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# Exploring Play Styles
- URL: https://www.workroom-productions.com/exploring-play-styles/
- Published: 2026-04-08T16:44:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-09T13:24:32.000Z
- Description: Play influences exploratory testing. What does that mean for us?
- Author: James Lyndsay
- Tags: Exercises

*The ways we play influence the ways we test. In this exercise, we explore what that might mean.*

## Axioms for here and now...

- **Exploration** is playing with intent (see *What is Exploratory Testing?* in [Alan Richardson's *Dear Evil Tester*](https://www.eviltester.com/page/deareviltester/)).
- **Exploratory testing** is exploration with judgement.

## Exercise

*10 mins, solo or together*

How do you like to play? If you need a framework, have a look at one of the sources below.

How has that tendency influenced your exploration, and by extension your exploratory testing?

## Debrief

*10 minutes*

Share, consider differences, identify things you want to take away.

## Sources

#### Brian Sutton-Smith, Seven Rhetorics of Play 

- ****Progress** – growth is fun. Numbers going up.
- ****Fate** – unpredictability (and one's reaction to it) is fun. Chance.
- ****Power** – being better is fun. Winning.
- ****Community identity** – feeling closer to others is fun. Group-making.
- ****Imaginary** – experiments are fun. Safe learning.
- ****Self** – discovering oneself is fun. Self knowledge.
- ****Frivolity** – silliness is fun. Absurdism.

More from [House of Nerdery](https://houseofnerdery.com/2025/06/04/exploring-play-sutton-smiths-seven-rhetorics/), [summary](https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/play/chpt/rhetorics-play-suttonsmith) from **Encyclopaedia of Play in Today's Society*, bio in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian%5FSutton-Smith).

#### Stuart Brown's Eight Personalities of Play

- ****The Explorer** – novelty and learning is fun.
- ****The Collector** – similarity, completeness and rarity is fun.
- ****The Competitor** – winning, and being the winner, is fun.
- ****The Creator** – making and mending is fun
- ****The Director** – planning, thinking ahead, manipulating is fun
- ****The Joker** – subversion is fun.
- ****The Storyteller** – narrative is fun.
- ****The Kinesthete** – moving is fun.

See [Personalities of Play](https://nifplay.org/what-is-play/play-personalities/)

#### Mildred Parten's stages of childhood play

- ****Unoccupied** – seems scattered and aimless
- ****Solitary** – directed, no interaction with others
- ****Onlooker** – active watching, not joining in
- ****Parallel** – same game, same place, not interacting
- ****Associative** – more about the other players than the toys or activity
- ****Cooperative** – sharing goals, assigning roles, negotiating rules

See [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parten%27s%5Fstages%5Fof%5Fplay)

#### Roger Caillois's Categories and Polarities

****Categories** 

- Competition (`Agon`)
- Chance (`Alea`)
- Mimicry (`Mimesis`)
- Perception shift (`Ilinx`)

****Polarities**

- Uncontrolled, improvised: rules change during game (`Paidia`)
- Rewards skill, effort, patience, strategy: rules set before (`Ludus`)

See [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%5FCaillois)