 In his book, The Grasshopper, Bernard suits claims that should we one day create Utopia, all we would have to do is play games. Once our material needs are satisfied and our anxieties quelled, what would be left for us to do but play, create, and indulge our whimsy? The Grasshopper in the title defends this position to an ant, skeptical of this absurd claim, who thinks some people would need to work. The Grasshopper, a strange blend of Socrates and Jesus Christ, always has an answer though. What would scientists do if they have all knowledge? While they would invent puzzles and problems to solve on their own, wouldn't the artist be deprived of the suffering that inspires expression? No, they could create drama within the safety of play, enabling catharsis. And the ant-like workers? Well they can always create tasks for themselves to solve, they can play at work. Seuss addresses many other conundrums and design formalism in the book. He defines games as the voluntary confrontation of unnecessary obstacles, suggests play is essentially intrinsic, not instrumental, and claims rules are both prescriptive and proscriptive. But ultimately, only important for the activity that they make possible, they are arbitrary. He concludes on the relationship between games and Utopia, this sentiment. It behooves us therefore to begin the immense work of devising wonderful games, for if we solve the problem of scarcity, we will have nothing else to do in Utopia. So Utopia is about play, at least according to the Grasshopper, and is really what defines us as a species. However, this presumes Utopia as a concept is universal and neutral, and that play is something monolithic and definable. David Graber presents a different vision for Utopia and play though, in his book The Utopia of Rules. He thinks we have a culturally mediated conception of both Utopia and play, and it's hardly a Utopian vision. We know how players existed in different guises through history, outlining the book The Ambiguity of Play, but every culture has its own idea of Utopia, which almost always descends into dystopia. Graber thinks our culture's version is one we are already creating in this world, a world of stifling regulations and submission to rules. In the book, he presents the iron law of liberalism, how policy meant to increase freedom actually creates more administration, an idea he calls total bureaucratization. Governments, corporations, and the military industrial entertainment complex are all fused into one network, a network that controls our lives through both subtle and explicit means. Our Utopian vision is one of bureaucracy. We see this in the hierarchies of heaven and medieval Christianity, to the valorisation of national identity, sometimes taken to extremes. Not only does this stifle creativity stagnate our sense of agency and control our lives, total bureaucratisation turns us into algorithms for a process beyond our control. In fact, our version of the Grasshopper's vision is seemingly very ant-like. We actually chastise true play, true freedom, we view democracy and agency as a threat to the natural order. He concludes by suggesting we need to unveil the true nature of play, which is not bound by the rigidity of codification, but as a transformative force of social upheaval. As an art form defined by rules but mediated by play, games are at the heart of the contradiction explored by both Sooths and Graeber. The paradox is palpably presented in the title of one of the most prominent books of design formalism, the rules of play. The authors of the book, Katie Salin and Eric Zimmerman, define play as free movement within more rigid structures, and there are also clearly defined types of rules. There are operational rules, you know the kinds on an instruction manual, constitutive rules, which is the actual mathematical substrate of a game, and finally implicit rules, which are all the rules that aren't written down, you know, like how you can't physically assault your competitors. In the art of game design, Jesse Schell used David Partlett's analysis to come up with even more categories. Rules are operational, foundational, laws, written, advisory, behavioural and house rules. Rules are what makes games games, they are the DNA of play. The problem, as we explored earlier, is that the idea of play and rules are themselves molded by the cultural context we exist in, they are not neutral ideas. In his book, Avangard Video Games, Brian Schrank says this of the definition of rules and rules of play. Saying play is free movement within rigid structures is itself a technocratic definition. Biologically, play's function is to reinforce an organism's variability in the face of rigidification. He then presents the idea that there is both first order and second order play. First order play is about observing the rules, they are meant to be adhered to and not questioned. Second order play though is different. It renders plastic the structures that first order play is beholden to. This is where he locates Avangard play as existing, a space where we can reclaim a new definition of play, not mired by regulation. Schrank outlines how games are a continuation of the Avangard art movements of the last century. They critique games as formal systems, unearth their rules and deconstruct them. For example, the Dada movement would often be self-referential and reveal itself as artifice. The situationist, on the other hand, used reality to create versions of utopia, drifting in cities to create new magic circles. This idea of play giving a glimpse of utopia is explored by people like Bernie DeCoven in the New Games movement and in his book, The Well Played Game. Play can break free of the magic circle and serve its original