{"id":4221,"date":"2013-11-13T11:35:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-13T16:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4221"},"modified":"2023-11-10T23:48:49","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T04:48:49","slug":"capricious-fate-videogames-as-tools-for-moral-instruction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=4221","title":{"rendered":"Capricious Fate: Videogames as Tools for Moral Instruction"},"content":{"rendered":"

We often treat serious games as a relatively recent or unexpected development.\u00a0 Certainly there is still a fair amount of hype about the potential practical uses of videogames<\/a>, particularly in the realm of education.\u00a0 While such discourses of progress and potential are certainly not unfounded, it is important to remember that games (including videogames) have always been about more than leisure.\u00a0 The first game console was originally pitched as a\u00a0 “low-cost data entry device” created by a defense contracting company (Halter, 2006).\u00a0 Many other early videogames were conceived as (or at least justified as) training simulators, public relation tools, and other practical devices for use by the military.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Looking further back, tabletop wargames had their roots in officer training exercises like Kriegsspiel<\/em>, and Go<\/em> may have originated from divination practices to predict the outcome of battles (Fairbairn, 2007).<\/p>\n

\"Snakes<\/a>
Many different religions and groups in India developed versions of Snakes and Ladders<\/em>, though the basic mechanics of the game stayed the same.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While military instruction is certainly a very common theme, games were historically used for moral instruction as well.\u00a0 One of the best examples of this is the game Snakes and Ladders<\/em>, which originated in India as gy\u0101n chaupar <\/em>(Topsfield, 1985).\u00a0 The game, like many contemporary games in India, was a race game, with players competing to reach the final square first.\u00a0 The twist in gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> is that progress was not always linear.\u00a0 Rather, a player could be advanced forward or sent back by landing on either a ladder or a snake, respectively.\u00a0 Climbing a ladder represented the rewards of virtue, while being pulled down by a snake represented the consequences of vice.<\/p>\n

The moral rhetoric of gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> operated on a number of levels.\u00a0 On a basic, textual level, each ladder was labeled with a virtue, such as compassion, knowledge, or asceticism, while the snakes were labeled with vices such as vanity, desire, and murder.\u00a0 This message was often backed up with visual rhetoric, such as by a drawing the animal you would be reincarnated as at the bottom of one of the board’s snakes (Grunfeld, 1975).\u00a0 As a games researcher, however, I am most interested in how the game’s rhetoric of morality and life is conveyed procedurally.<\/p>\n

Andrew Topsfield, who has written on the evolution of gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> from the earliest found artifacts to the present, called it a \u201cparadigm of capricious fate or the ups and downs of human life\u201d (Topsfield, 2006).\u00a0 Indeed, \u201cfate\u201d is central to playing the game, as players’ pieces progress with the roll of the dice, essentially independent of player choice.\u00a0 While the choices available to the player are usually central to to understanding the underlying rhetoric of a game, the lack of choices is equally important.\u00a0 In gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em>, the player has no input beyond casting the dice and accepting the result.\u00a0 While the visual and textual rhetoric stresses the importance of following the path of virtue and avoiding the pitfalls of vice, the underlying procedurality of the game reminds the player that we are ultimately subject to the whims of fate, and we have to accept the \u201cups and downs of human life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Although<\/a>
Although Chutes and Ladders<\/em> lost much of the moralizing tone of its predecessors, the symbolism of actions and consequences remained.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> remained popular in India for centuries and managed to adapt and spread through Hindu, Jain and Muslim cultures.\u00a0 During the British colonial period, the game migrated to Great Britain as well, bringing with it the tone of moral instruction that it had maintained over the centuries.\u00a0 Early English editions of the game replaced the religious values found in the Indian versions with the social mores of Victorian society.\u00a0 Over time, the game became more oriented toward children and the depiction of virtues and vices began to fade, though the instructive nature of the game remained.\u00a0 It eventually came to depict the rewards of well-behaved children and the consequences of misbehaving.\u00a0 The exact behaviors depicted in the game varied from edition to edition, but each game portrayed the same cause-and-effect logic that was present in many of the early Indian versions of the game (although admittedly some examples, like a girl who wastes her food being reduced to a homeless flower peddler<\/a>, stretch the plausibility of these relationships).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The player in Spiritual Warfare<\/em> converts unsaved souls by hitting them with metaphorical “fruit of the spirit.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though considerably less prevalent than in the nineteenth century, games designed with moral instruction as a main component continued to be made, including videogames.\u00a0 One interesting example is the game Spiritual Warfare<\/em>, an unlicensed game created for the original NES.\u00a0 Like\u00a0gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em>, it is meant to instruct on a number of levels.\u00a0 On a textual level, the game contains a number of segments that involve Bible trivia, presented in multiple choice format.\u00a0 Visually, the game draws heavily from games like The Legend of Zelda<\/em>, setting up a basic frame of reference for the player.\u00a0 Instead of a fantastic setting with monsters and magic, Spiritual Warfare<\/em> is set in a more mundane (but apparently no less dangerous) modern city.\u00a0 The monsters of Zelda<\/em> are replaced with “unsaved souls” that range in appearance from misbehaving children to criminals in striped prison uniforms.\u00a0 Upon defeating or “converting” these enemies, they are briefly transformed into well-groomed men, kneeling in prayer, before disappearing from the screen.\u00a0 Stereotypical images of white angels and red demons also figure prominently into the visual design of the game.<\/p>\n

