Lately I have been thinking about play a lot. This is probably because of watching my children growing up and seeing how play changes into games as they develop. I have written about play before and it does form part of my general Game Thinking framework, but it is lumped with toys and games – rather lazily.
I wanted to give play and my surrounding thoughts on it its own post.
Play
Play is free form and unlike a game does not need to have a point or a goal to it. It exists within a set of rules created by the person or people playing and is born in the imagination. Often it is a way of exploring the boundaries and extremes of something, in search for new and novel experiences. It is undertaken for its own sake often for fun and joy.