Games are built out of systems, but so too is the universe itself. Systemic thinking is a faculty that can aid not just with the design of games, but also in solving the problems that face our species. This video traces the history and influence of systemic thinking in game design, and attaches this to a lineage of systems thinking that encompasses fields as varied as cybernetics to ecology. Perhaps in the same way the play of chess emerges from the rules we construct, we emerge from the rules the universe constructs, binding us all into a web of life.

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Sources

- What is Life? , Erwin Schrodinger

- Truth in Game Design, Jonathan Blow
   • Jonathan Blow - Truth In Game Design  

- At Home in the Universe , Stuart Kaufman

- The Web of life, Fritjof Capra

- Complexity, A Guided Tour , Melanie Mitchell

- Rules of Play, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman

- Advanced Game Design, A Systems Approach , Micheal Sellers

- Evolutionary Game Design , Cameron Brown

- A Pattern language , Christopher Alexander

- Urban Dynamics , Jay Forrester

- Will Wrights Dynamics
   • Will Wright's Dynamics for Designers  

- Will Wright Spore TED
   • Will Wright: Spore, birth of a game  

- The Nature of Order in Game Narrative , Jesse Schell
   • The Nature of Order in Game Narrative  

- The Open , the Closed and the Emergent
http://gamestudies.org/1902/articles/...

- This is your brain on games , Frank Lantz
https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1025011...

- Hearts and Minds , Frank Lantz
   • Hearts and Minds  

- Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point

- Incomplete Nature , Terrence Deacon