Paidea V Ludus

Last week we were introduced to the words LUDUS  and PAIDEA,  we had to read a section from James Newman's book about these words. Thou he does not give a precise definition about theses words he give a very good example quote from Frasca
"These  Ludus are hard-coded within the program" , What is a video game, Newman, pp20 "However the same mission-bsaed simulator could also be used for paidea: the player could simply not follow the rule and whould just play around with the airplane..."

Going with the what Frasca says i found it quite hard to think of games purely ludus or Paidea. On the other hand, I quickly thought games which would be possiable to switch between the
two.
-Final fantasy series - You have a main set mission throughout game, yet Square-Enix doesn't make it that straight forward,. Once you have completed the whole game you can go back to cities, redo missions or even play the different games they offer (final fantasy VII the Gold saucer amusement park, you can always go back and TRY to be the arm wrestling champion, but sometimes, sometimes, you cant be the best at it... NO MATTER HOW MANY TIME YOU TRY)


Fallout-  With the same game play as Oblivion and Dragon age, you have a set goal to achieve, however, you can kill who ever you want, get whatever reputaion you want or even just running around the waste lands, drinking the radio active water.


Gears Of War-  With GoW I had to think about whether it can be Paidea in the single or camplain mode. Ludus comes in when there's a locust horde, you can kill them with what ever weapon you can find, but once the horde has been defeated? No matter how long you stay in that area another horde won't come along. What else is there to do but to move on? I suppose you can move around and look at the area, but thats not exactly as fun filled as chain sawing  a locust .

Like Newman says, Ludus and Paidea are mainly seen in RPG's as you (usually) have the free will to do what ever you want ( as long as you play the the game worlds rule)
Newman then talks about Distinct Forms  which are
Agon- Competition
Alea-Randomness
Ilinx- The movement of the player ( Street Fighter series with the combos and moves you can preform)
Minicry- The players choice ( In Fallout you can 'make' your character to your own preferences)

Like Newman says these form are not exclusive, you can have more then one of these form in a game, like in Geomatry wars,  the agon, alea and a little but of ilinx can be witnessed in the game. the competition of killing the vast amount of enemies coming out at you and random times (Alea)  and the rippling effect on the screen when moving makes the game. Geomatry wars is one of my favorite games because the the challenge i have to face with the neon colored shapes, and the simple visual aspect of the game make it even better to indulge in the game.

Reading Newman' take on Ludus and Paidea was very interesting and educational, and more importantly set to a standard which allowed me to 'get' what he is explaining, unlike some other authors (Doug Church)
I can't think of a good game without Paidea or Ludus, and find it even harder to think that a game can be good without one or the other, especially without the forms of Alea,Agon,Mincry and Ilinx.
To design a game, I think it is essential to have these forms in. Without them a player would not be 'in' the game, as Newman quotes "Frasca encourages us to consider videogames as worlds, rather 'playgrounds'"
In the playground you have the fun of making up your own rules and image a world to your own liking, but the fall being that you have nothing to stop you from easily changing it, whereas a videogame, already has the structure pre built for you. What you do in it is entirely up to the player