This final work from a visionary game designer reveals how a surprising range of play-based experiences can unlock our imagination and help us capture the power of fun and delight.Bernard De Koven (1941-2018) was a pioneering designer of games and theorist of fun. He studied games long before the field of game studies existed. For De Koven, games could not be reduced to artifacts and rules; they were also about experiencing fun. His final book,
The Infinite Playground, is about the power of the imagination: the imagination as a playground, a possibility space, and a gateway to wonder.
De Koven guides the readers through a series of observations and techniques, interspersed with games. He begins with the fundamentals of play, and proceeds through the private imagination, the shared imagination, and imagining the world—observing, “the things we imagine can
become the world.” Along the way, he reminisces about playing ping-pong with basketball great Bill Russell; begins the instructions for a game called
Reception Line with “Mill around”; and introduces blathering games—
Blather,
Group Blather,
Singing Blather, and
The Blather Chorale—that allow the player's consciousness to meander freely.
The Infinite Playground extends a play-centered invitation to experience the power and delight unlocked by imagination, offering a curriculum for playful learning.
"Bernie De Koven was a prominent figure in the sixties and seventies, an idealist who believed that games, play and just plain fun could change the way people viewed the world. Oddly enough, his idealism didn't have the impact it should have until the advent of game studies in the late 20th century. Unlike Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens (published in 1938) and Roger Callois's Man, Play and Games (published in 1961), both hugely influential in game studies theory today, Bernie De Koven was more practice-based, an advocate for play in a time of Lego and Sesame Street, when idealism ran rampant and play was viewed as a way of bringing people together. The Infinite Playground was written as the author was dying from cancer. With the help of a supportive group of editors and like-minded games scholars (including Celia Pearce, Eric Zimmerman, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, Katie Salen, Ian Bogost, et al.,) The Infinite Playground is a final testament to the importance that play can inhabit in our daily lives. There's no question that there's something of a Sesame Street vibe in much of Bernie's writing. As one of contributors, Sebastian Quack noted after his first experience with one of Bernie's workshops, it "looks like the (participants) are releasing their inner child." But The Infinite Playground, instead, is talking about releasing the inner adult. Alternative Reality Games, LARPs (Live Action Role-Playing games) have a direct correspondence with many of the goals Bernie De Koven expresses in this book: games and play as a means for improving the quality of human life or working towards the solution of social ills"
