Topic

A Stunning Realization: Why I Like Glitch

I was going to post in the herb thread, but realized I'd start my Very First Thread.

The discussion about herbs, and what they're good for, made me realize why I like glitch. I'm not much on the herbs myself, but I love going to the community garden and gardening. I collect purple flowers, and hand them out to others standing in there, tend the garden, keep a few rubeweeds and hairballs for myself for trips to nostalgia-land, and then head to a mailbox, where I send 1000c worth of mail to all of my friends: a flower per friend! I love a game where it's fun to hang out and make people happy.

The backstory, and so personal, envision my dia-de-los-muertes glitch lying on a therapy couch, is that I was traumatized as a young child my mother's repeated telling of how *she was traumatized by playing Monopoly. This was before the Civil War and the pieces were wood and metal, and her sister was (is) very competitive. When things didn't go according to plan, my aunt would throw these pieces at my mother, leaving painful marks.  Therefore, my mother would not play boardgames with my sister and I, not even the quaint ones like CandyLand. I do remember Chutes and Ladders, but she also hates snakes, so maybe I made that up. 

I grew up HATING competition. My sister and dad would play hours of hearts, but what a mean-spirited game! You gang up on people and dump hundreds of points on them! Ouch! Mean! Unfair!

The point is, Glitch is not only not competitive, it can be cooperative, and you don't even HAVE to play it like a game. It can be mindless niceness. I'm sure this isn't what draws other people to the game, and I can just put on my rose-colored glasses and assume that the other day when I dropped 100 planks, one at a time, that the person following behind me picking them up one at a time and not saying a word, was really actually quite grateful, but the point is, IT DOESN'T MATTER! I was having fun, not competing, being nice, and the game allowed for it!  When I do those races quests with other people, and I've already done them, I wait at the finish line! I let people win! And I love that!! The game allows for it- maybe even encourages it! Or, if I win, the Glitch asks me if I want to do it again, and then I let them win the second time. WOOO! Anti-competition.

Of course, not everyone plays like this, which is also fine.  But it's my ethic, and it's so Anti-American, and anti-real-life, it's just such a wonderful break, and fits right into my mindset. I can play, and lose too! Or share, at least.

OMMMMM.

Posted 17 months ago by greenkozi Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • A Stunning Realization: Why I Like Greenkozi

    She's my kind of wackadoodle.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1
    Posted 17 months ago by Eureka Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I've had a few times in Glitch where I've become obsessed with figuring out how to do something and then gotten frustrated, and then a stranger has given me a present, and then I've been like.... 
    Oh..
    There are lots of nice people in Glitch....
    Posted 17 months ago by sakmet Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Amen. I think I got a little misty. Thank you for sharing, greenkozi.

    If I could Tyson you up a batch of cookies and send a stack of milk right now I would. Nanookie has me thinking snickerdoodles shaped like you but we call them wackadoodles.Or mold some sugar skulls with your likeness. How cool would that be? :)
    Posted 17 months ago by malo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 greenkozi... I too enjoy the fact that individuals can choose how they want to play the game, it makes it more interesting to have an array of directions to go and decisions to make.

    ...on a personal note...I am so sorry that when growing up you missed out on what (to my girls & I) are a bunch of great memories - we have played games all of their lives (22 & 15) and generally, especially in the winter, have game nights, no tv, phones or computers - just a big selection of games - loads of fun ~ with the most competition-filled one being Sorry - also being the most fun!!  (my fav is Clue, but you should hear the girls groan when I do the 'Miss Scarlett' voice - cracks me up!)

    Having said that, I'd also like to say that you seem to have acquired a wonderful sense of fair-play and I applaud you for it. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @malo:  kozidoodles.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • kozidoodles it is! Perfect.
    Posted 17 months ago by malo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love this post:) I like to compete...and cooperate. I love how Glitch has room for all of us:)
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • greenkozi + 1,000, 000   kudos for remarkable rememberances.   My therapist and I are trying to bring back some painful memories of childhood games,   when I got skunked at Monopoly;           I have had a fear of check books ever since.   I did love Sorry and Canasta.....Does anyone remember Canasta, two big decks and a fistful of cards... beautiful cards....
    Posted 17 months ago by napabeth Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Canasta is one of my families' favorites!!!  We play several other card games as well including Uno and Phase 10...and truly, Monopoly is not one I care to play and generally have to be talked into after many requests - for some reason the competition of that one degenerates into maliciousness!
    Posted 17 months ago by Firestone1960 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I +1 this post. :D
    Posted 17 months ago by Hera Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +++1
    Posted 17 months ago by Lilypad Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1  cheers :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Tradescantia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yeah, i found myself describing glitch to a friend last week as something along the lines of "a massive multiplayer online environment in which you gather resources and learn skills so as to devise ever more creative ways in which to do nice things for each other."  that, at its core, is a large part of what i've grown to love about this game and community.

