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System and Context
The health bar in Virtua Fighter 4 is an individual sign. Individual signs are a key part of the way that meaning emerges from a game—but meaning requires more than just signs. Meaning requires a formal system to generate relationships between signs, as well as a context for interpretation. The formal system of a game is, of course, its rules. The rules describe actions and events whose meaning remains the same from game to game. Checkmate, for example, always means the end of a game of Chess. This is a meaning conferred by the unchanging formal system of the game. However, for the formal system of a game to be meaningful, the game has to be played—ultimately, the meaning of the formal system emerges from within a play context. The context affects interpretation, and can enhance, distort, or even radically alter the meaning conferred by the system. Checkmate might not just mean the end of the game. It might also mean that money passes hands if there was a wager on the game, or that reputations are gained and lost. It might not even mean final victory, if players are playing in a tournament for the best two out of three games. Remember that the focus of this schema is how games can represent, how they create meaning for players through representation, and how these meanings can, in turn, be manipulated. To play a game is to move into the magic circle, to move from the domain of everyday life into a special place of meaning. Within this special space the player's experience is guided by a system of representation that has its own rules for "what things mean." The context of play affects how players understand and act upon the representations the game creates. The system and the context thus work hand-in-hand to support player interpretation. (Note that we are using the term system to designate the structure that organizes relationships between elements, an idea introduced in Design.) The "X" in Tic-Tac-Toe, for example, means something quite different than an "X" in the game of Scrabble. The difference in meaning is conferred primarily by the system, which has rules for what an "X"means. In Tic-Tac-Toe, an X represents ownership of a square, a strategic movement towards victory. Yet as with Chess and Checkmate, the context of the "X" is also crucial in determining its meaning. Imagine a playful love letter that uses a Tic-Tac-Toe board to spell out "XXX." Rather than interpreting the three X's as merely a winning move in a game, the signs would also be read as symbols for kisses. The context of the "X" has shifted its meaning from a game move to a declaration of "winning" affection. The author of the love letter has played with the meaning of the sign "X" by shifting the context within which the sign is interpreted.
