At this point JB trails off. He's silent for a second, and the documentary cuts back to Soulja Boy's video of Braid, showing his 'Mario in the future' almost falling into spikes, but then rewinding time so that he doesn't touch the spikes while they all go "whoaa whoa ohhhh" and Soulja Boy finally says, "Ain't got no point to the game, you just walk around, jumpin' on shit."

"On release day, you start seeing the reactions of people on the internet and for me it was a very addictive thing? cause here I spent several years, you know, working on this thing in isolation, for the most part, and then suddenly it gets out, and a lot of people -- like, tens of thousands of people -- play it in the first few days. And . . . (hesitation) . . . you see that all over the internet and for me that was actually a very negative experience." -- Jonathan Blow

Okay, yes, and here it's someone COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TALKING. Thanks a lot, whatever website grabbed that first excerpt. Thanks for nothing.

"When Braid was coming out, when people would talk about it online, and this was the really serious birth of blog commentary, lots of people writing pretty good stuff about what they were playing, what they thought of it . . . " -- I'm not sure who this is, maybe one of the documentarians?

Back to JB.

"I found that there was this perception of me on the Internet that was running away very quickly from who I think I am, and that was kind of disturbing, and there didn't seem to be much that I could do about that. So that was actually a pretty negative experience and I was actually seriously depressed for probably three or four months after Braid came out. You know, when you work a long time on something really intricate like that, there's a hope that people are gonna understand the things that you did, and that you will have, you know, some line of communication with your audience and things like that. And . . . some of . . . the most demoralizing things were actually positive reviews of the game. Game would come out and people would say, "Oh, this game's great," you know, "Nine out of ten," or "Ten out of ten," and then they'd say what's good about the game, and in many cases, it would be just a very surface understanding of the game that didn't even see what I thought was most special about it. Not that many people understood. And that was a little bit heartbreaking, in a way, it was like, oh, I visualized that I was gonna . . . have some kind of connection with people. through this game. And, they think it's great, but the connection isn't there? because they're kind of living in a different world, still. So they think it's great for some of the reasons that I do, but, but not for other . . ." -JB

It starts with a clip of Soulja Boy playing Braid, laughing, saying "You're this little guy in a suit, it look like, Mario, in the future."

[confusing excerpt removed]

This excerpt was written in a way that confused me. I don't remember this part in Indie Game: The Movie at all, so I'm going to see if I can find it and write my own excerpt.

Also, it has me thinking about the way I extract my own excerpts. I wonder: How confusing is this whole subforum to other people? People who aren't me, who don't have the blessing of context? I know some other people read this stuff sometimes. Hello, you! But of course I have to remind myself, this place isn't for you, it's for me. It's my notebook, you're just reading it.

Anyway, I'll go find that piece of the movie tomorrow and see what's really being said, and by whom.

Regarding Blinkworks'
"Indie Game: The Movie"

Okay, fine.

6 GOOD SHAPE
Exaggerate the characteristics of an existing center or system of centers.
Generally this is akin to taking certain repeated features and strengthening them as centers, but without overwhelming the parent center which binds them into one shape.

~ Linked from #108, on imperfect symmetries in form language -- many pages and chapters ahead in this book

The above is my summary of the transformations given on pages 77-79. Yes, my summary of good shape really is "???"

On one hand there is a sort of recursive beauty in the way these transformations (and the properties) are out of order, repeat one another inside one another in an ambiguous way (in a way that suggests deep interlock, which I do believe is there).

On the other, it is nice to boil things down to their essence. I suppose I might say that I am applying the SIMPLICITY (and inner calm) transformation to the fifteen transformations themselves. yes. I am not saying that the property of good shape, or even that the transformation of good shape, is unnecessary . . . but in some sense I think that describing it is meaningless. Isn't it frustrating? The properties themselves are practically an attempt to break down what "good shape" is in the first place, and one of the fifteen is itself "good shape". Each one of the properties contains each of the other properties, but good shape contains almost nothing but all of the other properties. It is a necessary component, but it is also meaningless.

1 LEVELS OF SCALE
Introduce intermediate-sized centers to fill out the hierarchy of scales.
Two methods:
Differentiate a loosely distinguished zone into parts
Introduce smaller parts

2 STRONG CENTER
All the transformations help, in some form, to achieve this fundamental goal.
Some key words: differentiate, distinguish, sharpen, give weight, define.

3 BOUNDARY
Strengthen the existing 'cloudy zone of space' which surrounds any center.

4 ALTERNATING REPETITION
Generate a repeating pattern of similar entities within a previously undifferentiated field.
It simultaneously generates a second pattern of repeating centers, interlocking and alternating with the first.

5 POSITIVE SPACE
Strengthen the existing 'cloudy zone of space' which exists between other centers.

6 GOOD SHAPE
???

7 LOCAL SYMMETRY
Give an existing center or system of centers an internal axis of symmetry.
Do not extend this symmetry beyond the center's influence. Sometimes this transformation is only applied to the "kernel"; that is, it is better to go too small than too large.

