New Rule

Ever met a gaberlunzie? Are you a cantabank? Or a lucubrator? Chances are you’ve met someone who’s been a paranymph, a tanquam, maybe even an antiscian, but how about a famulus or a wittol? Or do you have no idea what I’m talking about?

A little background on me: my mother was an English major, and now teaches it in a private secondary school. She met my father while they were attending seminary together—he is a Presbyterian minister. Thus, the family professions are, in a word, words themselves—written and spoken, respectively. All my life, I was taught to love this language we speak, and to care deeply about its history and its practice. You can imagine my delight, then, when during my tenure as an undergrad I came across this most remarkable resource: the Grandiloquent Dictionary.

It is a labor of love compiled by Chris Bird, a Ph. D. candidate in Theoretical Physics at the University of Victoria. From his description on the site:

This is the result of an ongoing project to collect and distribute the most obscure and rare words in the English language. It also contains a few words which do not have equivalent words in English. At present, the dictionary contains approximately 2700 words, though it is constantly growing.

Incredible, you say! Marvelous! What a unparalleled resource for people with an uncommonly large and tragically geeky love of words! But what does it have to do with game design? Simple: it is my belief that the Grandiloquent Dictionary is a ready-made goldmine of microgame premises.

Think about it: if you were to, for example, commit to writing a simple game design every week and posting it on your blog… and you were sitting around one day scratching your head trying to find a place to begin, wouldn’t you love to have a treasure trove such as this? Interview any student and he or she will tell you that, in apparent defiance of all logic, the easiest homework assignments are the ones with lists and lists of requirements and constraints. Indeed, common knowledge holds that it is far harder to be creatively productive in an environment without limits than it is in one with them. I’ve encountered this problem many times over the course of my “Simple Sundays” game design project—which is why I often fail to produce a game until Tuesday or Wednesday, and then slyly backdate the post to Sunday. But if I were to browse the Grandiloquent Dictionary and choose a word at whim—gork, for example, defined as “a patient with an unknown illness (short for God Only Really Knows)—and committed myself to making a game using that as the premise, I am giving myself not only a much-needed goal to aim at, but a vastly improved chance of hitting upon some serendipitous gameplay innovation. As Mark Cerny argues in his Method, experimentation and the uninhibited spirit of curiosity is the recipe for true breakthrough.

I only just now hit upon the idea to do this, so look for Grandiloquent Game Designs on this site soon. And if any of you are inspired to give this a try and produce what you think is a really fantastic grandiloquent game, please post here and let us all know! The Dictionary itself can be found either at the link above, or as a PDF downloaded from my webspace here. In deference to Mr. Bird, however, please be aware of his copyright if you wish to reproduce and propagate it.

Still curious what those words from the first sentence mean? Click to read on:

gaberlunzie: a wandering beggar or a harmless hobo.

cantabank: a second-rate singer.

lucubrator: a person who studies during the night.

paranymph: 1. the best man or bridesmaid at a wedding. 2. One who assists or speaks on behalf of another, particularly in matters of love.

tanquam: a person with enough education to attend college.

antiscian: a person who lives on the other side of the world from you.

famulus: an assistant to a scholar or a magician.

wittol: a man who meekly accepts his wife’s adultery.

Tags: Game Design, General //