The Waking Knot (demo) on Steam

My advance apologies to Stan and Bill.

More than ever this reflects on my own distance from games rather than being any judgement upon this game's creators.

when i was part of 10mg wombat shared his intentions publicly. he said in the interview linked: "10mg is a psyop. The goal is not to make money, or to immediately convince people that short, experimental games are worthwhile. It would be great if that happened, but 10mg is primarily about shifting the overton window of the game length discussion."

i think that in some sense i have adopted his mission. if anyone has been psyop'd, it's me.

Jack sent Snow Game to the letterclub crew, and so I played it.

Some weeks ago I happened to check out increpare's... twitter? cohost? I'm not sure, it was on some feed-based medium. I saw that increpare was making a lot of puzzle games, to a similar or greater degree of prolificiency (prolificness?) as me. And, playing them, I noted: This is a lot of puzzle games.

Something I noted about myself is that after about, I don't know, five or ten daily platformers, I get tired of making platformers, and I want to do something else with it. But then, I do something else with it, and I think: Ah, this isn't really as good as making a platformer the right way. Whatever that means.

So, when I played Snow Game, I thought... this is that type of creative work. A quivering. A vibration along a straight line to nowhere.

A certain idea from game poems comes to mind. My summary of one thing that the book identifies as interesting to the author -- and to be clear about my own position, I do not like it -- is that the game poet plays with the extant language of videogames in order to do something with it. Magnuson writes "Videogames have established visual and auditory vernaculars that are ripe for poetic intervention" and I think I can see increpare here at that same sort of "play."

To me, it is not play. It is struggle, it is pain, it is disappointment.

I wish now that I could say I have lost interest in the language of videogames and therefore lost interest in such intervention, such struggle, such play. But I am in too deep. I have spent decades playing and making games. I know too much to leave it all behind. At the same time, I do not think I am interested in playing with games. To play requires a mutual respect, a willingness to cooperate on some level, a certain collaborative spirit.

No, my relationship to games is becoming something altogether different. So I am not a good collaborator. There are other relationships one can productively have with a thing.

See: The Art of War

reading announced here i guess: https://x.com/droqen/status/1792965930001002595

March - I created droqever.com and shared some of the initial games with paradise.

but it's interesting to note my thought process evolving steadily through the few tweets I make...

November 25 last year, in response to which Brin suggested Kinopio, I twote: " I'm trying to find... a software or service to keep track of multiple projects in a way that's publicly followable and user-friendly. Not sure I can fully explain myself, but is there anything like this? Like . . . GitHub but for more types of projects than just code stuff? // And *ideally* something I can self-host or customize to my liking to a significant degree?"

where there is a tiger in the garden,
i see a single creature among the flowers prowling
all alive but all calm
the petals in the wind moving more than the cat.

A 'good path' to be understood through the lens of Alexander's 'good shape' property; at first this was NON-FREE MOVEMENT THROUGH A SPACE, but it is not about freedom or a lack of freedom at all. Your movement through a space is a line of flow through a work, it is part of the composition. If you beeline through a garden then, no matter how beautiful or lush the garden, there is nothing interesting about that element of the composition.

Quote                           [..] 1. LEVELS OF
SCALE,  2.  STRONG CENTERS,  3.  BOUNDARIES,
4.   ALTERNATING  REPETITION,   5.  POSITIVE
SPACE, 6.  GOOD SHAPE, 7. LOCAL  SYMMETRIES,
8.  DEEP INTERLOCK  AND  AMBIGUITY, 9.  CON-
TRAST,   10.   GRADIENTS,   11.   ROUGHNESS,
12. ECHOES, 13. THE VOID, 14. SIMPLICITY AND
INNER CALM, 15. NOT-SEPARATENESS.

~ fifteen properties

Forwarded to me by Alex.Fyve

QuoteThis series is going to take a personal view on Alexander's magnum opus, The Nature of Order.

I took interest in this because I have read three out of four books of The Nature of Order and I was interested in some of the premise, but what really made me start this thread was noticing some things that I really disagree with.

regarding
game arts curators kit (but the physical printed book special edition)

~ backlink still life games, haiku games (Active Project)

As mentioned in my close reading of Leaving Rust, I am trying to find a new engine maybe. Or maybe I'm just learning about what I like by trying other things.

Played with Damian. April 30. Tells a loose frame story, but with no talented storyteller to hold its pieces together, does not go beyond that...

Role playing without a strong frame story,  lacking a wonderful conclusion. Hmm. What's to be done about that. 

The system is not masterable, nor compelling as a result... It does not contain enough stories...

Deadlines. External pressure. Sometimes these things can feel draconic. (There's a right word I'm looking for and that's not it.)

Doing something every day has been very satisfying. There's a website, "750 Words," which is a writing tool to help you build and maintain the habit of writing 750 words every day. It's nice. I don't keep my streaks long there.

I of course also made 31 unmarked games, and more recently droqever, both 'game-a-day' pursuits. Sometimes I would be proud of a game I made in a day, but I think their primary function was to shake me loose, to act as sketch, to get me doing instead of doubting.

And yet, it's the thinking and reflecting that produces an intentional work, something with real shape, something with a goal, a function. Making it a daily habit removes the questioning and becomes too unconscious.

-

There is a missing step which is gathering, living, asking "Why?" and stumbling upon a sharp answer. Sometimes the answers don't come, they aren't there, and while it's possible and useful to create something regardless (make a doodle, a sketch, operate on automatic), it can undermine the habit of searching for answers to questions, it can undermine the habit of conveying something meaningful.

Why do trees flower, and why do flowers turn into leaves?

Regarding Sylvie's
"2024.04.05 (Ways of Speaking)"

April 5
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_rsh_VfTGA-Bho_hidKtzhXsk7x31PUTtw-LOoPrdcM/mobilebasic

Sylvie writes about the dialogue between player and designer.

I was hanging out with a friend in her apartment, and she sat down at the piano and played me a tune she was working on.

I've been posting daily games on droqever.com in an attempt to catch this hypercasual hanging out vibe.

In this context it isn't any longer "Why did this person choose to share or curate this, in particular?" but instead i want to have a relaxed, what do i think of this?-type experience. It isn't noise, it's a calmly steady signal. A hum, a buzz.

(Place held)