What Students Have to Say
22 A Game to the Core: A “Go Fish” Analysis
Lydia Finch
The name of the game I am going to analyze is “Go Fish.” This game was designed for anyone who wants to pass time with a simple card game. It also requires two or more players. The people playing this game would likely need to be able to read numbers. Because of this, the typical “Go Fish” game suggests players should be at least four years old. A regular, or “standard,” deck of playing cards is used. “Go Fish” is a turn-based game, meaning each player has a set turn. The typical turn starts with the player asking any other player if they have a specific card. The player who asks for a card must also have this card before asking. If that player does have the card, then they will hand it over and the original player gets to ask for more cards (either to that same person or a different person). This goes on until the other player does not have the card the original player asks for. Once this happens the player is told to “Go Fish” and they need to draw a card from the deck.
Clark C. Abt’s definition of a game reads “A game is an activity involving player decisions, seeking objectives within a ‘limiting context’” In “Go Fish,” the “player decisions” would be the players figuring out who to ask for a card or who to listen to. They also need to decide what cards in their hand they should ask for and when they should ask for each of them. The “objectives” that the players seek would be obtain a book of cards with the same rank from the cards they own. For example, if the player has four cards with a three on them, then they would want to put them together on the table. They’d want to obtain books of all their cards before the other players manage to. The “limiting context” that Abt’s definition refers to is simply what we know as rules. In “Go Fish” there are a small handful of simple rules. Each player is dealt five cards unless there are only two players, in which case they are dealt seven. The rest of the deck is placed in the center so everyone can draw from it. The player who’s turn it is will ask for cards from other players only if they themselves have that card. Players can’t look at other player’s cards. When a player gets a book (four cards of the same rank), they must put those cards face up in front of them. When a player gets rid of all their cards in books, they win. “Go Fish” contains every element of this particular definition.
The definition from the book Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman reads as follows. Games are a “system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” At first glance, it seems as though “Go Fish” doesn’t fall into this definition, but English is an interesting language, making it so “Go Fish” actually fits perfectly into this definition. The game itself, governed by rules and turns, is a “system.” The “artificial conflict” in this case would be the competitio