I've been sick for over a week, and it's terrible. I haven't been able to gather my focus or recover my energy enough to do the things I tell myself I ought to do, so I've spent a considerable amount of time doing everything I suppose I ought not do, but want to do anyway. And, specifically, I've found myself thinking about why I do anything -- why do I make games, for instance?

Some part of it is certainly for 'getting' some reward. Not points, because points are made-up reward-substitutes into which we opt for the sake of a game, but say, attention, or money, or something like that.

But even stripped of all these things, making games is one of these things that I "want to get points for". Oh, I should quickly give some context for that quote before I continue:

~ The Well-Played Game, "What do we want to get points for?" (P69)

Bernie DeKoven here explores the purpose of points, of keeping score, in the context of the well-played game. The arbitrary and designable nature of points allows us to reward the right things, to control the direction(s) in which we are steered, in contexts where points are usable, and used.

Dofus/Wakfu
That precious tension of allocation

The real meaning.
Strip away interpretation and we are left with truth?
The shirt is cotton because of its price, because the designer liked the way it felt, or because it happened to be the default option.

There is always a reality to notice. Symbols and images distract from that.

I've had this thought before.

Wearing clothing (as well as accessories, etc) is a deeply contextual act, clothing being always worn on a particular body, almost always part of an outfit (i.e., worn with other things), generally worn in a physical location.

if i think about every human activity as a conversation
perhaps a one-sided conversation, not always a dialogue but sometimes a monologue
a speaker speaks, someone or something listens

then every conversation begins because someone wants to say something
the conversation continues because of continued desires to speak
fueled perhaps by enough desire to listen but that desire to listen can only be perceived as a desire to speak back
perhaps not in the tongue of words
but body language, warmth, art, movement

a conversation of everything
not just words

then we picture
long-lasting conversations

there are rules to a conversation
each conversation is a context
for speaking and listening
listeners infer the rules and learn to speak in the language of the conversation
how to speak safely

a conversation that outlives its original speakers
a conversation that outlives its original speakers' desires to speak
a conversation that lasts too long

everyone follows its rules
nobody wants to have the conversation
but out of the desire to have some conversation, any conversation
the institution survives

sustained only by fear of a silent world.

I must admit that years ago I laughed at the absurdity and coldness of this piece. Now I think I'm going to really see what it has to offer -- it was a particular social environment, a particular mindset, a particular place in my life and in time, in which I laughed at it. I think I'm past that and may today actually learn something, and have some useful criticism to offer.

I hope to have a useful conversation.

Chris

Or getting the movers to do it

Where is this link leading you?
Into the darkness --
you are connected to someone across the aether,
through the wires.

Disconnected.

not demons that do you a favour for a cost, but a force of nature that follows rules--and if you know those rules then you can follow behaviours and use that to 'read' things the elementals can detect that you can't

find treasure, find water

A metafeeling.

It is described as "an experiential installation . . . that powerfully demonstrates how non-visual senses can transport audiences to different places or trigger different memories."

When we arrived on March 15, a little after 7PM, this space, swallowed in darkness, was full of people. It was possible to gently work your way into the circle of speakers through a narrow channel of people--this felt like a minor obstacle to be traversed, a boundary set safely outside the circle which separated the true inside from the outside.

At the center of the inside was a raised black circular platform, which felt like the inside of the inside, and it was full of people, occupied. There was another boundary... it was possible to sit safely on the outside of the circle ringed by speakers, until one felt comfortable enough to sit on (or lie on) the round platform.

There were sounds, and a scent, and a circular light above that pulsated nonrhythmically, slowly, to the swells of the sound.

I saw the art as well as others experiencing, reacting to, the art. It was an experience, a place.

partial response to rp's post in paradise, partial only

a game, progression, a game's progression
a game's progression, does it lead to a toy or to a summit? are you done or are you free to play? are you free to forget or are you free to explore the mountains? what does it mean to be free?
the purpose of a story- is the purpose of the story to be done?
i want to be done, to be free. give me a real ending, make me believe this is a real summit
give me a summit
hints of other summits- ok
hints of other summits of other flavours- even better
summits for some, summits for others
not optional summits- but imaginary summits
draw lines and boundaries. exit points. permission to leave, permission to forget

and yet also instill a drive to explore further? not to explore. instill a mastery which produces the drive to create. empower the player to create further, create new summits. a mastery which escapes the game? but a mastery also which rests within the boundaries of the game, the tool, the toy.

a real summit. a real escape. a real ending.

a further imagined summit-scape. further imagined escapes. further imagined endings.

I have been thinking about business cards recently, and my website. Who am i? What is it that i do, or aspire to do? Rather than a title, i think it is a verb or an aspiration that I'm more comfortable standing by, and this is the pseudopoetic phrase i have in mind:


Now, I'd like each line to stand on its own- the second line is beautiful, but the first is obviously a hanging fragment in want of a conclusion...

Maybe that's ok? Anyway I'm much happier with the second line, and i hope to find a whole i like as much.

"Making all the world
Systems playable"

Hmm...

"All systems playable"...

I've made a secret gameplay demo that really excites me along these lines, but I won't go into great detail yet.

The common version of this feeling is given by bullet hell games and games like... Geometry Wars, Vampire Survivor, things like that. There is a shifting mass of things which you are trying to avoid, and so you move to try and avoid them.

See also games with interesting movement mechanics and momentum, e.g. Superflight, where the obstacles are static but your movement produces a living, shifting relationship to that static obstacle-space.