While I can’t say if I really enjoyed the reading this week it did bring up an interesting portion of games that is often overlooked, and definitely isn’t something we’ve really talked about in class, how games can be a powerful means of self expression. Though the creation of games is obviously an expressive action,…

This image shows two immortals playing Liubo during the Han Dynasty. This image shows the spiritual aspect that liubo may have been inspired by. Perhaps being inspired by the cosmos it definately created spiritual artwork, an aspect of games that we have not realy looked into much yet.

In last weeks reading, there was an emphasis on religion in earlier centuries and the impact it has on games.The Catholic church was explicitaly against the game of chess until they were able to use it as a tool to teach and further instill the social hierarchy in people. In both of the Art of…

Figure 15:9, a-b Manuscript of the Qi Jing (Classic of Weiqi) Since my reading response was based on the importance of written manuals to the survival of games, I thought it would be fitting to describe the weiqi manual depicted in the Art of Contest. Dating to the middle of the sixth century, the weiqi manual is…

The study of cultural pass-times can become particularly difficult when studying aspects that no longer survive.  Even games that enjoyed a particularly long span of popularity are easily lost to the sands of time.  Liubo, game of leaves, and boyi, are all once widely understood ancient games that today only serve to confuse modern scholars.…