Dear reader,

first off I'd like to say that I was just going to dedicate an entry to my puristic, pac-man inspired halloween pumpkin, but as I could not find the link cable to download the pictures I had taken from my camera to my PC I decided to let my thoughts roam free upon the topic as listed above.  Lets both hope that my mind can come up with something coherent worth reading eh?

The essence of gaming.  What exactly is it, this subject that intrigues me so?  It is clear to me that it is the core of each game, that which drives us to keep, and triggers the enjoyment we receive from, playing.  Aside from that little is clear though. 
There is no way in defining it, as it balances on the edge of metaphysical, just out of reach of comprehension.  It's the link between psychology and gameplay.  It is what connects to our primal instincts.  The drive to compete, to survive, to nurture.  The will to interact with others, to achieve.

In the early days of videogames this urge was given a very tactile form.  Be it the opposing paddle, the badly drawn motorcyclist overtaking you or the anamorph fungi in your path.  Due to the restrictions of the available hardware, achievement was embodied through conquering the competition.  To this day it still embodies the bulk of the available games.  On the other hand we've got a rather younger take on the essence of videogames, in which the main goal is to interact or to nurture.  At the core it's still about survival, but on a different, less tactile plane.  It lies on the level of social interaction and personal achievement.

Both simulate life through a very different perspective, the former being extrovert and agressive, the latter introvert and peacefull.  Achievement through conquering or through gentle manipulation.  The first has a genuine male touch to it, the latter is more often affiliated to the feminin. 
It is upon these 2 cores that game developers built the foundations for their designs, the genres as we know them now.  These cores are the first in a series of design decissions that will determine the gaming experience. 

Should the goal be to stick as close to the core as possible, only adding that what is neccessairy to give the core idea a physical appearance?  Clearly this will result in the purest and most accessible gaming experiences.  But how can repetitiveness be evaded, how to differentiate yourself from the masses?  Back in the days of the pre-8 bit, 8 bit and 16 bit era it was sufficient to add a different graphical overlayer.  Beyond that point it seems as if differentiation was achieved by adding elements that complexified the whole, to a point at which it now takes a mastermind to strip a game from all its excessive mechanics down to its bare core and to produce a quality title from that. 
As with everything it is easier to add quality through additional ornament instead of creating a quality piece that needs not for such artificial upgrading.  It is also here that lies the eternal question: which joy is the most rewarding?  The enjoyment you get from the sum of the details, which is superficial and wears thin after all has been explored, or that of the exquisitaly excecuted essentials?

While one would lean towards the latter answer, it is to be noted that with the short average hours of play put towards each individual game, the enjoyment received from the first might last long enough to satisfy the gamer.

I shall leave it at this for today.  I've only explored the surface of one facet of the essence of gaming after pondering about it for over an hour.  I do not know if what I said made sence to you, the reader, but if you have any commentaries at all, please be free to post them and perhaps we could get a discussion going?