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The Four Challenges That Games Provide Do
kids win by strategic thinking or by pattern recognition? What about
adults? Pattern
Recognition "Pattern
recognition". More testimony to William Gibson's genius in using
that phrase to capture the essence of so much of life. (The book is now
being considered as a movie
to be directed by none other than Peter Weir ... yes!) Pattern
recognition is, of course, a well-known field of study within the
discipline of Artificial Intelligence. The belief is that an essential
prerequisite to being able to make sense of the world comes from being
able to process input, divide it into sensible and distinct
objects, and identify those objects. Gibson
ascribes pattern recognition as a key element in the ability to
"cool-hunt", namely to discern trends, brands, and items that
are just on the verge of becoming popular. Nothing really new there, of
course; economists, futurists, anthropologists, and marketers have been
trying to find these patterns for a long time. But
to reduce it to this phrase is important, because Gibson is saying that
essentially, in our confused rapidly changing world, there is really
nothing else to go on any more. Unlike previous generations, when you
could plan somewhat for the future, in anticipation of previous trends
repeating, this does not hold true today. Our grandparents knew what the
world would be like when they got old; we don't. "We
have no future because our present is too volatile. ... We have only
risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern
recognition." One
of the key differences between children and adults is the way that they
plan for the future. The theory goes that the older you get, the more
you engage in long term planning as opposed to short term rewards. Does
this translate into the way that we play games? The
Four Challenges That Games Provide Any
game features up to four types of challenges: 1.
You vs yourself 2.
You vs your opponent 3.
You vs the rules 4.
You vs luck The
first challenge is to grow. Grow in concentration, in information
juggling, in perseverance, in deduction, and so on. As your synapses
tackle certain type of challenges, pathways are strengthened that will
make future versions of these same challenges easier. The
second challenge is to outguess and outplay your opponent. Assuming that
you have the intellectual tools to master the game on par with your
opponent, winning will depend on guessing what sorts of moves your
opponent will make, where his weaknesses and strengths are, and what
will throw him off his game. The
third challenge is to master the rules of the game. Given a set of
pieces and rules, how do you manipulate this into victory. For some
games, it may be of middling difficulty to do this. It is not that hard
to achieve a victory in Chess simply by using the rules; the challenge
is your opponent working to thwart your moves. On the other hand, it is
a challenge to achieve victory in some types of puzzle games (including
most computer games), and complicated Euro games, such as Princes of
Florence. The
fourth
challenge is to overcome luck situations. Generally speaking this means
preparing to maximize your odds of winning, after which overcoming the
challenge means getting lucky. Having no control doesn't mean that it's
not a challenge to overcome, it just means that you have no control over
whether you will overcome it. The
Container I've
discussed previously the many
definitions of strategy and tactics. How much of strategy and tactics is
really only pattern recognition? All
of it. You've
seen that this doesn't work, you try something else. You recognize the
power of this piece, so you use it better. You map out a path based on
pieces of a puzzle that fit together in a certain way. Your opponent
tends to
do this or that. For
all but the luck element of the game, this recognition represents the
basic building blocks of overcoming these challenges. Even if you are
new to a particular game and/or opponent, the general patterns fit.
Pattern recognition equals experience and intuition, plus the ability to
reason, either through deduction or induction. Children
lack experience, of course. And it seems that they lack a highly tuned
ability to reason. They don't look ahead as far, and they don't get the
patterns just yet. Through
all of their life experiences, and particularly through playing games,
children slowly build up this capacity. It's like stretching a container
before filling it with liquid. It's not only the amount of liquid you
put in, it's working on increasing the capacity of the container. And
while you're at it, ensuring that the container is sound, and handing
over the keys to the pump. Adult
strategic thinking is no different, really, than children's; it's simply
walking in in the middle of the story. Yehuda |