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The Geometry of Islamic Art Becomes a Treasure of a Game (arstechnica.com)
Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica reviews the game Engare, describing it as a "clever, deceptively simple, and beautiful rumination on geometry and Islamic art-making traditions." The game consists of relatively simple puzzles and a freeform art toy that unlocks its puzzles' tools to allow you to make whatever patterns you please. From the report: The game, made almost entirely by 23-year-old Iranian developer Mahdi Bahrami, starts with a 2D scene of a circle repeatedly traveling along a line. Above this, an instructional card shows a curved-diagonal line. Drop a dot on the moving circle, the game says, and it will generate a bold line, like ink on a page. As the ball (and thus, your dot) rolls, the inked line unfurls; if you put the dot on a different part of the circle, then your inked line may have more curve or angle to it, based on the total motion of the moving, rotating circle. Your object is to recreate this exact curved-diagonal line. If your first ink-drop doesn't do the trick, try again. Each puzzle presents an increasingly complex array of moving and rotating shapes, lines, and dots. You have to watch the repeating patterns and rotations in a particular puzzle to understand where to drop an ink dot and draw the demanded line. At first, you'll have to recreate simple turns, curves, and zig-zags. By the end, you'll be making insane curlicues and rug-like super-patterns.
But even this jaded math wiz-kid couldn't help but drop his jaw, loose his tongue, and bulge his eyes at the first time Engare cracked open its math-rich heart. One early puzzle (shown above) ended with its seemingly simple pattern repeating over and over and over and over. Unlike other puzzles, this pattern kept drawing itself, even after I'd fulfilled a simple line-and-turn pattern. And with each pass of the drawing pattern, driven by a spinning, central circle, Engare drew and filled a new, bright color. This is what the game's creator is trying to shout, I thought. This is his unique, cultural perspective. This looks like the Persian rugs he saw his grandmother weave as a child.
But even this jaded math wiz-kid couldn't help but drop his jaw, loose his tongue, and bulge his eyes at the first time Engare cracked open its math-rich heart. One early puzzle (shown above) ended with its seemingly simple pattern repeating over and over and over and over. Unlike other puzzles, this pattern kept drawing itself, even after I'd fulfilled a simple line-and-turn pattern. And with each pass of the drawing pattern, driven by a spinning, central circle, Engare drew and filled a new, bright color. This is what the game's creator is trying to shout, I thought. This is his unique, cultural perspective. This looks like the Persian rugs he saw his grandmother weave as a child.
How much is "Islamic" and how much is stolen from cultures that they have destroyed? For example "islamic" arches can clearly be seen in pre-islamic Persia. You will fins that most things that Muslims claim to have invented turn out to be "we destroyed this library but copied this bit"
2D games made by millennial minorities? Let's discuss all of those in a stupid app store. Mere hundreds of thousands..
It's kind of sad to see what religion has done to a culture that valued science.
It's just geometric designs, guy. Look at the video, there's nothing about Islam itself here. It is simply inspired by a particular cultural influence.
An interesting geometrical application -yet what do the first 9 comments focus on? the word "Islamic". As I understand it (and I'm not a Muslim) creation of images is frowned upon (from the Jewish old testament commandment about graven images) so a lot of Islamic art is based on calligraphy and patterns (incl. some geometrically interesting tessellations).
Slashdot used to be a good site for technically minded people - over the past year or two it's degenerated into yet another cesspool of bigotry and hatred - whether it be based on religion, women, gun control, Brexit or US politics.
Save your bile for Facebook, Twitter and other similar sites and let Slashdot return to its roots in its anniversary year
Dude, that's like saying we should ban the color red because that's the color of commies and if we keep looking at red we'll at one day think that Communism is a fine idea.
We're talking an art style here. Frankly, if you think an art style is going to influence your children, please take them to a museum, you might end up with better kids.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That is the only question that matters.
I haven't seen such a fun pattern-based game since some of the early mandelbrot fractal generators. Cool concept and execution.
-a.e.mossberg
They let people trade kids at the museum?
Does anyone remember the children's toy Spirograph? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
The game's introduction reminded me of that.
Time for bed, said Zebedee - boing
Wow, you definitely won the "retard of the day" award.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I wish! But this is the 2017 slashdot, and you know its going to take an Oprah style "Now look under your chairs! You're all the idiots of the day!" announcement to be comprehensive within even an hour on this story and the others to be posted. At least until the Russian troll- brigades change shifts and the school kids wake up, then it will shift from politically useful advocation of racism and intolerance to simple idiocy.
More to the point, it's basically a digital spirograph (remember those? :) ). Which, the question it raises to me is... why did it take so long before someone thought to make a digital spirograph?