Like the graphics, the gameplay is also very Z<\/em>elda<\/em>-inspired, with a great deal of exploration and item acquisition.\u00a0 Defeating enemies earns you “spirit points,” the currency of the game.\u00a0 These points are also earned through exploration and through correctly answering Bible trivia.\u00a0 Like the numbers on the squares of a gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> board, the amo<\/p>\n

unt of spirit points the player holds is meant as a measure of holiness.\u00a0 Also as in gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em>, there are pitfalls that can cost the player her hard-earned points.\u00a0 Rather than an unfortunate landing on a snake, the player in Spiritual Warfare <\/em>is penalized for entering forbidden areas, a downtown bar and a casino, take a look<\/a> how to play slots games in this page https:\/\/www.goal55.id<\/a>.\u00a0 Upon entering one of these buildings, the player is punished by having an important item confiscated by an angel.\u00a0 The item is only returned in exchange for a large amount of spirit points (oddly, the angel makes you buy it back from a pawn shop in the slums), requiring the player to start gathering them again for scratch.<\/p>\n

\"In-game<\/a>
In-game text explicitly links the player’s “spirit points” with concepts of faith and repentance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since the snake mechanic from gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> and the pawn shop mechanic in Spiritual Warfare<\/em> have a great deal in common both thematically and procedurally, it is interesting to compare the two.\u00a0 Both represent a way of quantifying holiness and the loss thereof.\u00a0 Unlike hitting a snake, which is all but unavoidable and relies merely on the roll of the dice, losing your gear to the pawn shop is easily avoidable. \u00a0Both the bar and the casino have a “Christian helper” standing outside to warn the player away.\u00a0 There are no in-game benefits for entering these forbidden locations and (unlike some other parts of the game) it is unlikely that the player will be accidentally knocked through the doorway.\u00a0 Entering a forbidden location is almost certainly a deliberate act.<\/p>\n

While the pawn shop mechanic in Spiritual Warfare<\/em> privileges choice just as gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> privileges fate, this raises the question of what kind of choice the player is actually making.\u00a0 Although the limited amount of text surrounding the bar and casino would suggest that the player is choosing to avoid drunkenness and the promise of easy money, neither is represented procedurally in the game.\u00a0 Since the player can’t actually gamble or drink (nor are there any mechanics in the game that would suggest that you could), these aren’t really motivations for entering these taboo locations.\u00a0 In fact, the only real reason for entering these spaces is the game’s\u00a0Zelda<\/em>-inspired design.\u00a0 Since one of the genre conventions of adventure games is that exploring is the primary way for the player to progress, the idea of a space that the player shouldn’t explore is counter-intuitive (in this respect the game itself lacks some internal consistency, as the player is punished by entering one casino, yet rewarded with an extra heart for exploring another).\u00a0 Thus, the player’s choice in Spiritual Warfare<\/em> is less about choosing virtue over vice and more about choosing to favor the diegetic guidance of in-game characters over the genre conventions that an experienced player would expect in an adventure game.<\/p>\n

The effectiveness of games like gy\u0101n chaupar<\/em> and Spiritual Warfare<\/em> for persuading individuals to make moral decisions is certainly a topic that could be debated.\u00a0 Regardless of how effective these games were as persuasive tools, the fact that games have been used this way both in recent memory and antiquity is something that I find fascinating.\u00a0 Games have always been located at a complicated intersection between leisure and pedagogy, and they probably always will be. If you enjoy playing video games, you might want to try \u0e40\u0e25\u0e48\u0e19\u0e21\u0e32\u0e01\u0e02\u0e36\u0e49\u0e19\u0e2d\u0e35\u0e01\u0e17\u0e35\u0e48 UFABET<\/a>.<\/p>\n

References<\/h2>\n

John Fairbairn, (2007). Go in China.<\/cite>
\nFrederic Grunfeld, (1975). Games of the world: How to make them, how to play them, how they came to be.<\/cite>
\nEd Halter, (2006). From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and video games.<\/cite>
\nAndrew Topsfield, (2006). Snakes and Ladders in India: Some further discoveries.<\/cite>
\nAndrew Topsfield, (1985). The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders.<\/cite><\/p>\n

[Snakes and Ladders <\/em>image by Wellcome Images<\/a>\/ Creative Commons Licensed (CC BY-NC 2.0 UK<\/a>)]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We often treat serious games as a relatively recent or unexpected development.\u00a0 Certainly there is still a fair amount of hype about the potential practical uses of videogames, particularly in the realm of education.\u00a0 While such discourses of progress and potential are certainly not unfounded, it is important to rememberContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":4226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[337,135,336,338,88],"coauthors":[311],"class_list":["entry","author-christiansen","post-4221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-articles","tag-morality","tag-pedagogy","tag-snakes-and-ladders","tag-spiritual-warfare","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Snakes-and-Ladders-Large.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4221"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8143,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4221\/revisions\/8143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4221"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=4221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}