droqen's forum-shaped notebook

where there is a tiger in the garden,
i see a single creature among the flowers prowling
all alive but all calm
the petals in the wind moving more than the cat.

roadwarden's still life scenes, next to text
la-mulana's still life rooms
slay the princess' rooms, scenes, tableaux
uurnog uurnlimited's save room...
starseed pilgrim's stillness when in the air. the blocks that grow, the time you spend just standing there, waiting. minimal action. strategy?
databug has no timer, no time pressure... it waits for you to act and then proceeds
geomoth. i'm not sure. something about the way the scene is set and made of blocks. something.
crossing flowers. the world goes on without you but in a non-destructive way. there is waiting, there is no waiting for the perfect timing.
tabletop roleplaying games are an enigma to me. you create a character. you wait between sessions... you see what unfolds... anticipation. storytelling. improvisation.
the quiet sleep has discrete rules, like starseed pilgrim, but with hidden implications. there is text. hmm. it tells a story... you interact with its parts.
kingdom of loathing... you have a limited number of actions, you take them, you take efficient actions (or try). limited resources with a cost.
in etrian odyssey you draw a map, you move turn by turn, measuring your steps. the combat is turn-based as well. there is a map that scrolls, but you control it, if you like. the scrolling is not smooth but tile-by-tile.
fire emblem and disgaea are both tactics-battle games. they are not like Into The Breach, where every turn is wildly different. the enemies move and do their thing. you know where they might end up -- and better yet it's usually pretty obvious where they will end up. there is chaos, but the chaos is tempered by almost boring spatial certainty.
secrets of asherah. an mmorpg, but divided into discrete scenes. i've always held a soft spot for it.
well of souls. well of souls, what a weird game. same as prev.

i am keeping an eye on these things but features that stand out, which i've rejected now and then, for one reason or another.

art style / screen composition: a lot of 2d games. fair number of games with text, but never a full screen of text. maps are common. there is a sub-theme of games with black or white abstract backgrounds; in my opinion these are the less attractive games although i have selected multiple. i have a preference for the games with strong theme or sense of place, and which feel 'alive', full of grass and plants and living people and things. calm, bright colours are nice. (fire emblem, etrian odyssey, starseed pilgrim.) my penchant for 'ugly' colours is not really very nice or appealing to me at all from this perspective. (databug, uurnog.)

rote tasks: drawing a map, exploring, number go up (well of souls, crossing flowers)

interesting decisions: choosing when to break out of a loop and move forward (disgaea, secrets of asherah, etrian odyssey), thinking about where a secret might be hidden (etrian odyssey, la-mulana), selecting a route or path (roadwarden, slay the princess, kingdom of loathing, etrian odyssey - i am noticing many of these route/path selections take the form of interacting with characters, possibly my own character development but USUALLY interacting with NPCs)

control schemes: clicking on things, moving a cursor around to select things (i.e. clicking but in a console/handheld context), moving around a little platformer character

actually there are a surprising number of click/touch control scheme games. out of 16 games, how well is each control scheme represented?

platformers or top down controlled characters - 7 games
selecting options from menus or using an on screen cursor to poke the world - 7 games

so they're about equally represented here, and yet in my own game dev practice platformers and top down controlled characters are much more well represented.

see also Slow-Paced Combat And Depth (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?msg=141)

I would like to take some time to consider the game arts curators kit (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=644.0) notes I took earlier this week.

It returns me to my recent letterclub, "fear (https://letterclub.games/2024/05/03/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?

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."

from gack (cont'd):

GOALS (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?msg=3172)

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.

AUDIENCE [INTERESTS]

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

- interest in specific games and genres

- broader view of culture
- cultural comparisons

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.

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...

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.

I ought give the system NO REGARD (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?msg=3235). 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.

emotion, vision. why still life games, why haiku games? right, because this is war.

