So I have not actually read this book myself, but my understanding is that it comes from Robert Heinlein's, "Stranger in a Strange Land," which is a 1960s, kind of classic sci-fi novel. You translate, what is at first a hunk of plastic with buttons in your hands, into a kind of seamless connection to you and your game character - by grokking it.īLOCK: Now the origin of this - of this word I gather, comes from sci-fi literature. NICHOLS: And the same thing happens with videogames. And then eventually you reach a point where the steering wheels and the car are kind of just an extension of you. Everyone - when you first get in the car and you're first learning to drive the car - the steering wheel in front of you is is very strange kind of like, mechanical contraption and you have to think about how your turning it and how those turns translate to the car's motions. A great example in real life actually is driving a car. They don't need to like, think about using it - they just do it.
We use it in game development and game design specifically, to talk about players who have essentially learned a mechanic in the game, one example would be jumping in a Mario game for instance, to the point where they can use that action as if it's just an extension of themselves. Someone who has grokked something is someone who's kind of learned everything there is to know about that thing, and deeply understand it. MAX NICHOLS: Alright, so grok is a word you would use to describe someone mastering something.
We've asked for jargon from your line of work that would stump people on the outside, and Max submitted grok, or grokked.
GAMER LINGO TILTED SERIES
He's a videogame designer from Needham, Massachusetts, and he joins us to explain for our summer-long series on trade lingo. Imagine hearing this phrase at work - Sam has grokked the jumping.
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