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Enter In
In a very basic sense, the magic circle of a game is where the game takes place. To play a game means entering into a magic circle, or perhaps creating one as a game begins. The magic circle of a game might have a physical component, like the board of a board game or the playing field of an athletic contest. But many games have no physical boundaries-arm wrestling, for example, doesn't require much in the way of special spaces or material. The game simply begins when one or more players decide to play.
The term magic circle is appropriate because there is in fact something genuinely magical that happens when a game begins. A fancy Backgammon set sitting all alone might be a pretty decoration on the coffee table. If this is the function that the game is serving-decoration-it doesn't really matter how the game pieces are arranged, if some of them are out of place, or even missing. However, once you sit down with a friend to play a game of Backgammon, the arrangement of the pieces suddenly becomes extremely important. The Backgammon board becomes a special space that facilitates the play of the game. The players' attention is intensely focused on the game, which mediates their interaction through play. While the game is in progress, the players do not casually arrange and rearrange the pieces, but move them according to very particular rules. Within the magic circle, special meanings accrue and cluster around objects and behaviors. In effect, a new reality is created, defined by the rules of the game and inhabited by its players. Before a game of Chutes and Ladders starts, it's just a board, some plastic pieces, and a die. But once the game begins, everything changes. Suddenly, the materials represent something quite specific. This plastic token is you. These rules tell you how to roll the die and move. Suddenly, it matters very much which plastic token reaches the end first. Consider a group of kids in a suburban front yard, casually talking and hanging out. They decide to play a game of Hide-and-Seek. One of the kids takes a rock and plants it in the middle of yard to represent home base. The group huddles around it, playing "eenie-meenie-miney-moe" to pick the first person to be "It"; then they scatter and hide as "It" covers his eyes and starts to count to twenty. All at once, the relationships among the players have taken on special meanings. Who is "It" and who is not? Who is hidden and who can be seen? Who is captured and who is free? Who will win the game? What is going on in these examples of Backgammon, Chutes and Ladders, and Hide-and-Seek? As Huizinga eloquently states, within the space of a game "special rules obtain." The magic circle of a game is the boundary of the game space and within this boundary the rules of the game play out and have authority.
