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More New Games
Describes the rules of unusual games that emphasize challenge rather than competition
190 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 1981
15 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 1, 2025
More New Games extends the 1976 experiment of The New Games Book, collecting additional cooperative activities alongside reflections on the philosophy that motivated the movement. Like its predecessor, the volume emerged from workshops and festivals that sought to replace competitive, zero-sum models of sport with participatory, non-hierarchical play. Where the first book introduced the ethos, the second emphasizes its durability. New Games were not a passing counter-cultural fad but a growing practice embedded in schools, churches, and community programs.
The structure remains practical with sets of rules for large-group games, many designed to work across ages and skill levels. The games retain obstacles, but these obstacles are often designed to be porous, allowing for adaptation and improvisation. The point is less about strict adherence to rule systems than about sustaining communal activity. This reveals both the strength and the tension of the New Games project. On the one hand, it demonstrates lusory autonomy in action becuase participants deliberately reshape constraints to preserve meaning within their play. On the other hand, by loosening obstacles too far, some activities risk drifting toward unstructured play, blurring the line that Suits (1978) identified between gameplay and other forms of autotelic activity.
The historical context matters. Some of the optimism may now feel dated, but the volume remains valuable as an example of intentional rule-making as cultural intervention. It shows that policy is never neutral, the way we design activities carries normative commitments about what kind of community we want to build.
More New Games is both manual and manifesto. It expands the repertoire of cooperative play while pressing further the claim that the form of our games shapes the form of our life together. Its enduring lesson is that rules are choices, and those choices matter.
The structure remains practical with sets of rules for large-group games, many designed to work across ages and skill levels. The games retain obstacles, but these obstacles are often designed to be porous, allowing for adaptation and improvisation. The point is less about strict adherence to rule systems than about sustaining communal activity. This reveals both the strength and the tension of the New Games project. On the one hand, it demonstrates lusory autonomy in action becuase participants deliberately reshape constraints to preserve meaning within their play. On the other hand, by loosening obstacles too far, some activities risk drifting toward unstructured play, blurring the line that Suits (1978) identified between gameplay and other forms of autotelic activity.
The historical context matters. Some of the optimism may now feel dated, but the volume remains valuable as an example of intentional rule-making as cultural intervention. It shows that policy is never neutral, the way we design activities carries normative commitments about what kind of community we want to build.
More New Games is both manual and manifesto. It expands the repertoire of cooperative play while pressing further the claim that the form of our games shapes the form of our life together. Its enduring lesson is that rules are choices, and those choices matter.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews