Serious Games

According to the promise on the front page of a website called "Social Impact Games," they have "now identified over 500 serious games."

You know about this Serious Game thing, I'm sure. There are, at least according to the newly indexed site:

Education + Learning Games
Public Policy Games
Political + Social Games
Health + Wellness Games
Business Games
Military Games
Advergames
Commercial (COTS) Games

That's enough games to make anyone want to take this new category of Serious Games very seriously, in deed. Like the people who run The Serious Games Initiative, for example. Look it up on Google for page after page of more examples of the seriousness of all this.

All I can say is that I hope it makes the world a little more fun, all this serious gameness. I know it can make learning more fun. And deeper. Pretty much despite what the serious gamers are learning about.

Deflexion - the Laser Game

Deflexion is a chess-like, two-player, arguably abstract strategy game - with lasers! Each player gets four different kinds of pieces, one of which is the "pharaoh." Two of the pieces have mirrors on them. The object: position the pieces so that when you fire your laser, it winds up hitting the non-mirrored side of one of your opponent's pieces. If you hit a Pharaoh piece, the game is over.

The pieces need to be set up in their specified starting positions. It took a while to do this, because the whole board (and not just the starting rows, as in chess or checkers) is used. And, as a taste of strategic implications yet to come, the rules describe two different set-ups, each chock-full of its own subtle significances. Meaning, as Shakespeare might have said if he had his own Deflexion game, that there are more things in lasers and mirrors than are dreampt of in our philosophies....

The moment we installed the (included) batteries and discovered that yes, there are actually lasers, and they are, yes, most definitely bright enough, and that, yes, they do bounce off the mirrors in a most classically laserlike manner - we were hooked. O, we were trepidatiously hooked, all right. What if the game doesn't really play as good as it looks? What if the laser light can't really be seen when it hits a piece? What if it's too complex? After all, there are some strange, chess-like rules about how certain pieces can move. And, o, we so much wanted the game to be as good as it looked! I mean, with lasers and mirrors and everything!

And, upon reflection, so to speak, we found it fun. We found it very fun. Major, as a matter of fact, FUN. And we were sorely happy.