How Dominoes Are Used in Art and Games
Dominoes are small flat blocks of rigid material used as gaming objects. They can be made from wood, bone, or plastic and are also known as bones, pieces, men, or cards. Dominoes are usually arranged in lines, each forming a path for a falling tile or other object to follow. They are commonly used as components of larger mechanical objects (such as Rube Goldberg machines) or for artistic displays. The word domino is also applied to a series of events that can lead to a specific outcome, often used in the context of business or politics.
In the game of domino, a player may only play a domino that has a matching number on one of its sides to the current domino on the table. It is possible to make a chain of dominoes that can run around a room, even through doors and into adjacent rooms. The first domino to reach the end of the chain is said to have “fallen.”
There are many different games played with dominoes, including blocking and scoring games. The rules of some games are similar to those of card games, while others are adapted from other games such as dominoing and matador. Dominoes can be used for simple art projects, like creating a grid that forms a picture when it falls, or they can be assembled into 3-D structures such as towers and pyramids.
Dominoes have a long history of use in Europe and Asia, with some evidence that they were introduced to North America in the 18th century. They were popular in the taverns and inns where people played cards to avoid religious prohibitions against them. There is also evidence that Inuits (Eskimos, to use the old term) played a game with bones that was very similar to Western dominoes.
Domino art can be simple or elaborate, and can include straight lines, curved lines, a grid that forms pictures when they fall, stacked walls, and 3-D structures. The artist must plan out the entire structure before beginning, and sometimes tests each section of the project before putting it together. A mistake can have a domino effect that causes the entire project to fail, so careful planning is essential.
A common way to use domino in a story is as a scene, and this is where the term Domino Effect comes from. In a story, each scene is a domino that will either move the hero closer or farther from their goal. Each scene should be able to stand on its own, but it should also connect with other scenes to naturally influence the plot.
If a story has too many scenes or too few, it can lose pace and readers will be quickly turned off. The key is to strike a balance between quantity and quality, just as with dominoes, where each scene needs to be carefully placed on the track.