Some half-thought-through ideas on games and Harry Potter:

A lot of my projects at ITP seem unduly influenced by Harry Potter. Certainly my first major physical computing project was directly inspired by Weasley’s clock, the ARG I worked on last semester went through it’s own Potter phase, and it has long been known that, given the time and resources, the solution I’d like to build to address the problem of managing game state in big games is a real, physical Maurader’s Map. (The proximity we’re working with on Socialbomb is one step toward that.) And certainly physical computing and big games overlap a lot with popular conceptions of magic.

But as I’m sitting here, contemplating what I’m trying to make out of my thesis, it occurs that I really just want a sorting hat and giant hour glasses which fill with jewels when you do well and which loose them when you do badly. House tables and mythologies, points magically conferred and removed at the whims of the powers that be. Part of playing the game is not finding loopholes, but learning which ones to exploit, and that breaking the rules - and then the entire idea of rules and divisions to begin with - is the only lasting way to win.

And then it occured to me that Harry Potter is, itself, structured like an ARG; the wizards operated in a secret world layered upon the Muggle reality. The secret wizarding world exhibits loads of ludic properties: the big game of the house system and its points, of course, but also secret societies, the search for horcruxes, piecing together partial information about the past, and a very fuzzy magic circle. As the books wear on, the line between the wizard world and the Muggle world disintegrates, and the pressure to contain it through the solving of puzzles increases. In fact, you might be able to read the entire series as a warning against brink games and pushing the limits of the magic circle. Voldemort started making his own rules by making a new “house” (the Death Eaters), and the horcruxes, in an attempt to gain control over Muggle and wizard alike. He was, however, still playing the game of the Deathly Hallows, which was ultimately his undoing, as Harry unwittingly checkmates him in that game. Of course, in this world, part of restoring order also means reinstating the magic circle, wiping Muggle memories of wizard wars, and making sure that the only big game being played is the relatively harmless one of house rivalries.

More thoughts on this one day, I’m sure. Possibly sooner, depending on which ways the thesis winds blow.