[ A. Often, I am tempted to solve a problem in the general case. The fantasy is that when a specific interaction appears, it is already solved ahead of time, and perhaps even some unforeseen solutions will arise and surprise me, the developer!

  B. Resist this temptation. Wait until the moment the unimplemented interaction is needed, then solve it. It feels better to solve the problem in the specific case as it arises. The solution is more beautiful because you have better knowledge of the problem space. If you solve it ahead of time, you rob yourself of future joy and grace. ]

Start with [AB] and go from there, always keeping your position in mind. In what context do we start, what are we trying to do here, where do we want to go, and how can we get there?

Sometimes there is a deeper concept buried inside. That's fine, great even. Set it aside. Create a single smooth motion, a pure movement from point A to point B.

When embarking on any creative or analytical, thoughtful pursuit, remember droqen to think of it in these terms, remembering them better because of their inspiration rooted in Christopher Alexander's pattern structure. (There were other authors of APL and I don't remember their names, sorry guys.)

Frame every pursuit as moving from point A to point B, even if you don't know where point B is, and even if you don't know where point A is! Dig into the middle section for as long as you must but with the aim of bookending that great big middle in [AB] brackets.

[ A. Diving into the creative act can produce wild, sprawling, untame, unsatisfying results that go nowhere fast. How can I think with creative freedom without planning or structuring too much?

  B. Before any creative act or analysis, first write the four characters "[AB]". Do not plan how, but know that you are creating one smooth motion between two points. "A," and "B." Communicate this [AB] in more detail (e.g. as seen here) only when, how, and if it facilitates an actual personal understanding. ]

An unanswered, unanswerable question. Something that sustains interest for the duration of a project. Something not solid. A feeling with no shape, never entirely full, that makes space for new creative intervention at every turn...

Quote from: p28[Wallace] insisted that his goal as a writer was to show us the way out of our predicament, not to glamorize its awfulness.

Quote from: p24Perhaps, in other words, [David Foster Wallace's] depression made him peculiarly sensitive (or was a symptom of such sensitivity, whatever its source -droqen) to something that pervades the culture, something not personal and individual but public and shared.

The sadness and lostness. It says something, something about the world of time in which one resides, but also something about one's own personal perspective on it. A theme, a thought, a question...

Fascinating perspective on Shakespeare

Quote from: p17. . . Shakespeare himself seems to have been nearly obsessed with the breakdown of the divine order. . . . [Macbeth] hopes to leap beyond his natural place in the divine order into a new and higher place as king. The very idea the one should, by one's own will and desire, transform the divine order of the universe would have been anathema to Dante in the world of the Middle Ages.

Quote from: p14This [divine] order of things was not a belief that anyone argued for or a worldview that anyone proposed; it was simply taken for granted by everyone worth talking or listening to. Members of this society made sense of everything in terms of this fundamental idea . . .

Theme.

RED RED RED RED RED RED RED

NONREPRESENTATIONAL MODES OF AGENCY

A letter in response to jack's "worlds of time."

[AB]

gallery game manifesto addendum

- THE ONE WHO DIVIDES THE WHOLE IS THE ONE WHO COLLECTS THE PARTS; THIS IS THE DIRECTOR, THE INDEXER, THE CURATOR

- THE GALLERY-GAME-OBJECT IS A WORK LIKE ANY OTHER, ITS DIVISION AND COLLECTION EXECUTED BY ONE PERSON, CAPTURING ONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

- THE GALLERY IS NOT A MACHINE, THE GALLERY IS NOT A SYSTEM, THE GALLERY IS NOT REGULAR. ART IS FOR HUMANS.

(find link to article about playing patchwork game with children)

I can't! Oh well. There was an article written years ago, in which a person discussed playing Patchwork with a child by limiting their 'strategic horizon' or some such phrase: essentially, making the best choice available to you without considering a certain strategic aspect of the game. Say you want to play Chess against a kid without letting them win, but want to present a realistic challenge which they can actually reason against and overcome. What you could do is develop a sort of constrained worldview; play Chess as well as possible without thinking about what squares pieces threaten, for instance. I forget what their limited strategic horizon was with Patchwork, maybe it was always choosing the best piece available for the immediate turn and not planning ahead at all?

Please contact me if you find it!

Anyway, the way this relates to HIERARCHY OF ENDINGS is that each tier of the hierarchy is for a player a step up the skill tree. They are developing their understanding of the game's systems, expanding their strategic horizon (which may be a term I made up and not be from that Patchwork article at all, idk), and therefore looking for different sorts of acknowledgement. You can't give a player satisfying resolution on something that is not yet within their strategic horizon. If you give then a test, and as a result of that test they happen to master the skill (i.e. newly encompassing something within the horizon), it may not provide as much satisfaction as administering a second test now that they think they fully understand. Nevermind, I don't believe that. Or in any case that's not what this is about.

Anyway #2, the endings in BA-la are neither one very satisfying because neither of them encompasses an entire domain and so does not satisfy any sort of mindset, worldview, player-perspective. Even if a player were aware of ghain, I suppose that a merely ji-A-a-|< ending would be very satisfying because as people we are capable of empathy -- with peers, with children, with past versions of ourselves -- but the ji-a ending does not represent satisfaction for any actual person; these systems are all part of the same unit of knowledge, they exist on the same plane.

Neither ending is for anyone.

Every ending should be for someone.

Now, I've thought about this some, and I think I understand a larger pattern which surrounds the "ENDING AS RESOLUTION" pattern. Sometimes it is nice to have multiple endings for different types of players. In particular, however, each ending exists on a hierarchy... In the case of BA-la, the lower tier of the hierarchy does not exist... There is no player who understands only ji and a for instance, for whom the ji-a ending would provide a complete resolution.

However, suppose that there is a secret fifth ability, ghain, which is easily missed or regarded as useless, accessible only to a player who has gone beyond mastery of the ji-A-a-|< system. In this case, understanding that there are two discrete player mastery profiles to satisfy (ji-A-a-|< vs ji-A-a-|<-ghain), it makes sense to create two separate endings, for satisfying two separate experiences.

(find link to article about playing patchwork game with children)