Man, Play and Games  

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Man, Play and Games (1961) is a book by Roger Caillois, a translation of Les jeux et les hommes (1958). It is an influential book on ludology, the study of play and games.

Caillois builds on the theories of Johan Huizinga and disputes many of them.

He argues there are four basic types of play:

• Agon, or competition. E.g. Chess is an almost purely agon game.
• Alea, or chance. E.g. Playing a slot machine is an almost purely alea game.
• Mimesis, or role playing.
• Ilinx (Greek for "whirlpool"), or vertigo, in the sense of altering perception. E.g. taking hallucinogens, riding roller coasters, children spinning until they fall down

Games and play combine these elements in various ways. Examples:

• Poker features both alea, the random shuffling of cards, and agon, the strategic decisions of discarding cards and betting.
• Collectible card games combine alea (the random shuffling of decks and the distribution of cards in booster packs), agon (competition with rules and strategies) and mimesis (cards refer to imaginary beings the player controls in a fictional world).
• Dancing is an ilinx activity, which can be combined with mimesis to portray characters, or with agon in competitive dance.

Caillois also places forms of play on a continuum from ludus, structured activities with explicit rules, to paidia, unstructured and spontaneous activities.