baseball adaptation
Jun
24
So, we’ve covered digital game-to-board game adaptation briefly in our game session in the past (re: Doom the Board game and currently Starcraft) and intend to focus more so on it in the coming weeks with the Starcraft board game. Ian Bogost posted recently about a fun find in board game history: http://www.bogost.com/blog/zimmer_base_ball_and_cigars.shtml
Filed under: Misc
Joe Fitzgerald Says:
This is actually quite interesting, especially coming from a former player of the adaptations of Zimmer’s baseball game when I was a kid. The fact that the concept of my baseball board games dates back to the late nineteenth century, along with the creation of the sport itself, is something that I would not have assumed. Bogost brings up some interesting points that I just wanted to quickly address.
Bogost comments on the greater ease of sports to games adaptation than film to games adaptation, since the former adaptation can be based on a set of rules rather than the latter being based on narrative. This could also imply that a sports game adaptation would be easier to design and develop since there is already a sound set of rules and mechanics for play. This is truer for digital games than non-digital games. Since non-digital games do not have the luxury of a 3D graphic display capable of presenting realistic characters running around on a realistic baseball diamond, non-digital game designers must think of extremely innovative ways of bringing the basic rules of baseball to a board game. Zimmer’s game cleverly used metal hooks to represent fielders, which would “catch” the ball if it has been hit toward them, signifying an out. If the ball passes through the fielders, a single, double, triple, home run, or foul ball would be awarded to the batter depending on the location and size of gap which the ball passed through. The game I would play as a kid had a crude LCD scoreboard but the mechanics of the game were very similar to Zimmer’s ingenious design.
This is a great example of the difficulties that designers of non-digital games have to endure when creating a new game. Even if the rules and/or narrative by which the non-digital game is to be based, another full set of clever mechanics must be designed in order to bring the board game to life. My hat’s off to all non-digital game designers who lack the visual luxuries that digital game designers have.
Another interesting thing that Bogost pointed out was the endorsement of games by athletes. What I first saw the Zimmer game, I immediately thought of the Tiger Woods game franchise and his face being plastered on every aspect of the games. It is interesting, but not surprising, that we have always used the same methods in order to increase the respect of our products. Charles Louis Zimmer….paving the way for Tiger Woods, Tony Hawk, John Madden, Dave Mira, Ken Griffey Jr……
Posted on June 25th, 2008 at 6:41 am