I love to wear different hats but I have to remember to wear one at a time, which is actually a pretty nuanced act. I have to not only wear one hat at a time, but I have to wear a hat and not take it off in the middle of solving a crucial problem. The availability of such hats presents significant opportunity to put off real issues! The nuance is in noticing which issue is load-bearing at the moment. Problems must be solved in order.

I had a loose bad feeling, like, if you shake your phone around and it sounds like there is something rattling around inside... That kind of 'loose'... Something in the design was rattling around.

My response was to run away from the problem and:

1. Try to design a bit of narrative (Successful!)
2. Try to add some sounds / juice

I added sounds / juice and noted that it was distracting and annoying, so I removed it all, and suddenly realized that I had been putting off solving a deeper problem with peripheral, extradisciplinary work.

Finally, I solved the problem of the thing that had been rattling around the whole time. In that very first initial prototype, when you submitted your spell, it shoved you out of the 'text' view but now that the text view had more content, it felt sort of wrong. What if you wanted to interact with the text? The spells are doing a bit of dual duty, which may present new problems in the long run, but I made it so that submitting the spellword did not automatically kick you out of the text view.

The loose rattling around feeling stopped.

I made a small prototype where you type commands into a platformer and those commands affect the world. It worked fine, until I started to want to add text-based feedback, especially objects that you could "examine" out in the world. Then a whole bunch of problems cropped up.

Originally, you pressed a sort of 'meditate' button to enter the typing state, and once you had finished typing and submitted your spellword, it pushed you out of the meditation state and the text went and did its thing in the world.

Then, I had the idea to allow the player to type anytime they wanted. But I also wanted to display text when the player was somewhere interesting. So there was a window off to the left, and the text in that window would change depending on the player's position. It worked... alright. It was OK. The typing was also fine, but I had lost this oddly important feeling of positioning. In the original prototype, the place where you were standing was very important, and being able to stand somewhere meant that you could cast a spell from there. If you had to be a tile up, you couldn't cast the spell (at least not without creating a floor to stand on).

So that second prototype was a bit awkward and I left it on the cutting room floor without any further development. I had not even added any spells that did anything. It had ripped an additional hole-wrinkle in the concept, though. What if the 'thing' you were examining or near could affect your spells' effects, make new spells available, etc? It was a big question, and a big problem.

I made a third prototype two days ago. When you press 'tab' anywhere, you get a spell prompt. Same as the first demo: You can't spell freely in real time, you have to switch modes. I think it was a good idea to return to the original idea, and I'm not sure why I strayed from it for a second prototype.

In this third prototype there were also, immediately, 'points of interest' which would add detail to the 'tab' window and actually prompt you with a sort of "press tab" tooltip when nearby. (This provided an easy way to push the player into using the tab button, which was a dual purpose kind of thing.)

Then further problems began.

Sometimes . . . I forget what it's like to solve a problem, and I mean really solve a problem. I want to record this so that I have a reference point for what it's like to recognize a problem and solve it appropriately, completely.

from yesterday, the tired day

- terraforming Pit.
- too late in the day, noticed a creative dissatisfaction. worked on surface level spell demo.
- slept a good 7 1/2 hours btwn yesterday and today.

Quote from: droqenthe best roleplaying experiences that ive had have been ones where i use the activity of roleplaying to tap into facets of myself, and it does not really feel like creation, it feels more like ... ah, i don't like the word expression, but i guess expression
creation is a side effect because it is taking something that i don't normally get to embody and bringing it to the surface
from the outside, and maybe even from the unexamined inside, it probably looks like creation, but it is more like a 'revealing' than creating and it's nice to perform that act in an environment that feels like it will be accepted and even expanded upon

Quote from: jackThe history didn't reveal itself to you as you played, making it interesting. You weren't searching for its meaning, or for it to give meaning to itself. You already had it.

from yesterday, the monday

notes, thoughts

Quotethere is nothing mystical or scientific
about moon watching

it is simply there,
a great circle of white
beyond reproach.

things created
- began an unnamed godot project, recreating for the third time the idea of a platformer where you can type commands anywhere you like to cast spells. stayed up until like 2am, rapt. very little content, but the pure mechanics & presentation are a joy

being social
- meant to meet with felix, but did not due to rain and sick
- tweeted "a day's events do not particularly happen in order"
- many tbt events, among us
- splatoon at 3-4am
- mom texted me a video of a person speaking chinese even though she knows i dont speak chinese. she asked me about which thumb goes on top of which thumb. right brain left brain thing. such superstition... oh and something about china 'admitting' to GMO...

make a thing every day in the spirit of 31 unmarked games, but not necessarily a game; respect the work you've done; see (the badly named) wholeness of action

when the moon becomes new, stop gathering; start connecting and reflecting

release something on the night of the full moon.

do not make plans.

- gate's meaning-making -> meaningness' nebulousity

- sylvies sylvieish games ("Scattered Self")
- my comments in 'roleplaying games', esp on self-playing ("to play a role so well you need not make any decisions at all . . .")
- sylvies discord thoughts on improvisation
- (collaboration)

~ backlink first moon's reflection

i believe that this state requires a low degree of thought. encountering 'interestingness' is the opposite of being the transparent, whole, integrated, 🌕 self. . . the complete graph . . .

hmm. what is the complete stance?

roleplaying a facet of the self, requires a relatable role. relating to the world. relating. connecting, being connected.

the emotion of getting in touch with the self, as it pertains to relating to other people... seeing yourself clearly and in a positive light. i guess you could call this life-affirming. maybe self-affirming? i'm not sure