dark souls

not exploitative (indifferent to harm, intentionally beneficial to oneself),
but malicious (intentionally harmful, indifferent to self-benefit).

Good Game Design

In all spaces where the orchestra does not care, I may still fill in the gaps with 'good game design'. This is good, because concrete art is easier to appreciate. But what is to be done when the two ideals are in conflict? And, some spaces still remain undefined - what's to be done? Leave those spaces empty?

I want games with impossibly beautiful form and content:

Game design finely crafted, comfortable, elegant.

Don't tell me one concrete thing; fill my head up with a whole formless orchestra of the whole idea you want to convey.

The Chorus of Imagination, A Pattern

The pattern captures all solutions to a problem; I want art that evokes the space of all relevant ideas to what is being expressed.

The best example that I can come up with right now is that if I am writing a story about love, to specify the hair colour of one of the lovers detracts from the choral fullness... it is a fundamentally unnecessary detail that makes the work more concrete, but less whole.

I don't like the questions that Disco Elysium lets me ask, or the disappointing answers I often get. So many choices result in "nothing happens" or "I don't know, obviously" or "that was the wrong choice."

Games can have systems that withhold content. What are the benefits of this? At first glance it seems purely negative to me. Why prevent an appreciator from being capable of fully understanding the work?

There are certain benefits but even upon deeper inspection they all seem hostile or condescending to me.

1. To create a variety of player experiences by force

We can already read books, watch movies, and come up with different interpretations, have different internal experiences. I don't know how valuable this is, really. But it's more inexpensive.

2. To reward dedicated effort to explore and understand

Again, we already have this; a work can have secret hidden meanings, games just do it without subtlety. It's not a hidden meaning for you to tease out with your mind, it's a hidden fact for you to tease out with gameplay.

Hmm.

I have some kind of beef with linear content in games, but that's not quite right either. What is it? I don't like deep art in games, because I prefer to admire deep games?

Well, I can't say that good writing doesn't belong in videogames, but I can absolutely say I always find it uncomfortable, personally, trying to enjoy a good piece of writing nestled among game systems. Switching modes is too hard. Ugh, I can't explain it, and maybe that's fine. It may just become a Droqen tenet.

I have been playing Disco Elysium some more.

I like its characters, its mystery is interesting, and the world is dense and inventive and weird, and it has such a commitment to bringing up politics around every corner, from every perspective. I like the writing style.

I think it controls well, I adore the metaphor of the thought cabinet, and my god the whole simulation is lush and chaotic and just plain cool. I like the way the voices in your head are driven by your systems and your stats.

But as I play, the inescapable conclusion I have been coming to is that I still don't like it, and I think there is a tension, to use an architectural Alexanderian term, between good prose and good systems. The relationship will never satisfy me.

My proposed corollary: videogame writing is bad because good writing in videogames doesn't work. I wouldn't watch a film that has the same type of writing I'd read in a novel. (I mean I might, but I wouldn't expect it to work.)

I don't like "good writing" in games.

I'll try to come up with an answer to "why" - the tension is between wanting to be in control of my reading experience, but not wanting to be entirely in control of the systems.

Back to that Jan 3 game. That, our first game, might have been a 5-hour game of Oath. That's nuts.

D got a strong start, so I took out his advisors: two nomads abandoned him and joined my ranks instead! I never even ended up using them, but it put him on the back foot for the rest of the game. RIP.

M bewitched D and joined thecommonwealth became a citizen, and quickly slurped up power.

R flipped grabbed the People's Favour and flipped the appropriate vision with seven favour -- it seemed like nobody had the resources to get it from him, but I helped D unseat him via the Tribunal. He just barely got it back from R.

J had been building up a ridiculous combo and suddenly claimed oathkeeper, and then became the usurper, and for a time it looked like she might be able to hold it and win...

I dug up M's discarded bewitch, became a citizen myself, and gathered enough relics that it looked like I had a shot at winning, if M unseated J...

M did unseat J, but also successfully stole the Darkest Secret from me and won, becoming next game's Chancellor.

Now part of the Cradle is last game's Tribunal and the Shrouded Wood with an Ancient Forge; the next game's oath is holding the most relics and banners, and the Ancient Forge allows you to draw relics straight from the relic deck; and in the Provinces, last game's Narrow Pass will keep people from exploring easily. Game 2 is going to be a good one.

Isabella's Mochi Donuts charges $20 for six donuts. They are pretty unique donuts (mochi?!), nicely decorated, and they have great flavours constantly rotating in and out.

On Christmas, they increased the price to $25 / six without a reason or warning (as far as i could tell!) and it really turned us off of buying more donuts there.

Things I've noticed about Oath:

The player who is behind always has options.
* Search the deck(s) for a lucky draw
---> Early on, this is a vision
---> Later on, this is a chance combo piece, or something to counter someone else
* Influence the result of the game
---> Due to Oath's legacy nature, I might not be able to win, but I can change who is the Chancellor next game
---> or change which denizens are in the winning player's Sites
---> Or, I might be able to knock the lead player down out of the running.
* Sow chaos among, or team up on, the top players
---> If everyone else sees someone in the lead, we can work together to drag them down.
* Become a Citizen, maybe? Strike a deal?

2022 Jan 3
Played the first official game of Oath with the crew.
The turn order was D, me, R, M, and J.

It was a bit rough going to start out with - the game is hard to explain! But as the afternoon progressed into evening, everyone started to get the mechanics and warm up to the whole thing. I think the last rule we explained was the rule that prevented M from taking the Darkest Secret from me... but he took it some other way.

The rule makes such beautiful thematic sense. It doesn't explain itself but I feel the need to explain for it. Fascinating stuff. I don't know how lucky we got with this game or whether the game itself is just incredible, but there were moments throughout when someone seemed to be getting the upper hand, and was a real contender for winning. Truly incredible.

Anyway, it helped that most of the time nobody was terribly concerned about winning or losing. Of course we tried to win, but the attitude around the table was jovial. We all were telling our little stories about the world, not just playing extreme tactics.

the slowest, subtlest vampire film i can imagine

about love, i guess, but

[spoilers, of course]

at the end of the day i feel like what it's doing

is portraying love between very old people

who are also, still, monsters

so old and experienced and yet still living and breathing and carrying on. sustaining. pursuing passions, but in an ancient, patient way.

the film itself is just as ancient and patient.

i can't tell if that's a good thing.

I don't wear a white shirt under my jacket because it gives me -1 to Suggestion, and I want to be able to Suggest well. But I don't really feel in tune with the world, making this decision
 It's a stretch.

Made using these precise instructions & bacon fat. Turned out perfect. Also! The bacon fat didn't SPIT at all. Weird! Great!