A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome. The term is also used to describe a variety of forms of competitive activity that do not involve the player’s direct material gain.
In general, the rules of a game determine the time-keeping system, the rights and responsibilities of players, scoring techniques, preset boundaries, and each player’s goals. They also define the specific tools and equipment that a game uses. These include cards, dice, balls, hoop-soccer hoops, or any other prop that may be used for play and debriefing.
Some games have multiple players, whereas others are one-player only. Some, such as yo-yo or tennis against a wall, are considered puzzles rather than games, since they involve no real competition from other players.
Business games are a type of interactive design that focuses on business performance or other organizational behaviors in order to stimulate discussion and improve performance. They can be board games, computer simulations or other creative designs for group play.
There are a number of different types of business games, but the most common are games that require teamwork and cooperation in order to complete the task at hand. They are often designed to promote a particular theme or idea, such as entrepreneurship, team building or customer service, and usually come with different props and activities.
Political games attempt to portray a sociopolitical event or issue in the form of a game. They can either mimic or reinterpret classic board games in an effort to appeal to readers’ familiarity with the genre, or they can be purposefully remixed or redesigned to deliver a slightly altered social lesson.
For example, a recent political game produced by The Daily Telegraph aimed to help voters understand their values and concerns about the issues in the next election. The game asked users to answer a series of questions and then cross-checked the answers with party pledges.
The game was based on a standard board game format, but it incorporated the scale of a newspaper’s pages and the layout of the paper itself in order to convey its message. It is a very simple and straightforward design, with only a few rules and a fairly simplistic graphic style.
Other examples of political games have been made during wars and in the present, such as Operation BP: Bullshit Plug (2007), a game developed by Greenpeace to educate people about oil pollution. It is a game of strategy that uses a grid representing the ocean and has a resolution mechanic based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
During the Italian Social Republic, the monthly magazine Il Bel Paese published one or more simple games each month inspired by scandalous events that occurred at the time. These games often had very short, typeset rules, many of which involved card play or other mechanics that were similar to card play but redesigned for the new context.
A common feature of these political games is that the designers of them often use their own backgrounds as a source of inspiration for the designs and the messages. For instance, James Dunnigan, a designer at Columbia University’s student paper in 1969, created UP AGAINST THE WALL: MOTHERFUCKER which had only one page of rules and was designed to make fun of the attitudes of different groups competing for power at the university.