I have been rereading 'Deadgames and Alivegames' because it uses a word, alive, in a way not totally incompatible with the way TTWOB uses it.

QuoteA game is "Dead" when it has no human designers. What I mean by this is that the game is, largely, 'designed' by non-human forces [...] In a Deadgame, the human game designer a proxy [...] whether they like it or not, their talents are being used towards particular ends.

In this post Melos Han-Tani makes specific claims about what those non-human ends are, but I believe they are too narrow. The Deadgame is one who is designed in a way which does not serve... and this is hard, it's not correctly worded, yet... its ability to inspire creative equals in other humans.

Something common between The Timeless Way of Building & The One-Straw Revolution is that they both exude the feeling that 'anyone can do this.' Of course, so do many self-help resources and scams -- they want to rope you in by making you believe that you too are capable of making $5000 a week from home.

But at the heart of TTWOB is this idea that architecture has made itself artificially inaccessible. The result is that people are alienated from their homes because they no longer feel that "I could have made this."

And TO-SR has a similar message: farmers are making what they do too complicated. This hurts the people alienated from the basically human act of farming, including (especially!) the farmers themselves.

QuoteQuestioning "Scaling"

Imagine a novel written by 10, 100, or 1,000 people. It would be bad. Novels aren't written by 10+ people, and they would never benefit from being written so!

My very first line of questioning, which I believe I can begin to answer: Why would a novel written by 10, 100, or 1,000 people be bad?

I previously left some notes about Deadgames and Alivegames here: http://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=2.0

Our conversations at letterclub.games have started to gravitate towards The Timeless Way of Building, which uses the adjective alive, which dug this up out of memory...

How does Christopher Alexander use the word alive, and how does Melos Han-Tani use the word alive?

I said above that design is a process of exploration.

I would like to add that design generally relies on design fiction.

These are not separate fields. In order to do design, you must be capable of developing hypotheses about what doesn't exist yet, but which might be worth bringing into existence. All design starts as design fiction.

pingback: Natural Platformers; or, simple art is sufficient

A little more on the topic, from page 104, the last paragraph in the chapter 'What is Human Food?':

QuoteIf we do have a food crisis it will not be caused by the insufficiency of nature's productive power, but by the extravagance of human desire.

This quote reminded me of the tech arms race that exists in games -- and of the feeling that one must maximize one's own innovation, prowess, and productive power. It is a helpful reminder that it's not necessary to obsess over these things.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about the extravagance of human desire. But it's definitely not crucial for me to spend all of my time catering to it. Simpler desires are out there, and I can cultivate them within myself as well as within my circles.

All design fiction lies on a gradient between 'it would practically design itself' to 'it is a literal impossibility to design', and there is a lot of great game design fiction out there just dying to be explored. Along this gradient, we have games that would take 10 hours to make, 100 hours to make, 1 million hours to make. Design is also a process of exploration, of trial and error -- it's difficult, even impossible, to make a judgement about whether all possible avenues have been exhausted. There is always room for an ever-dwindling hope that just around the next corner there is some great thing we haven't tried yet which will actually work this time.

It is very easy to come up with obviously impossible game design fiction, or in other words, fiction which cannot, under any circumstances, actually be resolved by design into reality.

• A game of tic-tac-toe played on a 3x3 grid, where someone wins by getting 4 in a row.
• A game with 10, 000 hours of bespoke content, created in a weekend by one person.
• A game which causes anyone who plays it to laugh non-stop for the rest of their short life, until they die of laughter-induced asphyxiation.
• A game that cures cancer.

It is very easy to come up with game design fiction. It won't necessarily be good game design fiction, but take any two genres or game mechanics or feelings, put them next to each other, and boom: game design fiction. Here are some examples:

• A platformer where every time you jump, you lose health.
• A game where you can eat anything that's smaller than you, but every time you eat something, you get smaller. ("Reverse Katamari")
• ... For that matter, a game where every time you beat a boss, you get less powerful and can traverse less of the world. ("Reverse Metroidvania")
• An MMORPG where everyone is always at the same power level, rather than some players being significantly more powerful than others.
• Games without combat or violence.
• A game that can make you cry.

I can write anything I want.

This is a problem in the field of game design.

It's hard, at a distance, to tell what is fiction and what is reality.

• A team of four friends are going to get funding for and make a low-key MMORPG. This is their second game together, but they'll make it work, and the game will release and be successful - perhaps only modestly so, but enough that they can make a third game together.
• An individual is going to make a game about mental limbo, but it won't tell you that, and it won't actually tell you damn near anything, but there will be a correct way to play and lots of things to uncover in directions you had not even thought to look. It will be wildly successful and beloved in some circles.
• One person can make a 10-hour videogame.
• One person can make a 100-hour videogame.
• One person can make a 1000-hour videogame.

2 whole tomato, chopped into chunks (2-bite size)
2 garlic, mince
2 green onion, chopped
separate green and white
the amount of bouillon stuff for 4 cup water
oil
sesame oil

fry garlic, white onion bite in oil for a bit, till it's sizzling?
add tomato
fry till it's like... red mush
water or foam comes out
then add bouillon + water
boil for a few mins
add white pepper if you want

you can all as much water as you want really, just long as bouillon scales to it

egg and green onion parts are for when you serve

What does it mean to have a human brain?

I act on impulse most of the time, and otherwise do what I can to design a life that rewards my impulses with beautiful outcomes. I think designing games is like that: designing little spaces that reward my avatar's impulses with beautiful outcomes. Only, when I make a game I can share the experience with you; you can inhabit the same space, embody the same avatar, perhaps act on the same impulses, and - if serendipity allows - behold the same beautiful outcomes.

Through making and playing with games and other art, I hope to come to some deeper understanding of not the science of my brain, but the experience and meaning of being some specific person.

~ linked from Handmade Pixels

Quote from: droqen on October 27, 2021, 04:39:39 PM

Quote from: p40Like conjuring tricks in reverse, such instruments [as telescopes, as well as good explanations, all perhaps only through "sophisticated chain[s ] of theoretical interpretation"] fool our senses into seeing what is really there.

Attention technology is a tool- there are things we ought to pay attention to. Telescopes and good explanations, which help us see what was already there, have their counterparts... screens may show us what was never there in the first place and never was.

Made it a second time. Turned out great! Added more written-out recipe.