What is good game design? In Chapter 6 of Artful Design, Ge breaks down what games really are to us, by taking us through a journey of game examples analyzed under the lens of interesting models including the MDA model, the asthetics dimensions of games, the ludus vs. paidia continuum, and the state of flow theory, and so on and so forth. Well, a deeply informative chapter indeed! Needless to say, all of these models are interesting to go through, but I can’t help but think the reason they are there is to serve an ultimate purpose — to give us tools to think about what defines GOOD games, and how do we go about making them.

There are of course, games that make us happy by engaging us in their rules and mechanics towards a simple, measurable goal. Happiness comes from the triumph of solving the puzzle or defeating the enemy, from the joy of figuring out the right strategies against often adversarial constraints. These are the more pervasive type of games we see on the market, FPS shooting, MOBA, etc. This is what Ge, citing philosopher Roger Caillois, introduced as the “ludus” side of play.

Ludus denotes play structured by rules and competitive strife toward goals. (Definition 6.10 )

But what about the sublime? If all we’re dealing with is rules we know and goals we have in mind, that kind of game seems to leave no space for surprises, for the awe-inspiring moments of clarity and wonder that rules cannot capture, and that kind of play is perhaps diminished in its very sense of playfulness. Granted, aesthetics can surely emerge out of beautifully constructed rules, but there’s surely something about these games that feels a bit dry and unsatisfying.

And that I think is when “paidia” necessarily needs to come in for the rescue, on the other end of the continuum:

Paidia describes a more free-form, expressive, improvisational, recombination of behaviors and meanings. (Definition 6.10 )

Indeed, as Principle 6.5 points out, there’s a reflection dimension in game aesthetics, where games are “mirrors of our humanness”. What is more human than “paidia”, pure play? The importance of paidia is clearly illustrated in Ge’s video essay, “Aaru: The Idyllic Video Game Sublime”, where Ge speaks about a sublime experience in visiting the game’s rendering of a place in Egyptian Mythology called Aaru, a field of reeds where people of the afterlife world lives in. The imaginary world of Assassin’s Creed Origins is driven by rules — the player controls the main character to fight and climb and travel from point A to point B to talk to person C to accomplish task D. This ludus side of things is necessary — the rules that underly the open-world quest system set the stage for the narrative, and guides the user to experience it by luring them with the unlocking of new chapters and challenges. It drives things forward, pushes the user along a predetermined path of discovery.

However, the aesthetic appeal of Aaru is quite the opposite – it is the appeal of actually experiencing an idyllic afterlife paradise to some degree. The beautiful graphics and story setting invites us for once not to move forward with the game in haste, but to stay perfectly still, to stop pursing the ludus and therefore break free from its power over us, so we can walk around this world in perfect tranquillity, forgetting that levels and challenges exist, but rather enjoying the views and observing Aaru as it is. We defy the anticipation of the game and become playful. And that’s when we begin thinking. We are imagining ourselves actually living inside this mythical Afterlife while wondering who we are both as a player in this fictional world but also in real life. The asthetics of the game here is not only being visually gratifying, but far beyond in that it speaks to our deepest imagination and lets us feel a moment of awe. The playful, aimless actions we are making to interact with the world of Aaru are truly our self-expressions — the more we playfully explore the world, the more we’re stimulated to think; and likewise the more we think, the more we’re motivated to further explore. Through the game mechanics, we find ourselves happily trapped in this beautiful feedback loop with which we reflect on the mechanics of our soul and our very being.

On a final note, I cannot help but think that the majority of games we’re building right now need more paidia to reach for the sublime. But perhaps the ludus part of the game are the necessary buildups that lead to this moment of release. Sometimes it’s the boredom that makes surprise all the better, the existence of forms that makes breaking away from it meaningful at all, the routine tasks and challenges that makes Aaru the special place that it is. Indeed, reaching a perfect balance between ludus and paidia is perhaps a design process that speaks to our very humanness.