Scrabble’s Two Letter Words – Go & Ha

by jmgariepy · July 4, 2013

Leave. Get out. This is a kinda-sorta game blog, though, so I’m going to jump to Webster’s definition number four:

“A game played between two players who alternately place black and white stones on a board checkered by 19 vertical lines and 19 horizontal lines in an attempt to enclose the larger area on the board.”

19 by 19 is the traditional size, but there are other-sized boards. If you’re playing a 17 by 17 board, are you not playing Go? Webster doesn’t think you are, I suppose.

I admit it. As a game reviewer, talking about Go scares me. I’ve played a few games, and retain the feel of the game, if not all the rules. But Go is one of those games where the expert level of play spirals far beyond my ability to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject. At least with chess, I have a solid working knowledge of general strategy. Solid enough to know what I don’t know. When I play go, though, I’m lost in a fog, unsure if what a winning play looks like, incapable of making long term goals. I could spend the next three years playing this game, and my journey would just begin. And, unless I took a one hour plus drive to Boston on a regular occasion, I’d never breach the strategic depths of the game, since my opponents would be novices like me.

I can, however, appreciate go for being one of the few games you can buy in your local game store that uses perfect information. That means, like chess or Chinese checkers, there is no hidden information, and nothing is left to luck. The game is yours to win or lose depending on your ability to out-think your opponent. We don’t see many perfect information games published, since they’re very difficult to design well. Without a certain level of complication, your game will be ‘solvable’ like Tic-Tac-Toe. An easy to solve board game might have been acceptable in 1985, but the internet won’t let them prosper anymore. The social media channels we use to discover new games are the same channels we use to learn that game’s strategy. You might personally choose to put spoiler blinds on when you see game strategy pop up with your reviews, but marketing isn’t about individual sales. It’s about mass appeal.

Likewise, if a perfect information game is too complicated, it’s also doomed to fail. There’s a maximum amount of information the human brain can process. Once that upper limit is tapped, the only way to process more information is to forget other, less important things. By making a game too complicated, you make it too simple again, as players choose to ignore details of the game of lesser importance. Except now your audience feels bad, because they assume (rightfully) they could be better at this game, if only they could handle this much information.

It’s much easier to design mechanics around a random chance element, or around hidden information so your game can remain challenging, without being a challenge. That’s not to say it’s impossible. Pylos, the three-dimensional competition to place your wooden ball last on the top of a pyramid of balls, does an excellent job exploring this middle space. So doesn’t Khet, a game where each player takes turns moving mirrors to triangulate their laser on their opponent’s pharaoh, while protecting their own. It is interesting that both those games aim for something that feels classic. As if there’s an assertion that a game with perfect information can’t be good, unless its gameplay evolved for over two hundred years.

It is to laugh. But why do we laugh? And why ‘Ha’?

That’s… a tricky question to answer. My brief foray on the internet tells me many behavioral scientists have many different answers, depending on what they choose to focus on. After all, we laugh all the time—thirty times more often in the presence of others, or a false social stimulus, like a television set. In comparison, you’re only four times more likely to talk to yourself when you’re alone, then when you’re in a social setting. Also, while laughter is tied to comedy, people laugh more often in casual conversations, with no obvious joke present. What triggers that?

An attempt to display dominance. A way of recognizing someone from your own ‘tribe’. A means of establishing a non-conscious connection. A verbal cue to make sure the other party is listening (in the same way that Canadians use ‘Eh?’), A physical cue to release endorphines in the brain. It’s a lot of things. The reason why NBC can cheapen the question by calling it a Mystery of the Universe is because there’s a lot of right answers to the question. Too many correct answers start to sound wrong, somehow, when they’re stacked one next to the other.

The explanation I really like, though, is the one you can follow down the evolutionary tree in a direct line. The rest of the primate family also laughs. Except they don’t say “Ha ha!” when a leopard slips on a banana peel. They do, however, make a loud panting sound when you tickle them. The same thing happens to dogs when you rough-house with them. The dogs and chimps aren’t exhausted. They’re panting to tells other animals “We’re playing! This is fun!” Otherwise one dog might think he’s playing, but the other dog might think he’s in a dangerous fight. That can’t end well.

(Most) humans don’t pant when we’re having a good time. We do laugh, though, which is a direct descendant of panting. When you’re an apex predator, it probably doesn’t matter much if the other animals hear you when you’re playing. So why not vocalize the sound? Sure, laughter contains a lot of other social cues. But it still means a very basic thing: “We’re having fun! Drop your guard, and relax!” It helps, too, that laughter comes unbidden. Telling someone that you aren’t a threat, and that they should relax, will probably result in them doing the opposite. Authentic laughter, however, is hard to fake. You’re at your sincerest when your body is wracked with vocalized panting compulsions.

Are you a logophile eager to learn more? Why don’t you head on over to the Scrabble’s Two Letter Words Page?