oxfordhacker | Entries tagged with 'games'

I find myself in the mood to document another one of the games that

iruineverything and I played when we shared a house many years ago. Looking back, it seems clear that they all arose from the tension between our basic human need for communication and the realisation that we didn't actually do or think much that was of interest even to ourselves, let alone worth communicating to others. Lacking the resources (financial, physical, emotional) to resolve this in a healthy way (perhaps by experiencing things then discussing them), we turned communication or the corruption thereof into its own end, resulting in a series of semi-ritualised interactions that I choose to think of as 'games' (as opposed to, say, 'symptoms').

My motive in describing this particular one is not simply to share a wonderfully damaging passtime, nor just to remind myself of how much better I am these days, but also to protect my reputation. You see, some of those that knew me and my housemates during the period in which we were playing still recall (or, perhaps more accurately, 'find themselves unable to forget') the more lurid imagery that developed as a result. From time to time, therefore, said imagery will arise in conversation, attributed to me, at which point anyone within earshot who is unaware of the context tends to blink in incomprehension or recoil in horror, depending on the vividness of their imagination. The conversation is derailed, and a lengthy and hasty explanation is necessary to provide the proper perspective lest I become known as, say, a Frankensteinian incestuous zoophile. I hope that the remainder of this post will supply that context, and that this introduction will have served as a warning to potential players.

When Surrealist Terrorists Attack

You will need: Two or more players with scant regard for the mental well-being of themselves or others.

Rules and history:
"If X and Y were in a burning building and you could only save one, who would it be?"
The game began with the above question, a classic inducer of a thousand traumatic conversations. We soon realised that its real power was in iteration: repeated applications of this question with appropriately chosen variables can rank a person's entire set of acquaintances in strict order of affection. This can be troubling/entertaining enough, but only begins to explore the possibilities inherent in the game. Logical readers will already have spotted, for example, that the question poses a strict inequality: you have to choose one option over the other, allowing ill-defined edge cases where the two options are of equal value. Sadistic readers will note that the closer in value the options are, the harder the choice. Creative readers may realise that any two options could be brought closer together with inventive riders. Being logical, creative sadists, we soon moved on...

"If X and Y were in a burning building and you could only save one, who would it be, if you knew that Y was going to die of cancer within a year?"
Here we have a simple yet ingenious extension of the original question. By painstakingly tweaking each option like this, we can eventually reduce any choice to insoluble equality. Again, the logical will realise that this allows the players to rank conditions as well as people. For example: "Would you save your sister or your brother? OK, but what if your sister was pregnant with twins, but your brother was running an orphanage?" Let your imagination run wild! Soon you'll be forcing other players to choose between saving their mother or a paedophile who's on the verge of curing cancer. The disadvantage is that eventually you'll manage to present your victim with a dilemma so difficult to resolve that they will opt to toss a coin, or even to lie down in the building and let all be consumed. That, of course, is when you escalate...

"If terrorists burst in and forced you to choose between saving X, saving Y, or having yourself and everyone you've ever loved tortured to death, which would you choose?"
Another simple extension of the premise, but its advantages are clear. Replacing the impersonal catastrophe with sentient agents (albeit with rather cryptic motivations) makes the question much harder to avoid. Not only does this more strongly compel a choice, but it neatly defeats clever-dick answers to the original burning building scenario like "I'd save X because Y could probably escape on her own". Essentially the terrorists become a proxy for the questioner, shutting down all avenues of escape from the central decision. Once again, we find that this extension has unexpected benefits: you are no longer limited to life-and-death choices, these terrorists can and will force you to choose between anything at all. This opens up another questioning technique: rather than attempting to traumatise the victim with impossibly equal options, you can present them with alternatives which are traumatic even to evaluate. Once this questioning paradigm is established, you'll find it becomes second nature to face each other with entirely unacceptable decisions at the drop of a hat. The end results are, of course, limited only by your imagination, but as an example of high-level play I will present one that we developed when playing eight years ago which is still quoted to this day:

"If terrorists burst in and forced you to choose between fucking a tiger, fucking a chimpanzee with the mind of your sibling, or having everyone you've ever loved tortured to death, which would you choose?"

End: A choice is presented which reduces all players to blank-faced horror or helpless giggles.

