I think that the best things I've ever written and made are empathetic tools, by which I suppose I mean they allow someone else to empathize with something I've noticed myself feeling. It's hard to explain myself sometimes and my favourite works are those that properly convey a thought.

Bright green is poison. Just an environmental mockup. A lot of this is just set dressing. What's the interactive part? I want to strip it down and keep it simple, add only interactive elements, but maybe I need to learn to use both.

Interactive layer on top of a pretty, environmental layer.

Quote from: p199Play is impossible without restriction--not doing what you want, but determining what is possible to do given the meager resources provided.

Quote from: p199, againDiscovering, choosing, managing, and living with what's inside a particular playground--that's where fun, and where meaning, resides.

Quote from: p117Instead of calling everything a game, we should think of everything as playable: capable of being manipulated in an interesting and appealing way within the confines of its constraints.

Quote from: p116My daughter's game isn't a distraction from errands, nor is it a mechanism to make errands possible. Instead, it's

an activity made out of errands and other things too, like legs and ceramic tiles,

in the same way golf is

[an activity] made out of grass and sand and rubber and wood--and leisure and wealth and zoning.

A playground.

In the book, Bogost revisits often upon this game his daughter played in the mall, dragged behind him (an adult, on an errand, in a rush): pulled at a rapid unyielding pace, she would avoid cracks, leaping from tile to tile. I think this quote is the strongest yet, re-highlighting the core theme, message, metaphor, whatever.

A "playground", a plaything, a playable thing... is an activity(?) made up of things, including real things with purposes, neither necessarily acting for or against that real thing's "real purpose," whatever that might be, but taking it and all its it-ness as a material. A given.

I do want it to appeal to other people. At first, though, I just have to follow the work. Take no credit: just make the right decisions.

I've been finding myself thinking about this interview with Agnes Martin, just her attitude is really relaxed and comfortable. (thanks phil from paradise for linking this to me)

I'm not sure posting on Twitter every day is my favourite, because it takes me out of the mindset of just making the thing, of being alone. But I guess the desire for aloneness comes and goes.

Quote from: Agnes MartinThe only thing you can think about painting is that you want the painting. And see, we get everything we want, so you have to keep in mind. And, you want it to appeal to other people.

Quote from: 2:52All art is music, that way. Not intellectual at all. And still, we have like five magazines that come on a month of people talking about art, and there's nothing you can say!

Quote from: 3:20I guess I'm rather extreme. I think we don't deserve any credit. I think the inspiration comes to you, tells you exactly what to do, even when you're painting, tells you every brushstroke.

I do take the blame though *amused* No credit, you'd think no blame, but...

You get shaken between the inspiration and the finished product, and you have to take the blame for that.

Quote from: 4:08And you can't think about beating the rest of them, or something like that, when you're painting, because you have to keep a clear picture in your mind. The only thing you can think about painting is that you want the painting. And see, we get everything we want, so you have to keep in mind. And, you want it to appeal to other people. [4:44] That's all I think when I'm painting. Don't let any other thoughts... and the worst thing you can think about when you're working at anything is yourself. You start thinking about yourself it stands right in the middle, in front of you. You make mistakes.

game #11 had ghosts with their tongues getting chopped off

game #12 was CASSETTE PLAYER, STUCK - honestly like, an amazing pair.
i made a feel-y game selection screen!

game #13 was GRAFFITI, ROOF - i didn't use roof at all... here are my notes:

GRAFFITI, ROOF
roof. roof... roof.....
idk what to do with graffiti. it's art, i guess? graffiti is art?

googled graffiti: both singular and plural; the singular graffito is rarely used except in archeology
googled graffito: A graffito (plural "graffiti"), in an archaeological context, is a deliberate mark made by scratching or engraving on a large surface such as a wall.
oh hell yeah. here we go: a game about leaving marks on walls in identical rooms in order to help you navigate them.

Quote from: 6:44I used to meditate until I stopped thinking. Now I stopped thinking, don't think many things. You know, before you train yourself to stop thinking, it's just all kinds of stuff going through your mind. Not anymore. Nothing goes through my mind : )

I don't [believe? read?] what the intellectuals put out. The intellectuals, they, they discover one fact and another fact and another fact, and they say, from all these facts, we can deduce so-and-so. *shakes head* Not good. That's just a bad guess! Nothing of it could come but inaccuracy. Never will we learn the truth about life.

So I had a hard time giving up some of them. But I've managed to... evolution. I gave up the idea of evolution. All of them. I gave up all of the theories. Even the atomic theory. And then I don't have any ideas myself, and I don't believe anybody else's, so that leaves me a clear mind. *laughs*

Gosh, yes, I'm an empty mind, so when something comes into it, you can see it!

~ backlink: the nature of order book four, on reality

QuoteWhat's the happiest moment when you're painting? *laughs* When they go out the door.
They go out into the world. And when they go out the door I don't take any further responsibility.
Artists paint 'em, the dealers sell 'em, and the collectors look after 'em.
Born to do it : )
*asks the interviewer* You think you're doing what you were born to do?

Sharing Playgrounds, Playthings

Quote from: Play Anything, Bogost, p.100 ... but it's just quoting Miguel Sicart, haha"When we play," the play scholar Miguel Sicart summarizes, we "appropriate the world, we make it ours, we express ourselves in it, we make it personal."

When a game is seen and designed as a playground, or a plaything, we can say that it invites play or enables play, but nothing can create play except the player.

The game presents materials, playground boundaries pre-inscribed, and says, "appropriate this space." The videogame often creates a large amount of the space, whereas the folk game is a tradition of simply pointing to materials that already exist, but in all cases the player is invited to perform the act themselves.

If someone is too afraid to play with the materials as invited, they cannot play. What else can be said or done about this? Perhaps that's not the responsibility of the game designer.

On Anger (Lulie), on the value of expressing anger -- again, I would characterize this as an activity of not fearing engaging with things as they really are, i.e. playing with a real thing. (I've added PLAY WITH OWN FEELINGS to the list of things to play with, rather than be afraid of.)

QuotePicture yourself having a go at someone- they begin meekly apologising to you- how does it make you feel?

Consider- if you 'stand your ground' then you've shown that she can *be* angry at you without you falling to pieces i.e. you're emotionally reliable

In a way, I would like to characterize expressing anger as play: You have feelings of anger, and expressing it is acknowledging those feelings as they are and reacting to them as feels more natural.

In response, does the person you're angry at join you in play, or do they go meta and ruin the playground?

- "Meekly apologising" is going meta, refusing to play.

- Being "emotionally reliable" means that when the person is angry at you at wishes to 'play with their own feelings' with you, you do not go meta, you do not become ironic: you play with them.

Oikospiel Box Office plays with money.

Art plays with meaning and cultural capital, which is another real, ordinary, frightening material -- I say frightening because the impact of doing something wrong with these things has actual consequences. Money, time, and meaning have an actual place in people's lives.

They are no longer "just a game."