Name: I Won't Just Wait Around

Confidence: 3



Author: droqen
Design problem: It's hard to make a player partake in low-stakes activities in a game where most actions are high-stakes
Description: To get an optimization-minded player to relax and smell the roses, the designer may want to make the optimal way to play involve some downtime.

Games that use this pattern and how:

everquest. Combat in this game involves the expenditure of health and mana, resources which take time to replenish. While waiting for these resources to return, players have downtime in which many activities are still available, just not combat. In particular, the way to optimize recovery rate is the sit action, which disables certain actions and places a priority on the UI, especially socializing and inventory/character management.

starseed pilgrim. When a player runs out of seeds, and to a lesser extent when they plant certain slow-growing seeds, they must wait for their existing 'plants' to grow before continuing to act. The real-time pressure is continuous, but this affords the player significant time to take in the ambience and/or think about their situation, without feeling as though they are playing non-optimally.

regarding Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way of Building
and Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein's A Pattern Language

Quote from: The Timeless Way of BuildingON READING THIS BOOK

What lies in this book is perhaps more important as a whole than in its details. If you only have an hour to spend on it, it makes much more sense to read the whole book roughly in that hour, than to read only the first two chapters in detail. [..] If you read the beginning and end of each chapter, and the italic headlines that lie between them, turning the pages almost as fast as you can, you will be able to get the overall structure of the book in less than an hour.

THIS IS HOW I READ BOOKS ANYWAY, THANK YOU FOR WRITING THE BOOK FOR ME OMG

I spent the day playing around with mockups and compositions, but they were lacking... something. I realized that that 'something' is, first of all, game design and not art design, and I need to acknowledge that when I'm doing composition-work I can still count that as a success if I don't solve game design problems... but, that aside, I think what I was missing game design-wise was a locked door.

Maybe I should make a pattern out of this...

For now, I'll just say that in particular, a locked door represents an inviting and simple and impossible challenge: without the key, you cannot open a locked door. But you can! You can force it open, you can pick the lock, you can find another way around. You can also do some things with a locked door even if you can't open it. You can look at it and admire the outer surface. You can jiggle the handle. The space behind the door is implied but invisible -- except maybe you can peek through the keyhole to catch an unsatisfying glimpse of what's on the other side.

i can't quite ... i've been trying to figure out a name for this genre of feeling ... but i can't. maybe i need to take a look at some pattern language for game design exercises.

a game that has a real-time pressure to make decisions and engage with systems optimally, but there's some 'play', some downtime - and activities to fill that downtime with something.

Quote from: droqena game is some materials, as well as – perhaps – an invitation to play with those materials in combination with other materials

link to full comment on electrondance.com

I had just started reading Play Anything when I wrote this, so it bears some strong similarity to the content of that book, which discusses playgrounds -- magic circles circumscribed around real things, anything -- and then engaging with those playgrounds. Playing.

But to take this a step further, everything is just materials, and I suppose that an artwork is always some combination of materials and invitation to do something with them. The painting that hangs in a museum is a material (paint on canvas, canvas in frame, frame within room inside building) as well as an invitation to look at and think about those materials, what they represent, why they are here.

The first chapter in Play Anything is entitled Everywhere, Playgrounds.

I recognize this and love it, but as an artist I find myself thinking Everywhere, opportunities to make invitations.

Quote from: C. Thi Nguyen @ 19:15 ishimpossible to be intellectually autonomous.. If you still hold to the old ideal of intellectual autonomy, of everyone can understand everything, what you get is being driven to anti-vaxing, and various conspiracy theories, in which you reject trust in the sciences.

Ingredients
2 (12 oz) Ribeye or New York strip steaks (about 1 1/4-inches thick)
1 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

Instructions

• Let steaks rest at room temperature 30 minutes.
• Heat vegetable oil in a 12-inch cast iron skillet over medium-high heat (you want to let it get hot oil should be shimmering near smoking, preheating should take about 3 minutes if using a gas stove, longer for electric).
• Dab both sides of steak dry with paper towels then season both sides with salt and pepper.
• Place steaks in skillet and using metal tongs press down over top surface of steaks to ensure the entire bottom surface is making direct contact with skillet.
• Let cook until browned on bottom, about 3 minutes.
• Flip and continue to cook until steak is about 10 degrees away from desired doneness, approximately 3 minutes longer.
• Reduce heat to medium-low, add butter, garlic and thyme.
• Using an oven mitt grasp pan and tilt pan so butter pools to one side, spoon butter over steaks and continue to cook until steaks registers desired doneness (see notes below for temps, keep in mind they'll rise about 5 more degrees of heat), about 1 minute longer.
• Transfer to plates. Let rest 5 minutes before slicing.