8 DEEP INTERLOCK (and ambiguity)
Create connections between contrasting parts in which each enters the other.
Especially in an existing 'boundary zone', which has perhaps experienced the boundary transformation.

9 CONTRAST
Increase the distinction between two kinds of centers.
The contrast may be achieved by any physical characteristics. This may also be described as a sharpening of the separation.

10 GRADIENT
Systematically vary certain aspects according to an uneven or non-homogenous field.
Aspects: size, shape, weight, darkness, or spacing.
Fields may be simple (an axis, a position) or complex and even structureless.
This transformation is capable of "introducing coherence of a new kind into an almost random-like field of structure."

11 ROUGHNESS
Prefer (local) fit over (global) regularity.
This is used "in the course of" other transformations.
Examples given are making positive space, strong centers, local symmetries, or alternating repetition.

12 ECHOES
Take characteristics of certain repeating centers, apply them to other centers in the field.
Characteristics: procedures, angles, shapes, and shape-characters.

13 VOID
Clean up a relatively differentiated area that does not need its differentiation.
Make it homogenous.
In a way, a specific case of the contrast transformation, increasing the distinction between centers whose distinction is their relative strength and complexity; in other words, makes the 'weaker' and 'simpler' area maximally weak and simple.
Produces a boundary zone around the newly homogenous area.

14 SIMPLICITY (and inner calm)
Remove unwanted centers.
Cleans up unnecessary structure. Similar to the void transformation, but throughout the structure, rather than in one area.

15 NOT-SEPARATENESS
Take pieces of two separate areas; copy them inside one another.

When I wrote that initial quote I thought, even hoped, the 'properties of living processes' might take a form mirroring the fifteen properties. Yes, Alexander goes through each and every property and describes one or more transformations that might produce them. I will summarize them for future reference. I do not do this to indicate that these are rigid rules, but I think they will make a very useful starting point for seeing what a process might be lacking if it aspires to a feeling of aliveness. i.e.: is it missing a certain type of transformation?

FIFTEEN TRANSFORMATIONS

(1) LEVELS OF SCALE
- introduce intermediate-sized centers to fill out the hierarchy of scales by...
* differentiating a loosely distinguished zone into parts, or
* introducing smaller parts

(2) STRONG CENTERS
- all the transformations help to achieve this fundamental goal, but we might achieve it somewhat directly

. . . i'm going to do this in a different format. slides, anyone?
Alright, I did it in google docs, but then I just copied and pasted it and reproduced the nice formatting in bbcode

Quote from: droqen on January 06, 2023, 12:07:35 AMBook one's fifteen properties reside in my mind, incredibly powerful conceptual tools. My all-overriding hope is that Book two presents such a functional taxonomy of properties of living processes by which I might judge mine.

He has delivered!

P. 65-66
. . . if under a structure-preserving transformation, new centers are being added that enliven or deepen the existing centers, this means that the fifteen properties must slowly come into being, step by step, with each new transformation. . . . the presence of the fifteen properties in a naturally evolving structure, will increase as the evolution goes forward, as a direct result of the repeated use of structure-preserving transformations.

P. 77, FIFTEEN TRANSFORMATIONS
Let us now consider the fifteen properties, not merely as results of the structure-preserving transformations, but as the names of particular types of structure-preserving transformations themselves. . . . for any given structure, this transformation may be thought of as injecting into it new centers which provide more beautifully articulated intermediate [instances of the property].
. . . In general, all the geometric properties identified in Book 1 are also associated with dynamic transformations which will inject these geometric properties into the system of centers of any emerging, growing whole.

These quotes match up with the way it feels to make things on a good day -- there is a genuine sensation of transformations which preserve what already is, and which strengthens what already is, and doing this feels in some cases effortless. I don't think the act is creationless or egoless -- something new often must be created -- but at the same time the thing that is created, fitted, placed, that new thing is often obvious. The obvious thing.

It is very hard to get started without "the wholeness that exists". The problem of the blank page, the blank canvas. In most or all of the work that I've actually finished (games, music, poems) there has been a distinct phase where the work proceeded "without effort". In a platformer, this phase is very often the level design. There is all this work to make the thing function, and then the laying out of levels is effortless. . . This probably isn't the same thing as what Alexander is describing exactly, but this is the experience I've had which relates to him best in this moment.

The worst part about making a videogame is building up new wholenesses from scratch every time.

I also enjoy this part.

P. 52
. . . from now on I shall refer to these types of transformations as structure-preserving transformations. My claim in Book 2 is that the intricate and beautiful structure of living centers comes about naturally, and most of the time without effort, as a result of the repeated application of structure-preserving transformations to the wholeness which exists.

P. 48
. . . living structure always arises slowly, by successive transformations of what exists, gradually, gradually, and then decisively changes slowly until a new thing is born. . .