Blog 3 on lusory attitude and the magic circle

Blog 3.

Huizinaga believes that when playing a game the player or players enter the ‘magic circle’. The magic circle consist of boundaries. “As a player steps in and out of a game, he or she is crossing that boundary- or frame that defines the game in time and space” (Salen and Zimmerman 2004)

The circle is a special place with in time and it’s a space created by a game. weather the game be have physical components for example a dolls house, playing ‘ mummies and or a rugby pitch playing sport. Or have psychological components playing ‘guess who’, trying to guess what celebrity the other player has thought off.
The player or players of the game can escape from reality with in the magic circle.
Another element to the magic circle are rules. “ the magic circle of a games is the boundary of the game space and within this boundary the rules of the game play out and have authority.” (Salen and Zimmerman 2004)



Lusory attitude from my understanding is that the relationship between the player and the game. “ the lusory attitude is an extremely useful, concept as it describes the attitude that is required of game players for them to enter into a game. ,” (Salen and Zimmerman (2004).
The players have to adopt and except the rules of the game in order to play.

According to Huizinga “ play must serve something which is not play that it must have some kind of biological purpose”(Huizinga,Johan (1970)). I think what he is trying to say is that play is in born in humans.



When playing dinner dash I could apply this to the magic circle. I was completely absorbed in the task at hand waiting on all the tables and trying to find out the best technique to serve and clean up and take orders. All that the same time. The game had boundaries, you only had a limited about of time to complete the task, if you did not attend to the tables quick enough then you would lose money. Also there was a time limit to the game before it was over, and with in this time you had to make as much money as you could.

Applying the Lusory attitude to this game, well I made the choice to play the game and I could not take part in the game until I downloaded it this was my choice, I was in right state of mind that I wanted to have fun and competed the game. I also excepted and adopted the rules of the game to complete it to my best ability. When the game was over, I excepted this and went back to real life!

Bib.
Salen K & Zimmerman E (2004) Rules of Play: game design fundamentals USA Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Huizinga,Johan, (1970) Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture, London Maurice Temple Smith Ltd.