Winning: No-one wins.

Current Mood: Unhealthy
Current Location: At work (tsk)
Current Music: 'Tender' - Blur

I'm so cocky, I'm making more than my mandatory one post today. I was writing up another 'game' we used to 'play' (to follow yesterday's) when it all started feeling oddly familiar. Sure enough, after some Googling I found the first part of this series. From damn near seven years ago. Man, back then I was still sharing a house with

archie and

iruineverything and we were still actually living these games. It's interesting to see that I used the same title back then, and though the format is different, the writing style is similar. I guess the metamorphosis that I was writing about yesterday wasn't all that profound...

Current Mood: Similar
Current Location: Downstairs on the sofa
Current Music: 'Think Locally, Fuck Globally', Gogol Bordello (in my head)

The human life-cycle is a complex and occasionally beautiful thing, and though the natural world holds many wonders - the surreal creativity of the Burgess Shale, the long-perfected killing machine that is the shark, the mindless complexity of insect society, and the thousand-mile migrations of tiny birds - I contend that it holds nothing more astonishing than the human journey from screaming shitting flesh-blob to, say, Visual Basic developer. However, as with many creatures, mankind commonly passes through a pupal stage in which it is dormant and useless while growing the necessities of adult life. Some never make it there, some don't appear to need it, but for me and many that I know, it was a vital stage of development which occurred between the ages of about 18 and 25, during which vestigial personality traits emerged and hardened, facial features firmed up and started to display character, and life skills were honed.

As I say, it's a wonderful thing, but life can be tough during this time of metamorphosis. Inside the body and mind are frantically reconfiguring for adulthood, but from the outside one might be considered dormant, even parasitic. Lacking the wherewithal to do anything more than survive in the world (and sometimes not even that) these pupal creatures tend to gather together in clusters for protection: from tiny shared hovels to elaborate universities. While this greatly improves their survival chances, it does lead to them spending a vast amount of time in close proximity with each other, lacking, as they do, the mental, physical, emotional and/or financial resources to roam. Without any other diversions, these proto-people are left with little choice but to interact, ideally in a way that stimulates their healthy development into adulthood, but certainly in a way which requires no energy or money.

If you or someone you know are currently going through this transformative period, I may be able to help. First, by reassuring you that all but the most hapless make it through and emerge as something approximating a grown-up. And secondly, to suggest some games to play while you're waiting. I've got several of these, all tested by

archie,

iruineverything and myself when we used to live together. Warning: they may have made us what we are today... Here's the first:

Say What?

You will need: One or more players, one victim
Rules: Start staring at your victim. They will soon notice, and say something. You task is to keep them speaking for as long as possible without saying anything yourself. Your only weapons are your facial expressions.
Scoring: You get a point for every second that your victim spends trying to work out what's going on. Award yourself extra points based on the bizarreness of their guesses. e.g.
"Is there a spider on me?" = 2 pts.
"Shit, you read my diary didn't you? I don't really try to imagine sleeping with my brother." = 10 pts.
"I guess you found what's buried in the back garden, huh? In a way, I'm glad it's over. I'm going to take you down with me, though..." = 50 pts.
End: The game ends when the victim storms out, hits one of you, or sinks into a coma.
Winning: No-one wins.

Current Mood: Nostaligic
Current Location: Downstairs on the sofa
Current Music: 'Kitty In The Basket', Hello Children Everywhere

We all like playing games. I thought that this week I'd share some of the games that

eidolonarchie, Lorna and I play to spice up our otherwise tedious lives. Some probably only work with our particular mix, but this first one is one I've played fruitfully at work. Perhaps you'd like to, too...

Caution: I was going to write a disclaimer here, but in the end, I figure that even those regular readers who've never met me or my household can probably guess the likely outcome of this game. It's probably a symptom rather than a cause, but it may yet cause you to end up like us. Careful now.

I. Bitchy Banalities

Introduction:

You know as well as I do that a lot of the interaction we have with others is uninteresting: formal politeness, feigned interest, the sort of conversational equivalent of those blips your mobile phone sends out to tell the transmitters that it's still there in case anything interesting comes along for it. No matter how witty and intelligent you and your compadrés are, a reasonable amount of your interaction is going to be: "Doing anything tonight?" "Prob'ly not." "Work OK?" "Can't remember." "Have you seen my spoon?" "No."