Ingredients

1 medium head cauliflower, broken into florets
1 medium onion, chopped
1 can (14-1/2 ounces) chicken broth
1 chicken bouillon cube
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon each cayenne pepper, curry powder and white pepper
Minced fresh parsley, optional

Directions

1. In a large saucepan, combine cauliflower, onion, broth and bouillon. Cover and cook over medium heat until vegetables are tender.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in flour until smooth; gradually whisk in milk. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly; cook and stir until thickened, 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat; stir in cheese until melted. Add seasonings. Pour into cauliflower mixture. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes (do not boil). If desired, sprinkle with parsley.

I had an interview for a job I wanted, and I met a couple people over Zoom, and in that moment, I knew I was being judged to some degree. The emotions in that moment were like those in a game of Mafia. Afterwards, even though I had the feeling I'd botched it a bit (I was nervous, and also I'm still not sure I have enough of the relevant experience to be considered a real candidate), i revelled in this lingering adrenaline rush.

Adrenaline rush.

It made me think about the way daredevils jump off buildings to feel that thrill: do I relish that feeling in social interactions? That same thrill is present when entering an unknown, but important, social environment.

Perhaps I get the same thrill out of designing & then publicly releasing super weird videogames -- they are like dares for others to judge them, and to some degree, me by extension.

I'll think more on this sometime.

I have always been interested in routine, in processes -- not just in art (as in 'creative process') but everywhere. Walking around the city, I find mundane things catch my eye as much as anything else. Who decided to put this garbage bin here, and who uses it? Does anyone ever unlock this door, and for what purpose? I want to play more games like this, games not about their systems but about the people who made those systems and the people who live in them. The thing that's very exciting about games is that the player, the person appreciating the art, is part of the art. You're living in the thing that you're called upon to appreciate.

"You should chase him down. If you're not a Pokemon... and you run like that... you're a bad guy."

Where does writing like this come from?

We are looking for part-time professors to teach courses in Game Design including:

GAME11738 - Team Project: Design and Development Cycle (1 section X 4 hour class)

- Teams are going to build non-videogames and package them. Fuck that sounds cool!
-

GAME27748  - Game Design 4: Data and Design (1 section X 3 hour class)

- Basically, what data is useful, how do you know what data is useful, etc
- Create data models by interpreting and visualizing data with spreadsheets and diagrams (cool. cool cool cool.)

* Come up with contrived scenarios for students to whet their data whistle!
* Modify designs based on data analysis to improve gameplay
(?) What does it mean to improve gameplay? Discuss this

GAME31469 - Game Design 6: Game Design Patterns (up to 4 sections X 3 hour class)

- WHAT ARE PATTERNS? (ask Jeff)
- 'Situate design patterns within broader historical, social and cultural contexts' wow, christ
- More spreadsheets and diagrams.

If I have an inkling of desire, an idea that I want to do, I do it immediately unless there's a good reason I shouldn't or can't. For example: I walked in the front door of our home and saw the messy kitchen and thought, hey, I have the energy and desire to clean the kitchen right now.

It's easy to say: Well, maybe I'll just go on the computer first, or do one of any number of other things that I could do. But this is something I know I want to get done and a minute's distraction easily turns into an hour's. I had to put away the groceries first -- I bought milk and frozen things so those had to go away ASAP. But then I did the thing I knew I could do in that moment.

Why didn't I do it earlier? I didn't want to. That's alright. Sometimes I can push myself to get things done -- and sometimes I must! -- but this habit means I get things done more often in the right moment for me, rather than doing them out of phase.

("Take Concrete Action" -- make a plan to do it with someone, set a timer, set something in motion. Make a real decision that places it at a moment in the future, not just putting it off to "when I get to it.")

QuoteMuch like DOOM, Hitman, or Devil May Cry, Death Loop is largely a game about a process. Tell me the demon is evil, tell me the target is an oil baron, then let me loose in a playground of death. The method I use to take out these enemies is the game here, not figuring out my motivations why.

