Space Faces

"Space Faces" is what you call a game that includes 120 different (that is correct, different, as in no two alike) alien-like heads, printed, in full color, in six concentric rings on a large game board - a board full of Space Faces.

If you happen to look at the faces, eyes, mouths and noses of the 120 different Space Faces, you just might notice that there are 5 different colors of each. So, if you happen to be looking for, say, a Space Face with a yellow face, blue eyes, purple mouth and red nose, you'll find one, and only one.

Which one you're supposed to find is determined by the "Alien Identification Device" - a plastic saucer with a transparent dome, 5 marbles (each of a different color), and a concave surface for the marbles to roll around on, and 4 holes, one for each facial feature. So, you shake the saucer, and the marbles find their holish destinies. One of the holes is twice as deep as it should be, so that the first marble that falls into it is covered by the second. Thus, 5 different colors (marbles), 4 different attributes (holes). It's such an elegant device, and works so efficiently, and it's so fun to play with, that it, alone, is almost enough to make the game a strong candidate for Major Funhood.

Space Faces is a family game for 2-4 players. The challenge (matching, visual discrimination, speed) is enticing and complex enough to interest an adult, and yet well within the mental capacities of a kindergartener.

So now we do in fact have a game that is Major FUN award-worthy. Easy enough for a 4-year-old to understand, complex enough for an adult to enjoy. This is a major achievement in game design.

The game also includes elaborate, toy-like scorekeeping devices, that actually do make the process of keeping score easier. I, on the other hand, prefer not to keep score. It might have something to do with how embarrassed it might make me to reveal how visually inept I am. On the other hand, the game is so much fun that you don't really have to keep score at all. All the more Major the Fun, I say. Especially when you're playing with kids who don't really understand what winning is for or why you should be happy that you made the game end.

The Connector Chess Set

BNC Chess. Why BNC? The authors explain: "50 ohm BNC, SMA, and N terminators with various BNC, SMA, N, APC7, F, UHF connectors and inter-series adapters; or any other RF connectors you can find around the house. White gets nickel or stainless steel and black gets gold top pieces. p.s. Dad lost the first game."

Aside from the beauty and functionality of the design, and the amazing feat of playfulness required to re-envision the form and function of electronic findings into a chess set, what I like best about this achievement of junkish art is the playful appropriateness of what the inventors named it. The Connector Chess Set.

Yes, yes, it's made out of connectors. And they had to find new connections between the connectors in order to make the connection between connectors and chess pieces. But imagine the connections forged when they created the chess set together. Dad lost the first game? When you imagine how deeply connected both father and son became, making this beautiful set together, out of findings. When you think of how wonderfully connected it feels when your son is successful, more successful, even, than you. Well, that's the kind of loss we all should suffer.

Animal Behavior, Learning, and Playfulness

In her article "Animal Behavior, Learning, and Playfulness," Myrna Milani, DVM, writes:

"First, I think that all behavioral scientists agree that evolution has primed young animals to learn from play. That tells us that this constitutes the most deeply embedded and thus energy-efficient way to teach animals new things. And because we know that domestication more or less suspends an animal in a physiologically and behaviorally immature state, this link between learning and play most likely lasts throughout a domesticated animal's life."

I know she's writing about animal behavior. She's a DVM, for goodness sake. But, as a deeply domesticated animal myself, I can only concur as well as agree. Though I think the physiologically and behaviorally immature part can be attributed to the play-youth connection (play and you act younger, look younger). As for playfulness being a deeply embedded way for me to learn new things, it is clear that the connections between learning and play in my life have not only continued, but increased in strength, number and kind:

"Second, whatever else play in adult wild animals might denote, in many cases it signals an animal who has established and protected a territory, found food and water, mated , reproduced and raised young with energy to spare. If this weren't the case, the potential for adult play wouldn't exist in the gene pool. That says to me (and I admit that some anti-adult-animal-play scientists don't agree) that a playful adult possesses more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations than a nonplayful one."

It has in deed been my observation that a playful adult has more confidence and ability to cope with stressful situations. Or, perhaps even more self-evident, the adult (animal or human being) who isn't playful tends to be more easily stressed and often more concerned about his ability to perform. At any rate, all this coincides both fortuitously and non-coincidentally with last Friday's article Playfulness and the Health of the Herd.