    recommended reading for those of a similar mind: www.nonzero.org/
    Posted 17 months ago by BeatFreq Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I am so glad you posted this, Greenkozi!  I love Glitch so much because of its playfulness and  versatility.  I like to compete (against myself) and cooperate with others. I like being a loner at times and working with others on a quest or a street project. Growing up I loved scavenger hunts, board games, card games, hide and seek, jigsaw puzzles, dodge ball and dress up----elements of which I find in this game and which I still find enormously entertaining. 

    @Beth, my darling friend, I LOVED Canasta...spent hours and hours playing with family, friends and even by myself. h-m-m-m, wonder if some of my RL friends would enjoy resurrecting that marvelous card game.

    My family spent time playing Monopoly too. I liked it----in fact I think it helped prepare me for RL money management skills. I still play it with the grandkids once in awhile, but NEVER when Glitch is open! LOL
    Posted 17 months ago by GreyGoose Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You are truly a sweet person, I have always been anti competition for the simple reason someone has to lose.  I don't like losing but I also feel sorry for the other person if I win, which then becomes a lose lose situation.  Guess I'm lucky I grew up before the big push for girl team sports and never had to play.
    Posted 17 months ago by xoxJulie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • monopoly gets a bad rap in some game design circles for being a "bad" boardgame, but i think it is brilliant. i think about the game of monopoly A LOT.

    oddly enough, i see Monopoly as a ringing endorsement of Communism.

    the thing that makes Monopoly so special is the "pass go, collect 200 dollars" bit. the rules of Monopoly state that if the bank runs out of paper money, you're supposed to make more of your own paper money to keep the money supply going.

    theoretically optimum play, from the perspective of accruing wealth, is to come to an agreement with the other players to "forgo all private property purchase" and just keep circling the board with everybody collecting 200 dollars forevermore until the heat death of the universe.

    so you say "hay! that's just a hyper-inflationary bubble!" and you'd be correct except that other than player initiated property auctions, all the prices in monopoly are fixed - you even have the option of paying a mere 200 dollars income tax instead of 10% your wealth. you're always making more and more and more relative to the game's basic 'cost of living'

    Monopoly is a non-zero sum environment that people play as a zero sum game because otherwise it wouldn't be any fun : ]
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • on a possibly even deeper level, the "thrill of victory" / "agony of defeat" in monopoly is rather different from most other games, or at least plays up a specific component of winning and losing that most games seek to obfuscate.

    unlike other games, i find the entertainment value of Monopoly comes less from the winning and losing itself, and more from the *performative spectacle* of winning and losing.

    like, when i'm playing monopoly and i'm losing, i'm generally grumbling and mumbling about the current leader being a slum landlord, which allows them to ham up their performance as a ruthless capitalist, and we both play the roles or "winner" and "loser" to our mutual enjoyment. in my family, when we'd play monopoly, we'd really ham it up.

    sure, someone always has to lose, but that person can "play the loser" while the winner "plays the winner" and everybody ends up enjoying themselves.

    since the game has a heavy, heavy component of chance, no one should *really* feel bad about losing a game of monopoly, nor super stoked about winning.

    even if someone manages to win by skill and not chance it is usually through some sort of exploitive property trading. this has the benefit of seriously helping the loser better play the paragon of virtue and the winner play at the cackling mastermind. the loser 'wins' after a fashion by demonstrating the better sense of 'fairness'.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • greenkozi, I grew up not playing boardgames much either - a result of my grandmother being a completely insufferable competitor which led my mother to the same conclusion as your mother (e.g. "Games are Not Fun").  I was also an only child and we lived in the middle of the woods, so spontaneous game playing was just not on due to lack of a ready pool of other kids to play with (I grew up in the 70's and 80's - no single-player video games, and Solitaire gets old damned quick).

    My grandfather and a local grandfather-analogue neighbor taught me to love to play old-fashioned games like Gin Rummy and Cribbage via their gentle encouragement of my victories without ever "letting" me win.  But those interactions and other positive ones I had were few and far between.  Mostly I (like you) felt that people were just out to clobber me and they had more skills and experience to do it with.  The advent of Trivial Pursuit when I was a teenager was a godsend - a game that played to my strengths?  You're kidding!

