Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
has such elegance that one wonders if another game will ever match it,
yet it is also so deep and complex that computers have a notoriously dif-
ficult time playing it. Created around 4,000 years ago, Go is still played
competitively today, especially in Asian countries.
What's significant about Cows and Leopards ( Figure 16 ) is that it's
one of the first examples of an asymmetrical game—a game in which
each force has different powers from the outset. This is in contrast to a
game such as chess, which of course has symmetrical forces.
Chess is a game most of us are very familiar with, but not as many of
us are as familiar with its history and all of the fantastic and interesting
variants of chess that were created before, at the same time, and after the
modern game evolved. I recommend looking into the history of chess,
if for no other reason than to witness the course of evolution that it has
taken.
Evolution as Inspiration
Very few ancient games were designed by one person. Most of them
evolved over hundreds—or even thousands—of years. Because of this
lengthy evolution, you can actually watch the collective design process
of generations of human beings striving to find the right balance in the
game. It's something every game designer should study. Part of this ex-
ploration should be finding copies of these ancient games and playing
them. They can be inspiring in their elegance and simplicity, and beyond
that, a lot of them are just great games. Good game design is timeless.
Sports in History
It is almost certainly true that sports predate any other kind of game.
Due to their inherently physical and continuous, real-time nature, many
ancient sports still hold up as games, not just contests (although there
are many that are just contests too).
Each of the great ancient civilizations of the world has left behind
evidence of its legacy of sports. Interestingly, many civilizations that had
no contact with one another came up with similar types of activities.
Most of these were contests like archery, running races, and other activi-
ties that are simple measures of physical abilities.
According to Steve Craig's Sports and Games of the Ancients , the top
three sports that emerged everywhere around the world were running,
wrestling, and archery. This was probably because all of them doubled
as military and survival skills. Regardless, running and archery are cer-
tainly contests, since they require no decision making on the part of the
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