"inhabiting someone else's unique artistic vision." i want that. it's rare for me to play a game that draws me in that way these days. how many experiences have i had that creak under the weight of their ssssystems? hm. i will read a bit of game poems again.

something that comes to mind for me, in the meantime, is the question of what is the nature of the container which holds games in it? i have been making websites... websites... these remind me of flash portals, once home to good small games. suppose i am tired of games bearing the brunt of having to support smaller things within them. what would it look like for a larger structure to support the smaller games within it? what is that structure? is it a website?

if there is a format that can buoy a hundred haiku games, let me make that form, whether it is a mainstream videogame, or a website, or a publication, or a patreon, or anything else. this is the battle. i'll start a new thread for this...

my god, is it nfts? surely not

STRUCTURE AND FORMAT.

I have a moment of focus. Let's use it. What structures have I found good? What structures have individual games used, what has caused them to tire me or to not tire me?

See the list of games from A NEW SET OF VERBS (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=647):

Quote- Roadwarden
- Slay the Princess
- La-Mulana
- Uurnog Uurnlimited
- Starseed Pilgrim
- Databug (droqever.com)
- GEOMOTH: Boot Sequence (unreleased)
- Crossing Flowers (droqen.itch.io)
- tabletop roleplaying games, esp. Grandline (one-off year-long campaign, unreleased)
- The Quiet Sleep
- Kingdom of Loathing
- Etrian Odyssey (series)
- Fire Emblem (series)
- Disgaea (series)
- Secrets of Asherah (decades old. defunct.)

Structure breakdown.

Roadwarden. Play through the game once. Many plot threads overlap, separated by distance. Some events happen very late in the game, unavoidably. They all occupy the same space in my memory. I played Roadwarden once and quite enjoyed myself across multiple sessions. I could not play it again. I regard this as a negative, to some degree; I cannot say whether I would enjoy it upon replay. (Similar issue with Fallout 3, and Disco Elysium.)

Slay the Princess. I can open this game up and play it again and still enjoy it, even experiencing nothing new. This is an unambiguous positive, I love it. The structure is a highly branching narrative. There is another deeper aspect that comes out after multiple replays; I think it is 'inaccessible' to me in the way late-game Roadwarden is inaccessible to me. Mixed feelings but I have experienced it more than once as a result of enjoying the replaying of the core branching game so very much and wanting to see more branches. Love. Games with similar structure: Save the Date (Paperdino); interestingly, Cobalt Core and other roguelites; however I will make a separate point (below); I do not generally play many games of this sort... ah, Detroit: Become Human. I enjoyed exploring the branches of that game as well but I would not play it again. Slay the Princess is quite unique in this respect. It is well-crafted and inexpensive, portable. Powerful, high emotions. It would wear on me still if I were to review the same branch a few times. Roguelites do not afford me the ability to  . . . I digress. See next point. Oh, The Stanley Parable fits here too! I loved that game.

BREAKOUT TOPIC: Roguelites - say: Spelunky, Cobalt Core, Noita, Into the Breach. Similar in structure to a branching story game-- however, as a player my ability to control which branch I end up on is significantly diminished. There are three factors to this diminishment;

1. The branches are less distinct. Rather than specific story branches, the 'branch' I end up on is in fact a collection of many different variables, such that control over 'which branch' as well as the difference between branches (these are related topics) are more complex and therefore I have, in practice, less agency. (There is an argument to be made that 'more variables' means I may have reduced agency but more 'power' in some sense as a result of being able to affect more things, however, I do not see it that way; this is the same argument made by proponents of AI, who suggest that democratizing creativity involves granting a person more 'power' rather than more specific personal expression. I could speak more on this at some point, I'll call it creative precision versus creative excellence.)

2. Switching branches requires replay to overcome randomness. Randomness is a defining feature of roguelites and roguelikes. Although I may always be able to choose certain branches or variables according to good play (see 3) or even from a menu (e.g. selecting a starting character, which I do so love), some branches/variables will always be subject to random results. In practice, randomness amounts to coming back for another pull at the slot machine, assuming that I have some particular desired result.