Now, don't get me wrong. I agree that this sort of stuff is necessary, as social glue, information exchange, or nuclei around which actual conversations can form; but that doesn't mean it's fun. Until now.

The Rules

The game is simple to learn and play, though rather harder to convey in written than in spoken form. The idea is to say the things that you would normally say, but in the most poisonous, sniping tone of voice that you can muster. "Have you seen my spoon?" becomes an accusation, "Doing anything tonight?" an implication of abandonment, even "Hello" can be given that 'I'm upset with you and you ought to know why' cadence. Instantly enlivens conversations, as your unwitting fellow players react revealingly: responding in kind, asking if anything's wrong, backing down immediately, or trying to defuse the situation in some other way. Not only does this tell you something about their approach to personal conflict, but also about their assessment of your personality. If people shut up and back down, they may see you as scary. Did you know that? Is that the image you want to be projecting? If they just say "Oooh, someone's got his grumpy hat on today" you're apparently either too happy-go-lucky or too uninteresting to be taken seriously. Why not jump to your own pop-psychological conclusions? The hard-core might like to feed such assessments back into the game by accusing the other player of reacting inappropriately. The more light-heartedly devious can feign incomprehension and stop the game after one comment, leaving the other players feeling paranoid and over-sensitive. Improvise.

Advanced Game

In our house, we know each other well enough to pick up quite fast on the insincerity inherent in this game, and it's now become almost habitual. The initial fun of inducing neuroses has passed, to be replaced by a friendly in-jokey atmosphere. What this implies about our household is anyone's guess; but when asking if anyone's taken the rubbish out can induce giggles, I figure we must be doing something right. This does have the (potential) disadvantage of flummoxing visitors, particularly as

eidolonarchie and I in full bitchy swing can give the impression that... well... let's just say that the impression is not that we live together just to save on rent, if you know what I mean.

At work, things are a little more complicated, but some people on a similar wavelength to me quite enjoy it, though tend not to play too; while most of the others are sufficiently used to not taking things I say at face-value for me to have avoided any situations escalating beyond the entertaining.

Educational Content

Surprisingly high. As mentioned above, you can infer a lot about people and their perceptions of you by their reactions to this game. Also, if you play properly and say only things that you would say anyway, you can discover just how subtle your tonal shading can be and still completely change the reception of your words. You can also learn the terrible consequences of toying with the implicit trust that binds people together, and run the risk of never being taken at face value again. In fact, thinking about it, when I meet my mates for our traditional gathering down the pub tomorrow, if one of them greets me in a hurt tone of voice I will be unable to decide whether they've read this and are playing, have read it but aren't or haven't read it at all. I may thus have poisoned a good few friendships, dealing them a blow that could take much careful rebuilding to recover from. Fuck. Still, it's taken me ages to type, so I have to post it now. Maybe I should make it 'not friends only'...

Variations

When writing this, it occurs to me that you could play the reverse of this (perhaps called 'Sweet Nothings'?) and simply make small talk in the most charming way possible instead. Disturbing thoughts that this occasions:
- Why didn't I think of this before?
- Why do I suspect that most people would just think I was taking the piss, and that I wouldn't actually be able to convincingly feign fascination with trivia?

On giving this further consideration, I supect that it might actually be quite fun if I could carry it off, because people would assume that they must be looking particularly fragile and upset to merit such special treatment. Disturbing thought this occcasions:
- Why does someone have to be unnerved for it to be fun? I'm such a bastard.

Potential downsides:
- People thinking that your interest implies that you fancy them.
- People thinking that your interest is genuine concern and unburdening themselves to you, while you attempt to sympathise, all too well aware that if they had any idea that you were feigning sympathy for your own twisted amusement that that would make their situation far worse.
- The very existence of this game crippling you emotionally, unable to express your true feelings to anyone, no matter how sympathetic-seeming, because you are living proof that there's a possibility that their concern is a sham, and inside they're smirking at your pathetic latching onto the flimsiest of off-handed simulations of interest.

On the whole, probably the version we play is better.

Play safe. And mind your head.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: 'Addicted to Bass' - Puretone (on repeat)