The Lottery in Babylon

Similar vibes to The Circular Ruins... there is a setup, but I have no feelings about it afterwards

See No timeless fashions.

There is an ever-evolving culture which surrounds each of us. What do we expect? There is always A Pattern Language though we don't talk about it as such: things we have accepted as reality or shorthands to it. Justice, karma, employment. We can perceive our cultural patterns through the focus of words, though they are imprecise. Words fall out of fashion slower than patterns do. Words are just pointers.

What is the game design equivalent of 'foreshadowing'? Consider a deck of cards from which one draws a hand of cards: this hand of cards gives a sense of the composition of the deck. In a sense this is foreshadowing; we are given a hint, a piece, of a larger conclusion: the understanding of such a system.

Is technology accelerating fashion? Accelerating boredom?

The internet, the great network of humanity, is a catalyst for connection and change, and our symbiotic relationship to it -- no, not symbiotic, the internet is composed of nothing but people, is a family member symbiotic to a family? -- is growing stronger at a constant rate.

The Circular Ruins

I get what it's doing, but I did not think much of it.

Contains spoilers.

1st Read: What happened? What was that all about? It was so confusing.

Reflection: The ending... was it fictional or did it really happen?

Later, I was thinking about how a work of art is just a wrapper of devotion around elements of meaning, to give those expressed meaning more gravitas. (e.g. If the author spent so much effort to deliver this message, then it must be more important than it seemed upon first glance?)

I thought of a game which tells you upfront its meaning, then says it again at the end, the same message but with that new context of gravitas the second time. "I already told you this but now look at it again, you thought it wasn't important but now you do."

Then I thought back to the ending of Goodbye, Eri. The first explosion in DEAD EXPLOSION MOTHER seemed like a joke, like an error, like something silly, something to grow out of and fix.

The second explosion said, no, it was perfect.

Virtual paradise in the hands of the machine
When I make a videogame it is a world imprisoned in computers
In some way, Apple's frustrating policy of deleting old projects is in touch with reality, is honest:
Digital universes are ephemeral, kept alive only as long as they can float in an ocean of living circuits.

The custody of such an ocean has become a humanity-wide project,
Something which we created and which now burdens us,
Creates work for people,
Gives us purpose.

Videogames are this artificial purpose made into art.

Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

Note: contains spoilers for this short story, as well as for a pair of films from 2013 and 2016.

Set upon a background of blinding cyan, we can read 30 translations of Matsuo Basho's Frog Haiku. Each translation is necessarily imperfect and incomplete, and carries a little of the translator in it.

Borges' short story is reminiscent of a pair of films* which are about the non-use of time travel: not time travel as a tool for overcoming, but as a lens for the appreciation of life; with the power to change things, what if we left them exactly as they are?

I really enjoyed this one, the surreal take on reinterpretation of a work, as well as this line...

Quote[This] technique, requiring infinite patience and concentration, encourages us to [..] read Mme. Henri Bachelier's Le jardin du Centaure as though it were written by Mme. Henri Bachelier. This technique fills the calmest books with adventure.

It's an absurd curiosity to imagine reading a book as though it were written by a different author, but considering making the attempt is enough to unlock a new way of thinking. What if we applied that new way of thinking to the way things actually are? Partake of a work of art as though it were created by the person who in fact created it, but with the same mental consideration as if that were an equally absurd act to imagining it were created by some other person. (Or persons and/or process(es).)

What could we learn?

The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

I've been reading Jorge Luis Borges' Ficciones.

A pay-to-win game rewards money spent.
A good book rewards time spent, as well as reading comprehension.
A masocore videogame rewards time spent struggling through failure, rewards learning strange new skills.
A sewing machine enables people to sew things faster and with greater precision than they could have previously; this is a reward given for time spent learning proficiency with this machine.
A deep fighting game.
A co-operative board game.
A language.
A relationship.

Videogames do not have to be sterile sanctuaries, but I have practiced the lusory attitude as if their magic circle is a pristine space unsullied by reality. As I think about and study the art form further, and experience other elements of life at the same time, I think that this attitude has at its core a fundamental conflict: life always goes on.

For a time, I dreamt of MMORPGs which afforded all players equal access, as opposed to demanding devotion (whether expressed financially or in time played). I explored games without win-states (Playables) in order to escape this idea that a game might gate access depending on its players' devotion.

But all games are pay to win; the only difference is what currency they value.

The Lusory attitude involves "the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles".

An attitude towards game design can take an immaculate stance, which overlaps with certain philosophical stances -- that a game and its players should not overstep certain bounds (see, for example, the negativity inherent to the terms pay to win and unbalanced), and that a person should aim to have no [negative] impact on the world around them.

I'm not there yet, but playing around with real-world art forms -- fashion in this case? cooking? etc -- has been slowly opening the gate. Is it still a game if we play with things that are important? Is it still play? I think the most important lusory attitude is to play with whatever material comprises our lives, and I think the life well-lived is comprised of only things that matter, that are real.