3. Switching branches requires me to perform a task well. I don't think I mind this. Actually, upon further inspection, this is no different a category than one finds in Slay the Princess or other branching narratives, it is only that in a branching narrative game the 'task' is usually 'knowing what leads to what' (a puzzle of sorts), while in a roguelite the 'task' generally involves more systemic gameplay; perhaps mastery over platformer combat, or manipulation of items, or understanding of problem-solving techniques.

Uurnog Uurnlimited. A straightforward metroidvania structure. What's my relationship to it? I suppose I have some enjoyment of 'sequence breaking' and UU is particularly 'breakable,' but I am not too interested as an individual in learning about a 'second language' in order to transform a metroidvania into an open world. I struggle with this too in Hollow Knight, for instance; it may be the case that I can reach "Area Z" in 10 minutes from "Area A" rather than running through the entire alphabet, but practically speaking this is secret knowledge not made available to me or even asked of me except opposite my own impatience. I would like a game to work with me, and this is not working with me.

Oh, how could I skip La-Mulana?

La-Mulana. A large world to explore. Also kind of a metroidvania... except it has something unique, a lot of the game-time is spent wandering around gathering information, rather than in-game items. Sequence breaks are not hidden non-core knowledge; the nature of the game is to find knowledge that allows one to progress past a 'knowledge obstacle'. In this sense La-Mulana is unlike a metroidvania. (Others have coined the term 'metroidbrainia'... I don't like it. I understand where it's coming from but I don't like it.) Similar games: None come to mind immediately.

Starseed Pilgrim. Cannot report on this well, but it may be similar to the above described La-Mulana structure. It was inspired by it. The player must undertake actions to access new branches, but perhaps ninety percent of the player's time is spent figuring out what those actions are and why, and only ten percent is spent performing said actions. Again, contrast with metroidvanias, where I would say the ratio is generally at best fifty-fifty. In an even more modern metroidvania, the ratio leans even further away from figuring things out.

* On FIGURING THINGS OUT. The thing that I like about a game where you must "figure things out," i.e. you spend a fair amount of time bumbling around being lost before settling on the thing you were actually supposed to do all along, is the ratio! A game that takes, say, nine hours the first time around, nearly inevitably, mathematically, takes much less time when played again. If the ratio of "figuring out what I'm supposed to do" to "doing it" is 9:1, then on an immediate second playthrough I can accomplish everything I have already accomplished in one-tenth the time. So long as my memory holds, which is another interesting topic that i will restrain myself from getting into -- 'how easy is the knowledge retained?' Not all knowledge is made equally memorable. (Consider rhyming poems. Mnemonics woven in to the knowledge.)

Databug. An arcade game, roguelite-lite. If I wish to re-experience a particular configuration of the game elements, I must spin the roulette wheel. It is fun and rewarding to do so, but... it is the same old structure which wastes my time or has the aesthetic of doing so. Similar games: Probability 0.

GEOMOTH: Boot Sequence. Unfinished.

Crossing Flowers. Unfinished, but worth commenting on... I think the ratio of 'knowledge' to 'execution,' in terms of time, is not high enough for me. Knowledge does not enable me to hop and skip through CF, there is a considerable amount of waiting. I still like CF as a game. Perhaps I need only tune the numbers differently; let me move on at $10 instead of 100. This notion of ratio is very powerful.

tabletop roleplaying games. Tabletop roleplaying games do not neatly fit into this paradigm of 'how to structure content' as, strictly speaking, ttrpgs are less about the content than they are about actively actually creating something with others. Additionally you only go through a ttrpg scenario once, without the option to replay, which is also incompatible with the nature of what videogames are.

The Quiet Sleep. There is a menu with unique scenarios. The scenarios themselves seem to have mildly different paths, but mostly I would say I had the feeling of learning 'the right way to do things'. Not quite the same, I'd like to bring up Rooftop Cop.

