Efforts to Create A Glass Bead Game

The Glass Bead Game is a hypothetical game conceptualised by Hermann Hesse in his novel of the same name. Hesse does not give a full description of the game, but there have nonetheless been several attempts subsequently to create such a game.

Attempts
Efforts to develop games based on the Glass Bead Game include:

*The Glass Plate Game[http://www.peak.org/~caploc/gpgintro.html] is described by its creator Dunbar Aitkens as "basically a conversation in the trappings of a board game." In the game "Pieces are used to map, against a mosaic, the conversation as players find and discuss connections between ideas represented by various regions of the mosaic. In the sets there are "idea cards" for composing the mosaic, then numbered cubes and colored transparencies for pieces tracking the conversation."
* is an elaborate joke, based on a sort of spoken Glass Bead Game with supposedly arcane rules. The joke is that these are based on something as mundane as the tube map.
*A bead game-like combination of mathematics, music, and visual symbols may be found in Timothy A. Smith's analysis of a Bach fugue — available as a Shockwave movie[http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Etas3/wtc/ii21.html] or as an essay[http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Etas3/wtc/ii21s.pdf].
*CoreWave created a version of the Glass Bead Game as a way to make connections between any part of human experience. Each game has a central theme, or "core wave," that ties everything together-—the thread on which to string the beads, so to speak. A person can submit an idea which in effect becomes another "move" in the game. Each idea is also open to comments and additions, and the ideas are then interconnected to create "thought tunnels." Two games have been completed to date.
* claims to be trying to create Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game. The website contains many links to different parties trying to create a Glass Bead Game.

Other Games
The name "Glass Bead Game" has also been appropriated by some games which are in no way similar to Hesse's game, such as a variation of mancala.

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See Also

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