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Messages - droqen

#2101
Primordial soup / Re: Always start with a locked door
December 15, 2021, 04:32:17 PM
A locked door is really just a win condition.
#2102
Tenets / Re: Art is Life-Changing
December 14, 2021, 01:21:56 PM
QuoteIf art changes your life, what keeps it there?

pingback: http://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=166.0
#2103
Tenets / Re: Mnemonics, Mantras, Maintenance, & Marketing
December 14, 2021, 01:18:29 PM
If art changes your life, what keeps it there?
#2104
Tenets / Mnemonics, Mantras, Maintenance, & Marketing
December 14, 2021, 01:18:07 PM
Regarding "Art is Life-Changing"

We are constantly interacting with the world. Falling into habits, old patterns. Art is life-changing, but what stops us from changing back?

Ideas that stick with you for a long period of time may be necessary for turning that momentary experience into a genuinely life-changing impact. This doesn't mean that games have to be long to be impactful... they don't have to rub your face in it. But I think they can have value that way.
#2105
Tenets / Re: Art is Life-Changing
December 14, 2021, 10:48:48 AM
Further thoughts -
There are a lot of games I've enjoyed because they changed my life 'as a game-maker' or 'as a game-player'.
This feels insular, circular, but maybe I can forgive myself for enjoying making and experiencing these moments.
#2106
Tenets / Re: Art is Life-Changing
December 14, 2021, 09:14:46 AM
I'd like to say that the quote came amidst a conversation about addictive games and marketing and whether these things are 'good' or 'bad' or whatever. And I don't think I care. If it changes my life in a positive way, if it helps someone grow, a game can do, or be, anything else it wants. I can forgive art anything so long as it aspires to this, the true horizon break. And if it does not, then maybe I feel like nothing else it does is worth judging in the first place.
#2107
Tenets / Art is Life-Changing
December 14, 2021, 09:09:36 AM
Quote from: Mokesmoemy main criteria for liking a game is "did this game change my life" (but the bar for changing my life is low)

|| | || ||||| ||| is a game I played recently where I enjoyed playing it in the moment, and I believe that it objectively is a good game, but when I had finished it (100% even) it left me feeling underwhelmed because it did not change my life

it did not present me with a single new idea to think about

don't take that as a condemnation. it had a number of very neat ideas that blew my mind the first time I saw them, just not this time.

Mokesmoe said this two days ago in Paradise and I woke up thinking about it for some reason. "Did this game change my life?" "Did it present me with a new idea to think about?" As I get older and am exposed to more things, I suppose it's a mathematical inevitability that finding works that do this for me will become harder and harder. Maybe at some point I'll have to give up on expecting the feeling from anything at all, and find something else to like about stuff.

It is still the goal I aspire to with my own work -- art.

I want to present someone with a new idea to think about, one that's sticky and relevant and novel enough to change their life in a positive way. Not in a concrete way, perhaps. I don't expect to make an educational or self-help piece. Maybe a more modest way to put it would be to say I want to make art that helps a person grow.
#2108
Patterns / Re: (process) Emergent Characters
December 13, 2021, 07:47:15 PM
What techniques recur?

- Memorable character art/design.

- Player can customize names, character development.

- Time investment: an NPC levels up slowly and abandoning them means losing progress. (Edit: interesting. Abandoning a character, that is, choosing a new one to replace them with either temporarily or permanently, is often an option. As a result the player feels as though maintaining a relationship is a CHOICE, increasing the bond when it works?)

- Taking care of a character helps you to maintain agency, but is not directly related to progress. This is surprisingly consistent. Compare to anti-example Pocket Camp.

-- Flipside: Failing to take care of a character takes away agency, sometimes removing the player's agency altogether (character leaves or dies).

- Some aspects of the character are often outside of your control? (Not consistent, I don't know how important this is? Needs more thought.)

- The characters benefit from - and/or can only act directly as a result of? - the player's actions. (This is a strong pattern, poorly constructed.)
#2109
Patterns / Re: (process) Emergent Characters
December 13, 2021, 07:28:24 PM
Okay, pattern time...
#2110
Patterns / Re: (process) Emergent Characters
December 13, 2021, 07:28:15 PM
- Why do you care about what happens to a character?
- What do you care about that happens to the character?