Rooftop Cop. I love love love love love this game, let me say that first. OK, so there are multiple playable scenarios, and you can pick them from a menu. There are five different scenarios. (Ha ha, scenarios. I will call them 'games' from now on. Five games.) Rooftop Cop's five games have only thematic links to one another... there is no real notion of ending. Why is it different from something like Slay the Princess, considering that when StP ends it 'only' has a thematic/narrative link to what has happened? It's a puzzle to me, perhaps part of why I love it so much.

Kingdom of Loathing. When I played it actively, it was very much a 'branching' thing, albeit a slow one. There was a goal, and achieving it and starting over was very fun, because I wanted to experience a new branch to the end. (Different character classes abound!) Actually, I may have lost touch with the game for other reasons (maybe?), but I distinctly remember when that loop (from start of life to end) got longer, I became less interested in the game.

Etrian Odyssey. Ostensibly a big long adventure quest type of game, I do always enjoy the start of an EO game more than going all the way to the end... I like the loop of developing a new type of character a lot. Partway through every EO game (that I'm aware of), you unlock a new character class and I felt a strong impulse to create a new character, despite them being very low-levelled; in a sense this allowed me to re-experience the beginning of the game... Hmm... character selection... I'm starting to notice some real patterns in game structure! Wowow! This is actually working? Crazy.

Fire Emblem.
Disgaea.
I have a very similar relationship to these games as to EO. I like starting them. I like messing around with new builds, even if it means I'm temporarily 'worse'; I've always thought of this as an "in spite of" type thing, but I am beginning to think that re-experiencing the climb from clueless to competent is a very integral part of the joy of "starting over different."

Secrets of Asherah. I never got to the point of starting over... not that I can remember anyway. I was never at the peak of the community, not even close. Other players were significantly more powerful and experienced than I was. I enjoyed learning.

STRUCTURE AND FORMAT CONCLUSIONS.

I like replaying games, especially parts of games that with knowledge I can shorten. A significant part of the time commitment should be learning to play; the act of actually playing should be sweet and enjoyable, not prolonged, but just the right length.

Returning to Rooftop Cop. Perhaps what I like about RC, structurally, is that I do not even have to play the games anymore. When opening each of its five chapters I would ask myself "What is going on here?" and then I came to a conclusion about what was going on there. Now, when I open up a game of Rooftop Cop, I think . . . ah, this is what is going on here, of course. And I can play it a little to feel what I already know, or I can close it right away, or not even open it again in the first place. I like this feeling too, but it's nicer to have something that I can repeat. A mantra, a habit. Something short, much shorter than the first time. I want to play the game again and get to the end and feel a completedness within myself.

Branching. Why branching? I think . . . it's an overlap of [enjoyable to play] and [has a lot of content]. It is what I wanted to figure out . . . How can I take a simple sweet singular game and add content without succumbing to other structural problems?

Player makes choices and entire different games result.

Now, I need to figure out... mnemonics... this is the role of narrative. It is what makes the choices and their consequences rhyme.

Q! DO I LIKE INFINITE ONGOING MEDIA? Webtoons, etc.

I keep up with Shonen Jump manga that I like, I kept up with Shimeji Simulation, and there are others to be certain. I do not speak of a "replayable game" in this case but a game which keeps coming, a game unspooling...

There are games that keep coming out with content, e.g. Candy Crush; these are not quite right... an unspooling game still must have a structure, a webcomic still has a structure.

Then, considering I have nearly settled on a structure, the question is : does such infinite unspooling suit that structure? Can it be made to do so?

I suppose the answer is clearly "no, not so much."

A webcomic is like a train. You wait at the station for it to arrive, on schedule. This is a wonderful experience, when the train arrives. Everyone cheers and celebrates... it is good. There are downsides. But anyway, this is its nature.

In the case of a branching game, say, Tamagotchi, where would you even wait? There would necessarily be many many unarrived trains, too many places to potentially wait. It would be a truly horrid experience, because of a serious misunderstanding of the design space.

So, regular updates and branching...

