When we play games, we take on temporary agencies—temporary sets of abilities and constraints, along with temporary ends. We have a significant capacity for agential fluidity, and games make full use of that capacity.

Games turn out to be a way of writing down forms of agency, of inscribing them in an artifact.

A game tells us to take up a particular goal. It designates abilities for us to use in pursuing that goal. It packages all that up with a set of obstacles, crafted to fit those goals and abilities. A game uses all these elements to sculpt a form of activity. And when we play games, we take on an alternate form of agency. We take on new goals and

In games, we are given the right kinds of abilities, but just barely enough of them—which creates drama and interest.

we can use games to communicate forms of agency.

The recalcitrant world and our inflexible values generate certain obstacles. These are not the obstacles we wanted to struggle against, but they are the ones we must overcome in order to get what we want. So we must try to sculpt ourselves and our abilities to fit the needs of the world.

I can go on a hike to clear my head, and put my reasons for doing so out of mind. My ability to do this isn’t perfect; sometimes, the larger world of reasons breaks through. But often, I can get most of the way there. I can throw myself into the sheer physical effort of getting to the top and let all my other practical worries fall away. And that

The recalcitrant world and our inflexible values generate certain obstacles. These are not the obstacles we wanted to struggle against, but they are the ones we must overcome in order to get what we want.

We do not fit this world comfortably. The obstacles in our path are often intractable, exhausting, or miserable. Games can be an existential balm for our practical unease with the world. In games, the problems can be right-sized for our capacities; our in-game selves can be right-sized for the problems; and the arrangement of self and world can