purpose. It can start to envision new versions of reality, a real utopia, by rethinking our original purpose, by rethinking our relationship to rules. Learn the rules like a pro, so that you can break them like an artist. This is what Picasso told us to do, but how would we read this in the context of games? We need to establish a formalism well enough to break it, so how do we break free of rules not transparent to us? In his book Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Alexander Galloway argues that games are artful algorithms that mold our behavior in particular ways. He identifies four moments in games, drawn on diegetic and non-diegetic lines. Essentially, he asks us to recognize that there is an inside and outside the games, and play exists in the interface between fiction and reality. What does interfacing with an algorithmic interface entail for us, though? He states, Video games at their structural core are in sync with the politics of the information age. Video games are allegories of our life under network control. He argues that the meaning of a game is not in its mechanics, or its rules, but in its allegory rhythms, its algorithmic metaphor, the allegorhythms of play. For example, civilization is not about strategic decisions or history, but about transcoding history into math, into an algorithm. We find ourselves back where David Graber left us, that play has become entrapped by the structure it upholds, and is now fundamentally submissive, not transformative. Does Galloway provide us an answer, though? He does, in the hopes of an avant-garde in games, a movement that redefines play from within by creating new allegory rhythms of play. Breaking the rules of play is not so easy, though. In The Grasshopper, Suits outnines three kinds of rule-breakers, triflers, who reject the goals of games in just a linger, cheats, who reject the rules but accept the goals, and spoil sports, who effectively reject both. Is this not just insubordination, though, a lack of discipline? How does one break rules with intent? These aspects of rule-breaking have been subsumed and harnessed by avant-garde gaming traditions, and can inspire new ways of thinking about games. In Mary Flanagan's Giant Joystick, a giant controller was placed in an exhibit requiring people to work together to actually play. It broke the rules of accessibility, and foregrounded the technological inevitability of controllers, forcing a new allegory of play, of improvisation, communication, and physicality. We can do this in even more subtle ways, though. In Yoko Ono's White Chuss, all pieces on the board are white, which makes it seem impossible to play. It requires players to be hyper-aware of their pieces, speak with their opponents, and perhaps devise new rules. It's an instrumental consternation. Getting players to think about how rules are malleable can be both mechanical or more thematic. In the puzzle game Bubba is you, you have to actually change the rules of the playspace to solve puzzles. You can make lava pushable, or even make walls permeable. Everything has been subsumed by the rules of the game. Games are now formalizing the breaking of rules themselves. In his book Sound Play, William Cheng argues that foregrounding the rules of music, a form of play, and letting people see how this can be manipulated, can invite subversion as a matter of practice. For example, let's take the game Thumper. Described as a rhythm-violence game, the game sounds disharmonious and grating. The game gets us, through play, to subvert the rules of music, like 4-4 rhythm, beat, and harmony. We are experiencing music in its purest form, but only when we do away with the convention of music that has been holding us back in the past. The formal realization of subversion is built into some of the most heralded games of our medium, whether it be the twists in Bioshock or Portal. We are being asked in the fiction of a game to break through its artifice. In his book Respawn, Colin Milburn extends this argument and suggests games are effectively science fiction. They are a speculative media that allows us to envision a new reality of rules. The book explores how iconography from Portal, how the cake is a lie, has seeped into real-world movements, but also how games are tuned us to the dysfunctional nature of rules and how they ought to be reformed. The culmination of the book is an examination of Final Fantasy VII. In the game, we are playing ostensibly as terrorists, but for the purpose of ecological stewardship, inverting moral categories. Playing the game is to be enmeshed in systems that perpetuate the very systems that cause catastrophe. We are back to the paradoxical nature of play in how it both creates and destroys, submits and subverts. Our entire world is a global network, but if we realize that we are complicit in the creation and perpetuation of these systems, we may be able to salvage play from the confines of its technocratic artifice. Once play is reborn, perhaps we can start building a utopia. The Grasshopper was convinced of the transformative power of play, so much so he was willing to die for it. This is what makes him like Socrates, a martyr for his cause. The irony here of course is that play takes a subversive and political tone, one seemingly antithetical to the utopia he was trying to create. However, maybe in this act we see how play is not so innocent, it is a process that enables transformation. It is unbound by the systems that pervade our reality, and can be a force that causes social upheaval. A utopia of rules may in fact be a dystopia, but if we locate the solution not in an outcome, but a process. Maybe we can create a version of reality that is more playful. A utopia at play.