Ah, I am so tempted to make it work somehow anyway. Ahh. I have to think on it. What does a dead end look like, in an unspooling branching game? How can a secret branch end well, when it is unfinished, unrevealed, un-unspooled?

the zelda map idea . . . release conditions . . .

14 Minesweeper Variants 2 Demo

I stopped enjoying this because it got hard! But I also... you know, I still want to try the new variant, man! I don't like the feeling of having to play a game good in order to get my next interesting bit of game. I don't like that at all. I think I will continue to return to the droqever form, the Rooftop Cop form. It's... inevitable... and I'll have to figure out what to do with that.

What do I buy? What do I pay money for?

Here is the big one. I have been advised that I should try to be a personality or something like that. That seems like it's just asking for trouble. I ran a Patreon, and I think it was just not really... for me... that said I like when people praise my work, and I like when people connect with me. I suppose that the Patreon was part of that, it reflected back on that; I wanted people to support my work not me, the person, and I felt if I was not putting things out then I was not able to receive the kind of feedback that I wanted. I don't want to be rewarded for existing, I exist to create and I want to be rewarded for creating...

Hmm.

I so rarely support others on Patreon, I think because generally of this dynamic. In both directions, I want to give for things that affected me. How can I best do that? I'd like to hold on to that feeling. I want to give for things that affected me.

On top of that, I think that often the thing I want to give is a sensation, a feeling, a connection. I want an opportunity to not only be affected but to express just how I was affected... The [as yet undescribed] sticker sheet system makes a lot of sense through this lens. I wrote this post intending to let go of it, but it truly makes sense.

The primary problem with my line of thinking is that i am trying to solve the problem or question of structure before hand, as though it is a separate concern. However. There is no automatic or automated system which will produce structure as beautiful as a human artist's intentional performance. That is just the way it is.

Consider the three wide grid of Instagram. There are very good reasons for it to automate the organizational scheme and people do work within it to accomplish certain feats but if i am the one designing the structure then devising a system up front will always always produce a result lesser than the pinnacle of wh a t is possible.

Composition.

gallery game composition manifesto.

- DIVIDE THE PLAYER'S WHOLE EXPERIENCE INTO SMALLER EXPERIENCES

- THESE SMALLER EXPERIENCES ARE DISTINCT BEINGS, THEY DO NOT RUN TOGETHER INTO A GRADIENT OR A SMEAR; UNLESS THE GRADIENT IS ITSELF THE BEING, UNLESS THE SMEAR ITSELF IS THE BEING

- AN EXPERIENCE MUST HAVE A BEGINNING AND AN END

- THE OBJECT OF EACH EXPERIENCE IS AUTHORED BY ONE PERSON, CAPTURING ONE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

- THE PRIMARY TERRAIN THAT LIES BETWEEN EACH SUBJECT AND EACH SUCH EXPERIENCE IS PRIMARILY EXPERIENTIAL AND SUBJECTIVE IN NATURE; THAT IS, THE PLAYER TRAVERSES AN INTERNAL TERRAIN: THE OBJECT OF EXTERNAL TERRAIN IS SECONDARY AND ULTIMATELY SERVES SUCH PERSONAL SELF-TRAVERSAL.

~ linked from Abstract scavenger game needs an ending (https://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?msg=3447)

designs' specific accomplishments and failures? i wanted to fix something about big a little a, but im too sleep to remember what i thought even 1 minute ago apparently...

ah i remember. bala (big a little a) was created as an exercise in reproduction.... there was not a specific longing at its core and i think it was not as successful as 235 as a result. i just tried to make something with mosa lina vaguely in mind. but what did i WANT? what did i want? what did i want?


i did not want enough. with 235 i wanted something specific, something cutting. i wanted to be playing "make ten," but playing it was frustrating, i really wanted a tiny part of the experience of making ten.

what did i want from bala? nothing, and in so doing broke one of my haiku games manifesto rules:

Quote the development of a haiku game does not involve moments of discovery, except self-discovery; no prototypes or design decisions are to be made or even considered

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.