    I sometimes feel like describing Glitch as a "game" sells it short - it doesn't describe the experience I have in game or, it sounds, the experience you and others have.  If I did needlework, I'd put what BeatFreq said on a pillow: "a massive multiplayer online environment in which you gather resources and learn skills so as to devise ever more creative ways in which to do nice things for each other."

    Tl; dr - all of this is to say, "Yeah.  What youall said."
    Posted 17 months ago by jasbo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You are so right! I was just explaining this game to a bunch of friends today - who do not play Glitch - and they were saying things like "so you don't get to shoot others? so you don't compete? so you just hang around and help things grow?!?" And that's exactly why I love this game. They totally didn't get it :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Codex Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Hey, Canasta fans! Chalk up another one:) My entire extended family grew up playing this together (in all possible combos: 2, 3, 4 and 6). My grandparents had a home on a lake with loads of beds, and many of us would stay there overnight(s) off and on during the summer, with late-night Canasta games being a favorite form of entertainment. We did enjoy the competing but I think for us it was more hanging out together and the sort of fun trash talking (in jest) that went with it. As well as late-night runs to the doughnut shop, when they were fresh:) I have 10 first cousins on Mom's side, and many of us are still deeply close friends and in close contact because of stuff like that. Games! Yay:)
    Posted 17 months ago by RM Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My family didn't play games together much, but me and my friends played lots of board games, and pretend games.  And my mother and I used to do jigsaw puzzles together.  My DH's family is another story...they are card game, board game, dominoes fanatics--at holidays they get together and play deep into the night, giving each other non-stop crap, super competitive--but always in a loving way. Consequently, my family does a little bit of all that, plus we all enjoy video games.  Some of my best parenting experiences have been through video game playing with my kids.
    Posted 17 months ago by Nanookie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I grow up with ton of kids around playing whole day out. Hide and seek, catch and many many other games that i do not know how to translate in english. I was bad at completing with others, but even than that old games was so so fun. I still remember that times when i'm sad and lonely.

    Glitch brings me to that times in case of friendship, cooperation and freedom of what you like to do. No competition, no violence just fun as you like to make it for yourself and others.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lilla My Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Beautiful post
    Posted 17 months ago by Djoe6897 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I love your backstory as to why you love Glitch. I also find it really lovely when people are generous in Glitch and help out others. It's a really different atmosphere than a lot of the other games I play, where raging, put downs, vulgar language, and fierce competition are rampant.

    I would just like to mention that it might not be so friendly later on when Glitch gets larger and is off beta. I find that beta players in any game make up the best of the players because they're the ones who are genuinely interested and invested in the game.

    And lastly, I hate monopoly. The last time I ever played monopoly was the last time I'll ever play it. It was the only time I ever flipped out at a game so much. I kid you not when I say that I ended up in jail 32 times in a row. I got so angry that I threw the board up, pieces went flying, and then I cried into a pillow.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lung Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "I kid you not when I say that I ended up in jail 32 times in a row. I got so angry that I threw the board up, pieces went flying, and then I cried into a pillow."

    yeah but ending up in jail 32 times in a row is awesome .. so at least you got a great story out of it : ]
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1! This is a lovely post. Although I do like being competitive in games, Glitch is nice because it's so laid-back and you can play it any way you want. You're really only competing against yourself, constantly trying to achieve more just for the sake of it, outdoing yourself, and learning new things as your character continues to grow. I love it. (:
    Posted 17 months ago by Augustana Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I grew up not playing competitive games at home because my dad didn't like them, and I never really liked them either. Then, as an adult, I met some friends who hosted a board game and dinner night at their house one a week, and I learned to like games. However, I still prefer games that are cooperative (Pandemic is a good one) or team based (we play a Last Night on Earth a lot). For those of you who have had bad experiences with competitive games, there are alternatives!
    Posted 17 months ago by Amy Pond Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I loooove Pandemic and Last Night on Earth!
    Posted 17 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Lovely post (: 

    I hate competitive environments too, although I did participate in a few competitions back in middle and early high school. I enjoyed the testing, and I loved working with and meeting other people, but I didn't like having to think about the rivalry involved. I never took competitions that seriously. 

    Now, I mostly just play puzzle-based games by myself. The one time I've played a party game recently, I asked that we not keep score and ended up playing for both sides. 