Disgaea

There are some custom authored characters, but you can also recruit new characters that grow. Mostly you care about these due to investment but I think they have some random traits too, which you might care about.

Dwarf Fortress

Dwarves have a LOT of generated details and go through a lot! They enter emotional states - rage, strange moods, etc. - like sims, but the cause-and-effect is less clear. I think what makes you care about your dwarves is that they seem driven by internal thoughts and emotions at times, and these systems ultimately lead to permanent changes to your fortress (strange moods often create artworks) as well as death (sometimes a dwarf will starve or kill other dwarves). Emotions are described, the dwarves react to their emotions, and those emotion-fuelled actions can cause important, permanent changes/effects.

Etrian Odyssey

You name your characters and stick with them through a quite long game. As characters level up - which takes a long time - you invest their skill points into different areas. The characters are vessels for time. What happens to them? Well, they can't die permanently, but you might level them 'wrong', or decide you want to try out a new class, and that means leaving behind a lot of time investment, as well as replacing them with a new face and character-class-sprite. That's interesting, I guess!
#2111
Close reading / Re: Do Chairs Exist?
December 13, 2021, 05:15:35 PM
I'm sad that I watched this video. :(
#2112
Close reading / Re: Do Chairs Exist?
December 13, 2021, 05:09:12 PM
"As for the problem of the many, we can simply just admit that there really are billions of slightly different chairs here."

The word chair is not something with enough of an inhumanly precise definition that this claim has any meaning. By most uses of language, nope, "there is one chair here" is the only correct claim that you can make! Are there billions of slightly different chairs? NO.

When I say "chair" I'm referring to a pattern in the world. If you ask me about details and sorites sequences, I think it's only responsible to say that my understanding of the word "chair," a referential artifact generations old, simply does not include sufficient precision to be applied to a scenario such as this.

Scientific notation. What's 10^49 minus 1?
Sorites sequence that.
#2113
Close reading / Re: Do Chairs Exist?
December 13, 2021, 05:05:50 PM
Quote from: 30:43Vagueness comes from our minds, and our language, but there are no vague objects in the universe. We don't have to believe that our reality is simulated, but I do think we have to believe that it's stipulated. It is a reality that contains not what intelligent machines have decided to give us, but what we have decided we have.

It depends on what you think 'contains' and 'exists' mean, but generally I disagree... I think we do have a reality that 'contains' things that 'exist'. The map just isn't the territory. We have decided what to call things, how to perceive and think about them. Existence is not label.
#2114
Patterns / Re: (process) Emergent Characters
December 13, 2021, 04:28:08 PM
- Why do you care about what happens to a character?
- What do you care about that happens to the character?

Shadow of Mordor (nemesis)

The game puts a lot of focus on the moments when these characters initiate combat with you, as well as when either one of you kills the other.

Some of them will return again and again to harass you, leveling up and running away or killing you or getting killed and then reviving somehow... You see a familiar face in a game full of generic enemies. Even if they're another enemy, they're not generic.

The camera pulls in and shows you their name and face, and they say a voice clip that relates to your shared history. "Ha ha I killed you!" or "Grr you killed me!" Do you care more because they appear to care?
#2115
Patterns / Re: (process) Emergent Characters
December 13, 2021, 04:23:33 PM
- Why do you care about what happens to a character?
- What do you care about that happens to the character?

Animal Crossing (villagers)

The villagers can move in or out, they say things about their lives and state opinions, they might appear in different locations and interact with different parts of your town or island, and their friendship with you increases and decreases. They sometimes give you gifts or ask to buy things. They also participate in various events with you, taking on various different roles depending on what's currently going on.

In earlier Animal Crossing games, they might move out if you aren't paying attention every day, and this made caring feel more vital - you had to show your connection by talking to them every day and telling them to stay, if you wanted them to stay.

Sometimes you're called upon to resolve arguments or crises. "Do I move out?" is one of them, but so is "Hey, X other villager is mad at me! What do I do?"

You care about them because they are a relatable mainstay of your town/island. Every minigame and event that happens features them in some kind of role, so they become familiar, and you can become attached...