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# Game
Most generally game is a form of play which is restricted by certain rules, the goal of which is typically [fun](fun.md), providing challenge and/or [competition](competition.md) (and sometimes more, e.g. [education](education.md), training etc.). A game may have various combinations of mathematical/mental elements (e.g. competitive mental calculations, mathematically defined rules, ...), physical elements (based in [real life](irl.md) physics, e.g. [football](football.md), [marble racing](marble_racing.md), ...) and even other types of elements (e.g. social, psychological, ...); nowadays very popular games are [computer](computer.md) games, a type of video games (also gaymes, video gaems or vidya, e.g. [Anarch](anarch.md), [minesweeper](minesweeper.md), [Doom](doom.md), ...), which are played with the help of a computer. Other types of games are e.g. board games (such as [chess](chess.md)), various sports ([football](football.md), athletics and so on), card games (such as [poker](poker.md)), parlour games, puzzles and so on. An entity (human, computer, animal, ...) playing a game is called a player and his ability to play it well is called [skill](skill.md); however some games may involve pure [randomness](randomness.md) and chance which may limit or even eliminate the need of skill (e.g. [rock paper scissors](rock_paper_scissors.md)). *Game* is also a [mathematical](math.md) term in [game theory](game_theory.md) which studies games and competition rigorously.
Most generally game is a form of play which is restricted by certain rules, the goal of which is typically [fun](fun.md), providing challenge and/or [competition](competition.md) (and sometimes more, e.g. [education](education.md), training, measuring abilities etc.). A game may have various combinations of [mathematical](math.md)/mental elements (e.g. competitive mental calculations, mathematically defined rules, ...), physical elements (based in [real life](irl.md) physics, e.g. [football](football.md), [marble racing](marble_racing.md), ...) and even other types of elements (e.g. social, psychological, ...); nowadays very popular games are [computer](computer.md) games, a type of video games (also gaymes, video gaems or vidya, e.g. [Anarch](anarch.md), [minesweeper](minesweeper.md), [Doom](doom.md), ...), which are played with the help of a computer. Other types of games are e.g. board games (such as [chess](chess.md)), various sports ([football](football.md), athletics and so on), card games (such as [poker](poker.md)), parlour games, puzzles and so on. An entity (human, computer, animal, ...) playing a game is called a player and his ability to play it well is called [skill](skill.md); however some games may involve pure [randomness](randomness.md) and chance which may limit or even eliminate the need of skill (e.g. [rock paper scissors](rock_paper_scissors.md)). *Game* is also a [mathematical](math.md) term in [game theory](game_theory.md) which studies games and competition rigorously.
A fun take at the very concept of a game is [Nomic](nomic.md), a game in which changing the game rules is part of the game. It leads to all kinds of mindfucks.
**What does a good game look like?** It is [simple](simple.md), [LRS](lrs.md) and [beautiful](beauty.md), with only a few rules, but has great depth and provides endless hours of [fun](fun.md) and challenge -- so called [easy to learn, hard to master](easy_to_learn_hard_to_master.md). From mathematical point of view the game's simple rules open up a complex world that's deep enough to keep exploring forever -- for this reason it's best if solving the game is for example [NP hard](np_hard.md) and players therefore have to look for [heuristics](heuristic.md) for playing it efficiently. A good game is [free](free_culture.md), owned by no one, belonging to the people, and lives its own life by relying on **self imposed goals** rather than "content consumption" in form of constant [updates](update_culture.md) and centralized control by some kind of "owner" (as is the case with capitalist games) -- i.e. despite having a goal, the game doesn't try to hard force the player to do something, but rather opens up a nice environment (in which the main goal is but one of many fun things to do) for player's own creativity (once the player beats the game, he may e.g. try to beat it [as fast as possible](speedrun.md), play it with some deliberate limitation, try to play it as bad as possible, combine it with other games etc.). One such nice game is possibly [racetrack](racetrack.md). For competition it's probably best if the game is symmetric, i.e. all players have (at least as much as possible) equal conditions (same weapons, same goals, ...) -- this ensures that the game always stays balanced, even when new tricks are being discovered as these can be utilized by everyone.
**What does a good game look like?** Purely mathematical [LRS](lrs.md) games (but not only them -- this will apply to real life games also) must be [beautiful](beauty.md) mathematically, it should be very [simple](simple.md) by only having a few rules, but those rules will spawn a whole universe of possibilities so that depth and endless hours of [fun](fun.md) and challenge will emerge -- this we usually call [easy to learn, hard to master](easy_to_learn_hard_to_master.md). It's best if solving the game is [computationally expensive](np_hard.md) so that we can't simply make a program that would solve the game once and for all, it's better if players don't know perfect play and have to look for [heuristics](heuristic.md) for playing efficiently and getting closer and closer to perfect play, without being able to reach it. A good game is [free](free_culture.md), owned by no one, belonging to the people, and lives its own life by relying on **self imposed goals** rather than "content consumption" in form of constant [updates](update_culture.md) and centralized control by some kind of "owner" (as is the case with capitalist games) -- i.e. despite having a goal, the game doesn't try to hard force the player to do something, but rather opens up a nice environment (in which the main goal is but one of many fun things to do) for player's own creativity (once the player beats the game, he may e.g. try to beat it [as fast as possible](speedrun.md), play it with some deliberate limitation, try to play it as bad as possible, combine it with other games etc.). One such nice game is possibly [racetrack](racetrack.md). For competition it's probably best if the game is symmetric, i.e. all players have (at least as much as possible) equal conditions (same weapons, same goals, ...) -- this ensures that the game always stays balanced, even when new tricks are being discovered as these can be utilized by all players. It's also good to prevent opening theory, i.e. the necessity to extensively study and memorize opening moves -- which is infamously an issue in [chess](chess.md) -- this can be prevented for example by randomizing starting positions, having many different "maps" to play on etc.
## Types Of Games