COMPUTE! ISSUE 40 / SEPTEMBER 1983 / PAGE 162
Learning With
Computers
Glenn M. Kleiman
Playful
Exercises
For The Mind
One premise underlies all I have to say in this month's column: the
mind, like the body, is strengthened by exercise. I believe any
activity is worthwhile if it leads people to exercise their creativity,
thinking, problem-solving, memory, perception, concentration, math, or
language skills.
Many toys, games, and puzzles provide opportunities
for mental exercise. For example, building toys, such as blocks,
Erector Sets, Tinker Toys, and Legos, provide opportunities for
children to design, build, test, and modify various objects. Clay,
crayons, and paint sets provide other means for creative play.
Also, crossword puzzles, and word games such as
Scrabble, exercise vocabulary and spelling skills. Jigsaw puzzles
exercise perceptual and imagery skills, while puzzles such as Rubik's
Cube exercise problem-solving skills. Games such as chess and checkers
involve problem-solving and planning skills. Many board games provide
varied learning experiences. Monopoly, for example, simulates aspects
of a real estate market in which players experience negotiating,
buying, and selling. The game involves rents, taxes, utility bills, and
banking. It also requires a fair amount of reading and math,
particularly for the "banker."
Computers can be programmed to provide many types of
playful exercise for the mind. In some cases, the exercises are similar
to those which can be done without a computer, but the computer makes
some things easier. Computers can be programmed to set up game boards
on the screen, keep score, monitor time limits, save the "state" of
games so they can be continued later, and make sure the rules are
followed. But computers should not be limited to these mundane chores.
Making Real Use Of
Computer Power
The flexible and interactive nature of personal computers, combined
with their graphics, animation and sound capabilities, offers exciting
new possibilities for mental exercises. For example, computers can be
programmed to automatically adjust the level of challenge to be
suitable for each player. Depending upon the nature of the game, the
computer can adjust the speed of movement, the complexity of the
materials, the size of the board, or the level at which it plays.
Computers can also provide hints, second chances,
and other on-line aids. The graphics and animation make it possible to
represent many things pictorially, as well as provide displays which
hold players' interest. The sound and, on some systems, speech
capabilities, also add to the attention-holding and information
exchange possibilities. The continuous control players can have, and
the speed at which the computer can respond, are additional important
advantages.
Various types of mental exercise programs have been
developed to take advantage of computer features. There are computer
versions of paint sets, chess, checkers, Othello, crossword puzzles,
Rubik's Cube, Scrabble, Concentration, and many more. Simulations
provide another type of playful mental exercise. Adventure games and
other interactive stories - stories in which readers direct and
contribute to the flow of events as they read - also belong in this
category.
I have reviewed some paint set and simulation
programs in previous columns (October and November 1982), and I will
discuss interactive stories, computer word games, and other types of
playful exercises in the future. For the rest of this column, I will
describe one program which is perhaps the best example now available of
how computers offer new opportunities for play and creativity.
Pinball Construction
Set
Suppose you were designing and creating a pinball game. You would have
to figure out the shape of the playing area and barricades, where to
put flippers, bumpers, spinners, lanes, gates, targets, and the other
apparatus of these games. You would have to assign point values for
when the ball hits each one, and add the essential sound effects.
Of course, good pinball games are not random
arrangements. They are designed so there is a good amount of bounce,
ample opportunity to use the flippers, and an appropriate amount of
risk of losing the ball. There should be no places where a ball can get
stuck or be caught in an endlessly repetitive pattern of bounces. The
number of points scored in various ways should reflect the difficulty
and likelihood of striking the various targets. Hitting all of a set of
targets should yield bonus points.
And, of course, the overall design should be
visually balanced and pleasing. Building such a game would require a
great deal of thinking and experimenting. Certainly, a pinball
construction kit would offer opportunities for creative, exploratory
play comparable to those provided by other building toys.
Pinball
Construction Set program, created by Bill Budge, offers all of
the above possibilities and more. Once you have created a game, you can
play it like any of the available video pinball games. You control the
ball with the joystick. The play action feels like a real pinball game,
and the movement of the ball is an excellent simulation of the real
thing.
