Computers are systematic machines – though the question of whether they are inherently limiting has been debated since the protocomputing of Babbage and Lovelace.
Since programmes are so easily conceived as sets of rules and mechanisms for applying them, there seems a particular tendency when play is offered though digital systems to opt for those forms of play which are already most systematised. They favour what Callois termed ludus, the goal-oriented, structured game, over paidia - freeform, exuberant play (Caillois 1958). This tendency appears as staged objectives, such as the levels typical of so many videogames, or as the imitation in digital media of games which are already highly systematised in their real world forms.
Ere be Dragons, a project at the Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts, funded by the Wellcome Trust 2005/06.
I discussed this briefly in an article for Digital Creativity on our project Ere be Dragons. Dragons is an open work, in the sense Eco uses the term (1979, p.50) to refer to both openness of interpretation and the more literal openness made possible by interactivity.
The Open Work is also a theme of the ongoing Lansdown Centre project Scambi, centred on the work of Henri Pousseur. See http://www.scambi.mdx.ac.uk/.
References
Caillois, R. (1958) Man, play and games. Translated by M. Barash. University of Illinois Press. See on AbeBooks.
Eco, U. (1979) The role of the reader: explorations in the semiotics of texts. Hutchinson, London. See on AbeBooks.
