Contextual Studies: Caillois Classification Grid

As part of our first representation lecture, we learned about Johan Huizinga's book Homo Ludens and how it is an important part of the history of game studies, influencing the work of Roger Caillois and his book called 'Man, Play and Games', which created a classification system for games. This classification features two types of play:

Paedia, play without rules and spontaneous; uncontrolled fantasy.
Ludus, regulated by rules which can be complex or limiting; requiring large amounts of skill, patience, effort and/or ingenuity.

And four forms of play:

Agon, or competition, are competitive games based on rivalry and show the winner as superior to the loser in a certain way.
Alea, or chance, are games that focus on chance and have an outcome that the players have no or little control over.
Mimicry, or role-playing, are games that revolve around playing as an alternative being or character.
Ilinx, or vertigo, are games that pursue vertigo and attempt "to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind".

In order to get a fuller understanding of this classification system, we were tasked with creating a grid of some of our favourite games and compiling them into the classification system Roger Caillois created. Roger Caillois' classification system has a heavy impact on video games as every single game falls into one of the four categories. However, it is not to be ignored that a lot of games fit under several categories, and sometimes gets to the point where you have to name the category it does not come under. Video games feature so many aspects that they simply fit into most or even all of the categories, however minor it may be.