The tidy pattern instinct

[nancylebov]

rinku wrote about games which appeal to male instincts of hunting and fighting vs. games which appeal to female instincts of nurturing. This leaves out a large category of games like tetris, minesweeper, and Ring Pass Not that appeal to the desire to get things to match neatly. [1]

I think this is an instinct, or else those games wouldn't be such timesucks. I don't know of any animals that show signs of sharing it, and I suspect civilization would be impossible without it.

[1] I believe tetris also appeals to the desire to drop things from a height. Dropping things and having them slot neatly into place is a pleasure that ordinary life just does not offer.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Bees building a hive have something like that instinct, but they're stuck with just one pattern. They can't devise new ones.

I think of Tetris more as having things dropped on me from a height, and scrambling around to put them in order, which is also fun. One person said it's a very Russian game in its attitude; stuff falls on you faster and faster, till eventually you can't cope with it any more.

[avram]

For the ultimate Russian experience, down a shot of vodka each time you clear a line.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I think of Tetris more as having things dropped on me from a height, and scrambling around to put them in order

Interesting-- it's not surprising that people would put their point of view in different places, even in very simple games, but I've never seen it discussed.

[bruceb.livejournal.com]

I've seen otters do very Bejeweled-like things with their hoard; I think that other filching species may do similar stuff. But I agree that it is an important instinct.

[avram]

Arguably Tetris is a hunting game, because you spend a lot of the time looking intently, waiting for the right piece to come along, and then pouncing to hustle it into the right place and orientation.

I find Rinku's post hilarious, because I've been arguing with Jonathan Tweet about the same topic, gender preferences in gaming. Tweet's hypothesis is that RPGs are a male-dominated field because men are predisposed towards fighting and RPGs are very fight-oriented, while Rinku starts with the same assumption about biological determinism, but says that RPGs are not male-dominated because they aren't exclusively fight-oriented.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I actually run a lot of RPGs that don't involve much fighting. My first GURPS campaign had combat rolls only twice in two years of monthly episodes. The common rolls involved trading with alien races, computer hacking, practical jokes, and sex. (This was set in David Brin's Uplift universe, and there were two Tymbrimi in the crew. There were memorable results when the fin pilot told one of them, "You can't short-sheet water, bitch!")

It's probably not accidental that my modal player is not a boy in his teens but a woman in her thirties.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

My younger cat loves to drop things from a height.

[inertiacrept.livejournal.com]

I read this entry to maintain that civilization would collapse without Tetris.

And I agree.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

"Match neatly" games have some overlap (Tangrams) with "find the solution" games (like my current timesink Colourshift (http://www.kongregate.com/games/mrsneeze/colourshift)), which often use numbers instead of shapes like SquarO (http://www.squaro.fr/en/play.htm) or PrismaPix (http://krispixton.com/PrismaPix/download.htm) (which is sort of a cross between Minesweeper and Picross).

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I can't get past the opening sentence (not, I realize, yours) that seems on a par with "There are games that appeal to Negroid instincts of force, such as boxing, and games that appeal to Caucasian instincts of cleverness, such as chess."

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'm just as glad that I had more of a "but what about the games I like?" reaction.

However, on a second reading, I noticed that rinku lists the qualities required to play "male" games, and doesn't mention what the challenge or interest might be in the "female" games.

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Getting Things to Match is a big drive for a lot of us. I have burned many hours on Cubis and Zenerchi and Bejeweled because something in my brain gets very happy when I can make things match.

whswhs' campaigns (in many of which I have played) are focused on neither fighting nor nurturing; they seem to be mostly full of problem-solving, negotiation, character conflict, interesting dialogue, and slapstick (oh, the things that man can do with a critical fumble!).