    I used to like Monopoly! I've never experienced that aggressive a round. I only stopped playing it because my friends were always too lazy to help me clear up after we were done.
    Posted 17 months ago by Xacau Feera Blin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • it was so sweet to come home from work and see all these responses.

    your posts made me realize that we DID play boardgames, and i did enjoy them. i loved sorry, until people started saying "sorry" sarcastically. i loved bullshit, because it was a tricky game. and i love canasta, but i taught myself in my teens, on yahoo! games and then started teaching friends and family. my grandparents taught me and my sister cribbage, and we played that all the time, also with my father. i think i liked that, too, due to the math. no interest now, though, the pegs bring back that icky competition feeling. i loved clue- the pattern is thinking games, huh? we always did jigsaws, and jenga, and crossword puzzles. i never watched tv, and we played dressup- it was the creativity.  (it's true, i also pulled the heads off of my barbies...)

    i'm glad this part of glitch appeals to others. and you guys are all really sweet. i may have to blog about this.

    mostly, i just like sharing :) and you're welcome to share as many cookies as possible with me. i will share them around. however, my niceness ends here: i do not like cinnamon, therefore i request my kozidoodles be changed to chocolatechip or some other variation on chocolate and i'm not sure that glitchcookies will do. real live edible cookies, please. i'll pm you my address if you'd like ;) nice and demanding are not mutually exclusive, when it comes to food, i'm pretty sure.

    right?!
    Posted 17 months ago by greenkozi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • BeatFreq - great description.

    Greenkozi - very sweet.
    Posted 17 months ago by emdot Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Green!!!!!

    I make a wicked brownie.....  www.davidlebovitz.com/2006/...

    <g>
    Posted 17 months ago by Pirate Apples Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Pirate Apples aren't those (and just about everything he makes) amazing?!?
    Posted 17 months ago by Cristy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I played a lot of board games with my mom when I was young. Even a game board required more than two players. My mom and I would just play it anyway. I'm start liking a CCG/TCG type but I realized I have to spend tons of $$ on CCG/TCG. Not worth for me. One of my friends mentioned a game called "Killerbunnies." One day, I will try to buy one, maybe three with boosters. And also, I want to try Saboteur (dwarves w/ gold, etc.) but it's best with a lot of players. Now, Glitch is too awesome - especially, it can run on a browser with a flash installed, so anyone can join and play it right away. So, I can't wait for my friends to be able to play with me.
    Posted 17 months ago by Milolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Have anyone played Crows game? I know I bring a bird theme this week. :P
    Posted 17 months ago by Milolin Subscriber! | Permalink
  • pirate apples, yes, that will do ;) (get it!)

    are you just trying to get my address?
    Posted 17 months ago by greenkozi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No cinnamon, check.

    Chocolatey chippity goodness instead, check.

    Indulge you with a double-batch so you can share, check.

    Well, we are blessed so we can be a blessing to others after all. I reckon that extends to cookies as well.
    Posted 17 months ago by malo Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Canasta!  Goodness..I was seven years old when my grandfather started teaching me to play on weekends..He was born in 1886....Lived to be 103..Anyway..One day I managed to beat him..He was miffed....I was upset that I had upset him...So we never played the game again..Just kept him talking about his family's genealogy..Which was quite impressive..That's been my hobby now for years...I come into Glitch to relax and live in the color and fantasy art style It soothes me..reminds me of my favorite books..The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Slapstick by Kurt Vonnegut.They mirror my childhood tendencies...
    Posted 17 months ago by Tilly TrinkleHouse Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I suck at Monopoly, so I don't play it. I do, however, love dominoes. The actual, strategic game of dominoes, not the setting up and knocking down in pretty patterns. The game my family played the most was pinochle. I'm not a cut-throat competitive person, so I love that I can compete where I want to in this game, or I can just lay back and do my own thing. I love to help others out, so if someone needs to win a race but sucks at jumping, I'm content to "race" them by standing mostly still and chatting with my friends while they jump all over the place to get to the finish line. I'm not "trying" to get all the achievements done, but I know that if I play long enough, eventually I'll get them all. Maybe I'll try harder once the game goes live and there are no more looming resets, or maybe not. I've accomplished everything I've set out to accomplish in the game, so now I just have fun, and try to find things to break :D
    Posted 17 months ago by Essie Kitten Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Monopoly reminds me of cheating, because that's what ALWAYS happens when our neighbour and sis play. I'm always the banker, and they would gang up and constantly steal money and title deeds from the bank. I always have to be super paranoid while playing it (counting the 100 dollar bills every time I leave the game, for example) with them, so now I just say no way if they want to play. But I still like competition so Glitch gives me that, sort of. In races. Winning gives me a super buzz. I'm still trying to get on the leaderboards.
    Posted 17 months ago by KitkatCat Subscriber! | Permalink