There is Superstition
The other day I was playing Ludo on the iPad with my brother and cousin. It was our favourite boardgame as kids, and I’m surprised it continues to give us a thrill.
Now when it comes to throwing dice, you’re always rooting for that magic six. There’s no better feeling. I remember as kids we’d try to throw the dice in a particular way and if that produced a six more than once it was established that it was the right way to throw a six — even though as science would show it’s totally random. But every time one threw the dice that way or after that particular chant, and it produced a six, it reaffirmed the belief. We’d of course ignore the fact that there were so many times that it produced a one or a two; consider those misfires.
So now that we’ve moved to the digital platform, as well as grown up, you’d think we’d learn to throw the dice straight. So with Ludo for iPad, you get a 2D image of a dice in the middle of your screen, which you must tap. Being that it’s digital, you can also increase the frequency of a six. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but by the end of the second game everyone was tapping the iPad with their pinky finger because that was the trick to produce a six. We were joking of course, but on some level I think we all believed that using the pinky increased the likelihood of getting a six, and we tapped it that way. The digital Ludo of course was more than willing to produce multiple sixes in a row, for further confirmation.
I can only imagine how easier it must have been to make up superstitions before science explained nature.