When you boot Pinball
Construction Set, you see the screen with three types of
elements. At the left is a box in the basic shape of a pinball game. At
the right are pictorial representations (called icons) of the tools you
have available - a hand, arrow, scissors, hammer, paintbrush, and
others. In between are the pieces for the pinball game - flippers,
bumpers, and all the rest. You construct your game, test playing it as
you go. When finished, you can make a separate disk with your game, so
that anyone can play it. The figure shows the screen after a game has
been constructed.
You begin constructing a game by using a joystick to
control the hand icon on the screen. You can move the hand to any
pinball piece, press the joystick button to pick up the piece, and then
move it anywhere on the game board. In the figure, the hand is shown in
the middle of the board, having just placed the round bumper that is
next to it.
There are a variety of pinball components available:
two sizes of flippers; polygons which the ball just bounces off;
bumpers which kick the ball away when they are hit; launchers which are
like the spring-operated device that puts the ball into play; a ball
hopper which captures balls until it holds three and then releases them
all; a ball eater which makes the ball vanish; spinners; lanes; gates;
rollovers; and targets - everything you need for a real pinball game.
Each time you pick up a piece, it is replaced with
an identical one, so you can, if you choose, create a game with 30
pairs of flippers and 50 bumpers. The only limit is that a maximum of
128 pieces can be placed on the board. It's very unlikely you would
ever want more.
Beyond Pinball
What I have described so far would make a very impressive pinball
construction program, but Bill Budge has provided much more. You can
change the shape of the board, and the shapes and sizes of the
barricades. To do so, you simply move to the arrow tool and press the
button to select it. When you select the arrow tool, knobs appear at
the corners of each shape. Using the joystick, you can move the arrow
tool to a knob and pull that corner out or push it in. The scissors and
hammer are for removing and adding knobs so you can, for example,
change a rectangle to a triangle or to a pentagon.
Another tool is the paintbrush. Pick it up, move it
to the paint pot with your choice of color, and paint the board or any
barricade. There is even a magnifying glass tool for very detailed
painting.
Each pinball piece has an associated number of
points and a sound that plays when the ball hits it. You can reset
these. You can also use AND gates to link parts together for bonus
points. That is, you can create effects such as: "If you hit all three
of these targets, you get 10,000 bonus points."
Now for the most amazing part, which could be done
only with computer pinball. You control the physics of the world in
which the game is played! You can set gravity anywhere along a scale
from very high to very low. Set gravity to be low, and the ball moves
as if it's very light, almost like a Ping-Pong ball. Set gravity to be
high, and the ball moves as if it's made of lead - it will even be
difficult to shoot it into play with the launcher.
You can also change how much the ball bounces and
how much the bumpers kick. You can play with a lively ball and dead
bumpers, a dead ball and lively bumpers, or anything in between. By
experimenting with these two controls, you get a good sense of how
different factors interact in a physical system.
Finally, you can set the speed. This lets you put
the whole game into slow motion. The ball moves the same distance as it
would otherwise, but it goes very slowly. Or you can set the game to
high speed and really test your reflexes.
Pinball
Construction Set is remarkably simple to
use. Everything is done with the joystick, and almost everything you
need to know is represented pictorially. In fact, although it runs on
much less expensive machines, the program has aspects of the Lisa and
other new, more powerful machines.
With its encouragement of creativity, its visual
appeal, its ease of use, the complete control it provides over the
world of a pinball game, its inherent physics lessons, and its great
fun, Pinball Construction Set
is a truly remarkable program. If I had
to select one program to demonstrate the potential of personal
computers to provide playful exercises for the mind, Pinball
Construction Set would be the one.
I have reviewed the Apple II version of this
program, and, by the time this column appears, versions for Atari,
Commodore 64, and IBM PC computers will be available. The Apple II
version is available from BudgeCo, 428 Pala Ave., Piedmont, CA 94611.
All the versions will be available from Electronic Arts, 2755 Campus
Drive, San Mateo, CA 94403.