Tabletop_Gaming__April_2019

A

t a recent meeting of the Manchester

Game Studies Network, Hwa

Young Jung (a multidisciplinary

artist and games designer)

and Dr. Emma Murray (senior

lecturer in criminal justice from Liverpool

John Moores University) presented their work

in developing Probationary: e Game of Life

on Licence. Produced through workshops with

men on licence, Probationary explores the lived

experience of being on probation, reecting real

experiences of being subject to the criminal justice

system and presenting players with an opportunity

to play, understand and discuss such systems

within our society.

Probationary very clearly takes the form of a

game. To all intents and purposes, it looks like

a classic game such as Snakes and Ladders, or,

indeed, eGame of Life whose title it invokes.

In terms of gameplay, Probationary (which was

designed for three to ve players, one of whom

takes a game master-like role as the ‘Eye’) gives

each player an identity (a composite character

with a set of values, abilities and restrictions)

and the goal of moving from their designated

starting space to the nal ‘safe space’. Movement

is determined by the roll of a d6, with players

picking up cards on each space that either award

or remove points. e

player with the most

points by the time all

players reach the safe

space wins. In addition

to this classic roll-and-

move mechanism, players must ‘report in to the

Eye’ at specied points, with penalties applied

for failing to do so.

Probationary prompted a discussion that

could broadly be divided into three categories:

questions about the probation system, questions

about co-creation and ethics, and questions about

games more generally. Prompted by the seemingly

innocuous question ‘Is Probationary a game?’, we

found ourselves engaged in a heated (but good-

natured) discussion about the nature of games.

ere have been many attempts made to dene

games. Some emphasise playfulness, others rules,

others conict. In his keynote presentation for

the 2003 Level Up conference, Danish game

designer and theorist Jesper Juul oered what

has become an inuential denition of games,

arguing that they must be: (i) rule-based; (ii)

have variable, quantiable outcomes; (iii) have a

value attached to the outcomes (some outcomes

are better than others); (iv) involve player eort;

(v) have an attachment of players to the outcome

(winners ‘feel good’ and losers ‘feel bad’); and

(vi) have negotiable consequences (the game can

be played with or without real-life consequences).

How does Probationary fare? It certainly has

rules (it comes with a rulebook) – these allow

players to quantify the outcomes, of which

there are some that are ‘better’ than others

(there will always be a winner). Does the game

involve player eort? No, or at least not beyond

the mechanical action of rolling dice and moving

pieces. Like Snakes and Ladders, Probationary

is a game of chance with minimal player agency.

In the absence of any meaningful input on the

part of players, any attachment to the game’s

outcome is likely to be short-lived. As Juul notes,

this category is negotiable, depending as it does

on the lusory attitude of the players. In other

words, if attachment is in the gift of its players (i.e. a

subjective response is made possible by the game’s

rules) then this relies on the players themselves.

Juul’s last criteria, ‘negotiable consequences’, was

an interesting one. While for those at our session

the game could be played without consequence,

its thematic impact was dramatic. at some of us

could play Probationary in this way underscored

the fact that for those living on licence there exists

a parallel ‘game’ in which the submission to a

system of rules, and the attendant frustrations and

apparent lack of agency is rather less negotiable.

According to Juul’s framework, then,

Probationary is not a game. Does this make it any

less eective in obtaining its goal of stimulating

discussion about the probationary system in

the UK? Absolutely not. Taking this further, does

classifying something as a ‘game’ or not actually

matter to anyone working outside of games

research? Probably not. Consider the original

Game of Life, which falls short of Juul’s denition

for exactly the same reasons. Yet, despite this,

eGame of Life is recognised by millions as an

archetypal game. Could we say that games include

“anything that might be classied as such by the

people who are playing it” – a cop-out or a more

inclusive (non-)denition that seeks to move

away from perceived value? Perhaps both.

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(b)

Play it smart

Doctors Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth

are Manchester Metropolitan University

academics and co-directors of The

Manchester Game Studies Network.

What’s in ‘a ga me’? Our professors of play consider what lies behind

the seemingly straightforward denition of a tabletop experience

tabletopgaming.co.uk 49

Probationary: a game

that explores the

experience of living

while on probation

(Dan Burns)