Retiring Beyond NFTs into this new thread in order to avoid a thought process that revolves around what it seeks to avoid.

But the starting point is this: NFTs are bad because they impose arbitrary scarcity on a medium where resources are basically free. (Of course, computer usage and the internet are not entirely free -- the hardware comes with costs both financial and material -- but in general these costs are massively reduced.) Let's imagine a new world based on freedom of information, where everything is increasingly information.

"At worst, [polish is] aesthetic minutiae that only the creator cares about."

"focus on a [bigger] game [..] anything smaller I make isn't nearly as fun. the bigger one already is, just needs content" - how do you know? what content? 'content' as shortcut word as if the problem has been identified.

"following my own energy. I used to think many parts of the process had to be pushed through, but that was me doing it in a way I didn't like."

- intuitive motivation - just a feel for the ideas that have promise as a larger project, and which seem possible.
'motivation to have it wrapped up into a complete experience'
'i want to turn this into several levels and have people play it'
which ideas are 'likely' and 'exciting'?


inverse answers came more easily. red flags: what NOT to commit to

- "Minigames" was just a trap to let me off the hook for designing the core gameplay right away (don't procrastinate fundamental problems.)
- Stop ranking (ruminating), "just do it already"
- "following my own energy."
- Don't use tools I don't like
- Don't polish something that's not fun
 *** I asked more about this one. "If something shines with a rough prototype, you've got something that is going to glisten when polished. That benchmark is entirely subjective // Polish is best when it reinforces design signalling or affordances. At worst, it's aesthetic minutiae that only the creator cares about."

quotes from responses to these 2 tweets and privately
tweet 1
tweet 2

Not like, cry cry sad, but I'm a few pages from the end of The Silver Spike and the events are terribly sad; the motivations of each group are so clear and at odds and it's tragic. Darling, the leader of the Rebels, feels almost sorry for these two guys who we've been following the whole book, these two of four thieves who serve as book-long protagonists, who've just stabbed her in the side as well as two of her close allies, who've unleashed a terrible evil on the world, whose actions have directly and indirectly lead to death and suffering at every scale. Self-preservation.

Quote from: One of the Rebels[Darling] felt almost sorry for those two [thieves].

She overdid the empathy sometimes. I don't have any for guys who stick knives in me.

Quote from: One of the thievesI think if I had my druthers I'd rather the Rebels got the damned thing. The imperials are nasty enough without it.
[...]
I guess for guys like us it don't matter who's running things anyway. Whoever it is they're going to try to stick it to us.

The dramatic irony is heartbreaking. As reader I know who ought to trust who, and I know that it exists. But we don't get dramatic irony in real life... we're always trapped inside it, incapable of seeing the whole truth.

How can we have empathy and trust that others have it?

I don't like labels, but maybe I mostly don't like labels because they have been used by people in ways that I don't trust. As the listener, the recipient, I don't like labels; I don't trust them. e.g. I had a relationship to the label 'games,' but in a way that label was co-opted by people whose interests didn't align with my own in order to benefit themselves and others - e.g. the argument exists that including walking simulators in games is of a benefit to people creating walking simulators because it legitimizes them.

I don't begrudge these independent agents doing with labels what is good for them and not for me, but it's something I'm thinking about. I no longer believe the speaker has a responsibility to do right by me, or at least that I have no default expectation that people are acting in my interests. So I have to look out for myself.

By extension, I tthink I took on the attitude that as a speaker (a creator of things), I had no responsibility to the listener (the player or otherwise-appreciator of the things I create). But that's not great! I like to take responsibility and do my best work, and although in general I think the attitude of being responsible-for-myself as a listener is something that has mostly served me well I would like to place more value on

-- good speakers (creators) (people) who i trust

-- trusting listeners (i.e. who trust speakers/creators to do right by them)

Quote from: Ramiro CorbettaThe nice thing about this space is that anyone can just join in and bring in new points. But I do think that once a conversation starts getting this long, twitter becomes the wrong platform. And voice is better.

tweet

Ramiro's response to me, and this whole branching, sprouting conversation, plus a lot of other stuff happening lately, has me believing in the power & value of open conversation anew.

The strength of the platform.