Devlog #4

     The Mr. Animate sports video I watched was about basketball. I chose basketball because despite me playing it for two years in middle school, I honestly never really understood it and still for the most part don’t. The game is split into four 12-minute parts. It starts with 15 players with only 5 on the court at the time. Two of the players are forwards, three guards, and one center. The game starts with the referee throwing the ball in the air between two players, one from each team. They both try to hit the ball to the opposite end to get it to their teammates to shoot it into the net. You can’t kick the ball, you can’t hold the ball for too long, and you can’t dribble the ball then hold it then dribble it again. I feel like those are the basics of the game and of course, they have a lot more rules, but they start to get very specific to certain situations, so they aren’t important enough to talk about when first learning the game. 

     After reading chapter three “the Kinds of Play”, I was able to understand where basketball lies when it comes to what type of game it is. It’s easy to see that basketball is a competitive game. The main goal in it is to make a basket into the net and make more than the other team to win. This requires a sort of play the book referred to as skill-based play. While anyone can play basketball, not everyone has the skills to be successful at it because they lack the skill to do so. Basketball requires a lot of active skills like being able to run fast, jump high, and dribble a ball. Not to mention you also have to master skills like running while dribbling a ball which is much harder than you’d think. While basketball is a very active game, it also requires a lot of mental skills. These skills are normally used in situations like when a player must pass the ball to one of their many teammates, but the opposing team is blocking them. The player must then decide whom to pass it to without it getting stolen. 

     I personally don’t see the appeal of sports as games or in general but in the video we had to watch this week, Foddy made me realize that there are competitive aspects that make it interesting to some people. Things like basing these games off of nations like in the Olympics or states like football games causes a sense of patriarchy and competitive spirit we as humans often enjoy. This week’s readings and topics were harder for me to understand because of my semi-hate for sports and just straight-up confusion for them, but I feel like I have a slightly better grasp on them now. I do understand how they can be fun as video games though.