Paidea Vs Ludus

Paidea and Ludus; when speaking about these two words in relation to games it basically means linear(Ludus) and non-linear(Paidea). Both these words may refer to those specific kinds of games, though “Linear” and “Non-linear” are not an official genre of game, these words can still be used to describe a game to have a certain amount of paidea in it, or on the other hand it can be said that a game has elements of ludus in it.

Below you’ll find some examples of games to which Ludus and Paidea can apply.

Ludus;

Some may argue that Ludus is a good thing in games that involve the player more, which Final Fantasy 13 doesn’t do, and in fact makes the player concentrate more on the game and the story of the game to make the story more enjoyable and make advancement of the game faster, and by limiting the amount of exploring the player can do; it achieves the very thing that it may have set out to do. However in Final Fantasy 13, the player is limited so much and then so uninvolved with the game, it makes it difficult to enjoy. Is what its main criticism is.

In Final Fantasy 13 the Ludus presents itself as straight line dungeons with enemies that present themselves before you, and half of the time you have no choice but to fight them, and when you reach your destination you watch a scene and then carry on to get to your next goal, defeat a boss and so on. It is only later in the game where some Paidea elements introduce themselves and the game becomes more sandbox-like and allows the player to go out and fulfil his own objectives, or complete side missions like hunting monsters or something of that sort. A lot more freedom is given to the player, however that is near the very end of the game. This game is dominated by Ludus styled game-play, in short.

Ludus is a type of game style which reinforces the structure of the game by providing a lack in choice in action for the player in order to help them concentrate on progressing through the game.

Paidea;

Paidea on the other hand is the presence of freedom in a game, you could say. Something that has the essence of Paidea is most likely a sandbox game, a lot like Grand Theft Auto, or Sim City. Something that doesn’t limit the players’ creativity and allows him to fulfil objectives at his own pace, and allow the player to do whatever he wants while fulfilling these objectives.

I think that the first Grand Theft Auto is the best incarnation of pure Paidea game play, Grand theft Auto doesn’t restrict players at any one point, even during missions you can go off on your own and do whatever your mind wants you to do, however at the cost of your missions’ success of course.

Of course the fact that you have missions during the course of the game introduces Ludus, you are still not restricted to going through the missions the way the game wants you, for example; your missions would be to hunt someone down, you can do that in whatever way you want to do it and the game doesn’t care as long as you get it done within a time limit or some other small and irrelevant restriction.

Unlike Final Fantasy 13, Grand Theft Auto offers gratuitous freedom in course of action, because of its stronger dominant element of Paidea. But because of this the player might get side tracked too often and then ignore the story quests; however a focused gamer will always strive towards the goal set by the game, usually...

Well, aside from Grand Theft Auto there are plenty of other online games that provide a gratuitious amount of Paidea, all MUD's and MMORPG's usually provide the user with a lot of freedom.

These two games are just examples of where both Paidea and Ludus are most potent, however there are games that use both Paidea and Ludus to make the game better, easier to play and follow or over all more enjoyable

Paidea is a type of game play style which provides freedom for the player to express himself and assert his individuality by showing how differently the player plays the game when compared to other players.

Hybrid;

Disgaea; Hour of Darkness, this is one of my all time favourite games of ever. It is also possibly one of the finest examples of Paidea and Ludus working together to make the game better, or worse.

Disgaea is a turn based-isometric strategy game in which your goal is to complete stages by defeating all enemies on your map using a maximum of ten characters, unique or creatable. The first element that appears is Ludus, to unlock new stages for you to do you have to advance the story, that way you can re-visit the stages you went before, however new enemies will appear on those levels, this introduces a sort of sandboxy Paidea style which allows the player to dilly in the other maps which the player has unlocked.

Of course, there are maps for which you may not be a high enough level to complete, which forces the player to create his or her own goals, such as levelling up an item in the item world, levelling up a character in the previously visited maps, and so on, this reveals a heavy Paidea style which is ever present in Disgaea.

By the end game of Disgaea, the Ludus is no longer present and the game turns into a Paidea sandbox state where you can unlock different kinds of maps without advancing the stories, unlock hidden bosses and hidden character classes which makes the game about a thousand times more enjoyable, however sometimes the lack of Ludus at end game makes it hard for the player to decide on what to do, because there are a lot of things he can do.

In the end, Paidea and Ludus can make a game completely different, it can make or break a game or it could make a sequel completely different. The presence of Paidea and Ludus cannot be over looked in video games, even if you don’t know what the words actually mean.