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Well, kinda. You have lots of adults who enjoy it and lots of bored kids that were taken along and start wandering off. I just did what any sane person would do.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So you're talking about Genesis 11, Deuteronomy 21, and the third bit somewhere in Exodus ... wait, you're only mocking *one* of the three misogynistic, err, montheistic desert fairytales, err, religions. Pot == kettle.
DaveyJJ
Indeed, you can study mathematics without any religion. You don't even need a silly game for it. Just read a nice math book, and learn some simple geometric programming. I think it's much more fun anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
why did it take so long before someone thought to make a digital spirograph?
What exactly took so long?
Ezekiel 23:20
My son asked me to get Geometry Dash for him on his iPad. "Cool," I thought, "he wants a geometry game."
Such a disappointment. The game has no geometry whatsoever, and I have to hear the same annoying pounding electronic music repeated endlessly whenever we drive anywhere.
This is the game that Geometry Dash should have been.
Or a simple flash one...
https://www.mathplayground.com...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Indeed, you can study mathematics without any religion. You don't even need a silly game for it. Just read a nice math book, and learn some simple geometric programming. I think it's much more fun anyway.
The game is about more than only mathematics. It also explains the art and culture of these particular geometric figures. And yes, culture here includes an Islamic component. Just like a book about Japanese brush painting would quite likely refer to Zen Buddhism.
Of course, 'silly' and 'fun' is in the eye of the beholder. Personally I would say that this particular subject lends itself to interaction and hence a computer game. The great news is that you're not required to buy the game.
Yep, prior to around the end of WW1, NO ONE really gave two hoots to the middle east. Once oil was discovered, the British, divided up areas of the middle east along what they wanted, not ancient trial boundaries. If the day comes that alternative energy sources finally replace oil, everyone will just go back to not giving two hoots to anyone in the middle east!
This seems like a way to introduce people to Islamic art, and by extension, to Islam...
This is the same 'logic' used by those liberals who think that saying "Merry Christmas" will influence people to enslave women and torture heretics.
No, it doesn't. I just played through the whole thing. The menu screen looks like Alhambra, the music has lots of Mideast influence, and the instructions are in Arabic as well as English, but you wouldn't know that if the only context you had was the game itself, because it explains nothing about Islamic culture. The inspiration is there, but the indoctrination is not.
I haven't tried the game yet but the description sounds a lot like the Spirograph.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
The game mostly seems to consist of drawing cycloids. I'm not sure what's supposed to be "Islamic" about that. Sure, Islamic art uses such patterns a lot, but that's mostly because of Islam's religious prohibitions on the depiction of people.
We are also talking about the fact that TFA felt a compulsion to associate a common mathematical way of generating patterns with a religion. It's like saying "The Christian Tradition of Portraiture is realized in the Android and iOS Photo App".
Would this article be on SlashDot if the game had been made by an average white male American?
Maybe people think that his kind is so dumb that we should praise them when they get all creative and do stuff.
Treating people like Pockets Warhol is offensive.
PlanetVulkan.com
Whoa, you used the R* word! Tell me about your communist sympathies.
The game looks about as Islamic as Tetris looks Soviet.
"Dude, that's like saying we should ban the color red because that's the color of commies and if we keep looking at red we'll at one day think that Communism is a fine idea."
Ahem, we can't ever use a red baseball cap again, and it's not the commies' fault.
Other good puzzle games include:
* Pythagorea, iOS, Android
* Pythagorea 60 iOS, Android
* The Witness
* The Talos Principle
During the peak of growth of Islam, there wasn't an "islamic culture" per se, there was a set of rules, a phylosophy. As it grew (by the means of military or cultural conquests), it *absorbed* and assimilated a lot of what was there before them. Islamic countries became the beacon of development of the world during the dark ages, not because science sprang out in a void,but because they conquered the cultural capitals of the South and East of the Mediterranean. Baghdad, Alexandria, Damascus, Córdoba, and so many other centers of englightenement were *already* important cities when they were conquered. Islam didn't arrive there to destroy their greatness.
Whoa, you used the R* word! Tell me about your communist sympathies.
Never go full red?
lol, communist confirmed.
Did you know that there's a direct correlation between the decline of Spirograph and the rise in gang activity?
Think about it
Infinite diversity in infinite combination.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If it doesn't influence people, is it really an art style? Discuss...
The game is about more than only mathematics. It also explains the art and culture of these particular geometric figures. And yes, culture here includes an Islamic component. Just like a book about Japanese brush painting would quite likely refer to Zen Buddhism.
That's not a very good analogy, though. Math is universal in nature, brush painting isn't. If you were an ancient Mayan, for example, you'd be much more likely to independently reinvent a non-random class geometric figures than Zen-Buddhist brush painting.
Ezekiel 23:20
I'm a Marxist. But of the Groucho variant.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Influence them in a cultural or even religious way?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Whose is it, Coca Cola's?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.