There are many examples online of 3D pavement art drawn to give the impression that people are walking around a gaping hole, or someone standing on the pavement is balancing on a precarious pinnacle above a waterfall, or on an island in a lake. Such anamorphism includes distorted images that appear coherent when reflected in a cone or cylinder, or from a particular angle. Architects in the Renaissance would employ fresco painters to provide an illusion of depth to a space, as if the dome reaches higher, the nave of the church extends beyond the altar, and there are columns and pilasters protruding from an apparently flat surface. In tromp l’oeil, the artist paints some objects, or extensions to a room as if we are looking at something in three dimensions. AnamorphismĪrtists and architects have long worked with paradoxical spaces. The game involves learning what you can and cannot do in this alternative universe’s “magic circle,” in order to progress through successive levels of difficulty and reach the goal of the game. In this game the player aims their portal gun at walls, floors, ceilings and platforms to create entry and exit holes, called “portals.” If your avatar jumps through the entry hole in the floor, then you will end up in the same space but re-enter through the wall. the laws of Euclidean geometry and physics) include Portal (2007). Games that present impossible operations within space ( i.e. Some games also play with spatial paradox within the game’s magic circle.Īt least since Star Trek, audiences and gamers are used to the idea of transportation that takes the traveller from one location to another without having to negotiate the space between. Whether in the game or at the meta-game level, we players and audiences have become accustomed to time travel and games that exhibit temporal paradox. Groundhog Day (1993) and Source Code (2011) play with similar themes of reset and repetition. Through repeated iterations he is able to improve his battle skills. The film Edge of Tomorrow (2014) with the tagline “live, die, repeat” plays on this theme of meta-game repetition, as the lead character conquers invading aliens by “resetting” each time they kill him. I could also add that the boundary is blurred as we think of various meta-game tactics, such as, in the case of video games, saving the game state in order to reset after failing in a high risk move. A player may also make a bad move to keep the game interesting, or lose interest and become less vigilant against the moves of their antagonists. Juul argues that the boundary of this magic circle is not fixed, especially when we think of “meta-games.” Sometimes players want to lose because the social situation presents that as a viable option, as when playing with a small child. What would happen to story-telling if JK Rowling were prosecuted for the misdeeds of Voldemort or Dolores Umbridge! Authors are exempt from the consequences of the virtual crimes they commit through their characters. In fact, magic circles form around fiction and film. Video games offer more extreme examples: inflicting violence on people and property or shooting people dead in a video game. What is unacceptable in polite social interaction becomes acceptable in game play. Yet, later on in the evening while playing a card or board game, the same diners will think nothing of breaking with such social niceties: by making a grab in a game of snap, deceiving opponents by conveying misleading signs in poker, or extracting huge rents from poorer players who land on your expensive property in Monopoly. Most people think it is impolite and unacceptable to snatch the salt from the table as soon as you see one of the other dinner guest make a reach for it. Game theorist Jesper Juul provides a suitably ordinary example of where the magic circle happens. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain.”(10). A place of play is consecrated and set apart for play: “The arena, the card-table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the screen, the tennis court, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function play-grounds, i.e. Perhaps it’s the former that the philosopher Johan Huizinga had in mind when he draw attention to the “magical” aspects of the spaces in which people play games. The other meaning of magic circle is obvious: a circle that is magic. Those within it knew the rules of the illusions and had to keep them secret. When I was a kid, the Magic Circle was well known as an association of stage magicians.
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