The Universe Unfolded

by marvinch | Dec 4, 2024 | Artwork #4: Experience

Game Title: The Universe Unfolded

The Initial Inspirations

The game I was mainly inspired by is the Table Top Roleplaying RPG “Dialect: A Game About Language and How it Dies”. Although the book for how to play it is fairly thick, the game boils down to a series of prompts to get players to craft a story and a community together.

From Sharp’s “Works of Game”, I have learnt the importance of noticing ludic affordance offered by the medium and the mechanics of the game. The game very tactfully makes use of the idea of languages as a way to prompt people into crafting their story and community. While narratives are not necessarily crafted by words, the idea of conveying intent and generating meaning is fundamental to languages, and which is what Dialect takes advantage of to allow players to craft interesting narrative that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

Is Dialect merely a game about crafting stories? Or does the mechanics of the game lend itself to deeper concepts that prod players into seeing the world in a new way? In “Works of Game”, one point of view discussed was that the a game’s mechanics are not just about what the player does, but also what it means. Unlike any other mediums, games are interactive. How designers design experiences when games are inherently unpredictable? How could designers make the game mechanics mean something when players could do so many things, and come from all walks of life? For instance, in the experimental game “The Marriage”, until it was given a title at a later time (because people were confused about what it meant), the game mechanics had little meaning. But once the title was given, the game mechanics revealed a deeper concept via a simple system.

But in Dialect, this is not a dilemma, but is exactly what powers the game. Dialect embraces the idea that players can come from all walks of life and can assign whatever meaning they want. While the main mechanic of Dialect is to create new words and to tell stories based on them, the consequence of the mechanic is that players are given a platform and a guide in which they can practice expressing themselves in ways they wouldn’t have thought of. This is a view point shared by Jonathan Blow. In “Works of Game”, it is said that he did not spend most of his energy arguing whether games are art, but rather, allow his games to be a platform in which players experience the mechanics of the game first-hand, and figure out for themselves the consequences of the mechanics.

I wanted a game that also took advantage of the power of languages to keep players a platform and a guide as to how they can express themselves in new and interesting ways. I started by removing everything about Dialect except that bit, and replaced the idea of generating new words with folding pieces of paper.

The main reason for paper folding is that I personally enjoy folding paper, and I find that similar to languages, paper has a lot of ludic affordances and is fundamental to communities and civilisations. It is a resource that most people have on hand, yet so versatile. Although it is thin and flat, there is still so much you can do with it.

Original Version

The original version of the game was run with pieces of paper from my lined notebook, as well as the following prompts:

Setup

1. Have a pile of pieces of paper on the side which players can use to fold. The more pieces of paper in the pile, the longer the game will last, and the more content the stories will have.

The Beginning

1. Each player should fold a piece of paper into something, and bring it to the center.

2. As a group, the players must come up with a story as to how their community begins, and how the 5 folded things play a role.

The Change

1. Players can continue the game by either taking a new piece of paper and folding it into a new thing, or they can re-fold an existing folded thing.

2. If a new addition, come up with a story on the new addition. If re-folding, come up with a story on how and why it was changed, and the consequences it has on the communit.

Termination

When players feel like the ending the game, or when the stories feel like they are leading to their conclusion, it is time for the stories on how the game ends.

1. Each folded thing must be folded into something new, or torn into pieces. For each thing, explain why and how the folded thing changed, or why it was torn into pieces, and the consequences it has on the community.

Final Version

The game was play-tested again with index cards and then construction cards, as well as the following new prompts.

The Setup

Have a pile of pieces of paper on the side which players can use to fold. The more pieces of paper in the pile, the longer the game will last, and the more content the stories will have.

The Beginning

As players of this game, you all will tell the story of a community in a world shared between you all. The nature of this world is up for you to decide. Is it on an alient planet? An ancient civilisation? A coffee shop in the city?

Every community has a beginning. Tell the story of the beginning of your community by folding a piece of paper into something. Once done, place it at the center and wait for the rest to finish.

When everyone is finished, each person shall explain how their folded piece relates to the beginning of your community. Every player should link their story to the existing ones.

Etiquette: Each speaks on behalf of everyone. Say “we”.

The Change

Every community changes over time. Each player shall either fold a new piece of paper if there are any left, or re-fold an existing one.

If a player folds a new piece of paper, they must explain what the new addition means to the community.

If a player re-folds an existing one, they must explain what the folded piece was before, what the new folded piece is, and what does the change signify.

Players can repeat this phase of the game as many times as they like, but eventually, all communities reach The End.

The End

All communities eventually end, but the world will live on.

Each player should take an existing folded piece, and either fold it into something entirely new, or tear it into pieces.

If a player decides to re-fold a piece, they must explain what the folded piece was before, what the new folded piece is, and what does the change signify.

If a player decides to tear a piece, they must explain what the folded piece was before, and what the tearing signifies.

Conclusion

In the three times that the game was ran, every story that was crafted was different. However, people who played the game multiple times tend to fold the same things. For example, one person folded a boat twice.

While I think construction paper feels the best for folding, I also find that every paper type had its own pros and cons:

The lined paper from my notebook was used the most creatively by the players. Players did all sorts of things with it, including tearing it into pieces, poking holes to put a stick in them.
The index card paper was used to create sci-fi folded pieces, and structures that could stand.
The construction paper had the most personality, because of the colours, but I felt reservations from the players to fold whatever they wanted. Granted, the playtest with the construction paper had a crowd watching, which may have influenced how people would have normally behaved.

It is evident that different paper qualities have different ludic affordances, and hence different outcomes. I hypothesize that for games with more players with less folding experience, there should be more lined paper, so that players don’t feel that they are messing with something precious. However, for players with more folding experience, construction paper would be good as it gives them the best flexibility in what they could fold.

As for whether the game achieved its goal of being a medium for players to come together to craft stories and meaningful experiences together, I think it did, but I also think that there is room for improvement. A variant of the game could exist with instructions on folding techniques, so that players can “expand their vocabulary” to make more interesting folded pieces and hence more interesting stories.