis as Make-Believe: On the Foundations of the Representational Arts. Harvard University Press.