The Aesthetic of PlayA game designer considers the experience of play, why games have rules, and the relationship of play and narrative. The impulse toward play is very ancient, not only pre cultural but pre human; zoologists have identified play behaviors in turtles and in chimpanzees. Games have existed since antiquity; 5,000 year old board games have been recovered from Egyptian tombs. And yet we still lack a critical language for thinking about play. Game designers