QuoteTHIS IS NOT GAME MAKER'S TOOLKIT.

alright, on with it.

a brief aside. my mom sent me an hour long video by someone talking about personal finance because, i think, she worries about me and my personal finances. haha. anyway, the speaker seemed like not a total scam artist and so i said cool and asked, has he written anything?

she said no. "he prefers to speak," she said, to which i responded, "darn. i prefer to read."

...

i watched Pixel a Day's video 'Starseed Pilgrim and The Void' a while back and really enjoyed it, for reasons that i tried to tell myself were not wholly fueled by ego. here is another video that i think is along the same vein, and i was about to watch it, when what do you know -- i stumbled upon a transcript! an official transcript.

a transcript of a video is not the same as a nice chunky tome or even an essay and i understand that by reading a transcript i am not receiving the full effect of the video. i am missing things, for sure. but as i said to my mom.

i prefer to read.

thanks, kat, for publishing the transcript. i appreciate it.

I ought give the system NO REGARD. It was loose supporting structure that I tried to fill rather than... well, rather than what? Make an interaction with your generals without a hard system to back it up? That doesn't sound so bad. I should have simply designed the bridge without the war.

Lack of movement, freedom of movement... being a tourist. Every room, or every haiku, full of further secrets, nested. My unreleased "golden grape" game has a beginning and an end. I'd like to do away with that...

What I mean is that my impulse, developing it further, is to put something in between the player and reaching the end. Subversions, diversions, distractions, all. I can't tell how I feel about the trees. But I feel something about them. I think: I could add another system. The roots, you could attack the roots to kill the trees on the surface.

Maybe my negative present emotion is not at all about the trees but about the second game I made, the attempt to build an ultimately RTS-like system. I don't know any of the implications of this system. I wish I had a name for this bad feeling. Designing a system doesn't feel bad all the time, but there's something about this one that does. There's no input, no play.

hmm. a thought i return to time & again.

being noticeably against something is less interesting to me than giving it no regard, leaving it be.

to think of the self as one of these things, in a work. to find the center between caring and uncaring...

character stories. i wanted to know... what happens to the characters? cave story, etrian odyssey, slay the princess, kingdom of loathing, fire emblem, disgaea; these all have characters of a sort. grimgar, the black company, .hack//sign, about time, these are all human stories about people's struggles with situations. the stakes are human.

a haiku... i think of a haiku as written by someone... there is a character there, i think. the speaker is a character. it does not feel quite so with a game, especially one where the design has taken over. there is no speaker, there is no speaker. the speaker recedes. the speaker becomes invisible. the speaker dies.

AUDIENCE [INTERESTS]

- educational workshops
- skill-building events
- networking opportunities
- worker rights

- interest in specific games and genres

- broader view of culture
- cultural comparisons

from gack (cont'd):

GOALS

Looking at goals from a new perspective; initially I wrote that these are all "internal. Self-serving." but now. i guess i see it differently... these are useful to understand. reflecting.

"gain recognition for games underrepresented"
---> shorter games with less action - not sure if they are underrepresented - what is the external social value of this? consider the social value of emersion, emersiveness... games for people... who want games to remain part of their lives, but can't or don't want to engage with really large monolithic games?

"provide visibility for cultural and social groups marginalized"
---> do i do this? i try to strip away identity into abstraction. what would it mean to make games that bare more culture and social context? ... a question for later.

"provide audiences with methods of engaging critically with games"
---> throw the games you don't like in the recycle bin :) yes this is interesting. critical by default. you can share individual play-systems, individual moments. i like this, i don't like this. the parts can be detangled. neatness that appeals to me. what's the external value? shareable. i mentioned sharing above, too. i thought about it w/r/t 31 unmarked games, too. bite-sized games can be individually criticized, can be individually shared, etc. that's interesting to me. they won't be eroded and disappear in patch notes...

"celebrate videogame subcultures"
"recognize, expand, and celebrate gaming skills and expertise"
---> hmm.

"[share] videogames as critical cultural phenomena"
---> the games themselves as critical? a problem for later. this relies on the content of the videogames.

from gack:

VENUES (ONLINE)
- consider what you have to gain from the online experience
- choose the software or tool based on your audience and the experience you want to create
--- what is my audience?
--- what is the experience i want to create?
--- (and, consider my choice of software/tool/platform...)
- ludic experience: playful, dynamic ways of approaching the game experience... "field trips to online games with a specific goal (scavenger hunts), virtual performances, ludic gatherings playgroups[..]"

ONLINE
- audience can go beyond regional boundaries, wide reach, low costs
- analysis or critique of online-adjacent themes
- don't expecting anyone to be in front of a screen 24 hours a day; digital events can provide set times for interaction; mix sync and async activities

TEAMS
- know why you want help - specific labour and skills? excitement, diverse skills, and community growth? "What do you need help with?"

EXPECTATIONS
- "Only do work that matches our shared vision and goals" (attempting to define vision/goals)
- "Celebrate all work"
- "Say no to growth when we are low on energy or time."

It returns me to my recent letterclub, "fear":

Quotewhat does it mean to seek out a haiku game?
what does it mean to be satisfied by a haiku game?
what does it mean to wait for a new haiku game?
what does it mean to remember a haiku game?
what does it mean to share a haiku game?

I would like to take some time to consider the game arts curators kit notes I took earlier this week.

I am making games that will work equally well on mobile as on desktop; touch and mouse controls, though I might include keyboard shortcuts on desktop. This feels right: a timeless control scheme.

I'll publish games on the web. Self-hosted, not on itch.io -- I want direct control over the presentation environment, as well as the possibility of passing data between one game and another, or with an individual's persistent data. An 'account.'

I don't like touch or mouse controlled platformers. The platformer is... gone? Wild. Hmm. I won't go into too much more detail here, since it's ongoing and this new forum (Things That Have Happened) is meant to be reflective, not prescriptive or predictive.

Please see my current active project: