Many Christmassy Greetings, oh Reading of the Week!

Many Christmassy Greetings, oh Reading of the Week!

Happy Christmas, you grubby little mortals!

What? Christmas is still two weeks away?

Time is relative; somewhere in the universe it is currently Christmas. Go, prove me wrong. I dare you.

Also, if you don't believe in Christmas, and are likely to get worked up about it, step outside for a few moments, and come back in and sit down when you realize that I will believe what I want, that I understand that you can believe what you want, but Christmas isn't just a religious thing, and I am not forcing my beliefs on you. If anything, you're getting offended that I have beliefs myself.

I will wish you happiness at Chrsitmas time whether you like it or not.

I swear to the Emperor I will love and tolerate the heck out of you...

Anyway, I did some highly un-festive reading last night, of an article entitled Natural Funivity, from the Gamasutra website. This was written by Noah Falstein in November of 2004. It's less Christmassy where he was in the space-time continuum.

The main topic of this article is what makes games fun; it looks at this from an evolutionary standpoint. If you don't believe in the theory of evolution then, by all means, go and get a proper education. Even Christianity is picking up on it now; what's your excuse.

By the way, I'm feeling a little more satirical today, in case you hadn't noticed.

Right, the article reminds us that humans, like other animals, have certain needs and desires, including the will to survive, and the drive to reproduce. For the purposes of this article (and blog post), we will be looking at the evolutionary point of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, several hundred thousand years ago.

Today, our instincts and drives are twisted and masked by our technology and modern society (as though they're bad things - ha!). For example, the sensation of sweet tooth, or a craving for sugar or sweet-tasting foods, is born out of our ancestors' desire for fresher, riper fruits, which would have tasted sweeter; unlike modern sweetness, these were very good for our ancestors; these are still very good for us, but because we refined the taste of sugar into something even sweeter, we lust after that rather than the now spurned fruits our ancestors enjoyed (we shall call this occurrence refined sugar syndrome (or RSS), and may come back to it later).

Now, the activity of play is so built-into our psychology, and goes back so far that we can actively see it in other species of animals, such as cats or dogs; it's very common to see puppies or kittens playing with their siblings. This kind of activity helps to train them for adulthood, by making them practise fighting each other, they're more prepared when they have to actually fight, giving them a distinct advantage. It's also highly adorable, and liable to cause me to make a number of very un-manly sounds.

Humans also have this instinct, of course, and our larger brains appear to cause us to carry it into adulthood. This also bears some advantage; consider an ancient hunter who has just brought back a kill for his family; what should he do now? Well, he could possibly go back out and hunt some more, and bring back more food, but this carries certain risks, and would also have an underlying effect on the prey's population if done in large numbers. Perhaps, then, he could rest? However, resting too long will cause him to slightly lose muscle strength and hunting skills.

Instead, evolution came up with a new instinct for humans (and other animals) to follow; by practising hunting skills in a safe environment, such as in the home, the hunter can maintain his strength and skills without causing any serious risk to himself (or un-needed drop in the animals' population). Now he's always ready to hunt again the next time he must. The activity of practising adult activities and skills (for hunting, social interaction, and so forth) in a safe environment is called "play", and the pleasurable sensation derived from satisfying this desire is called "fun".

That's all there is to it. How easy and sense-making is that? We're learning right here.

This is why certain elements in games relating to human instincts are so popular. These include speed, as commonly seen in racing games, survival, as seen in, well, almost every kind of game, collecting, commonly found in most games, and social activity, like RPGs. Seven Hells, the Far Cry series (particularly Far Cry 3) is more or less a hunting simulator in many places, and those games are FUN!

I should probably also mention that the article splits different types of "fun" into categories; Physical, Social, and Mental.

Physical fun covers the enjoyment from using one's body and muscles to play, and includes most sporting activities.

Social fun is the pleasure in interacting with others, such as in a multiplayer game, or with non-human characters (or NPCs).

Mental fun is the joy found in understanding and manipulating patterns, such as in Chess or Tetris.

Anyway, mortals, that's enough from me; I'll be seeing you around. I'll probably be posting to let you know how the whole end-of-semester thing went, whether I'll still be in full-time university education next month, and wishing you another very Merry Christmas before I recluse myself in Chrsitmassy joy for some time.

Praise to the Emperor!