[7:59] "We can collect some guilt. Great, okay, there's an infinite source of guilt somewhere on the internet."

[AB]

Quote. . something compact and potent that can be experienced and reexperienced at short notice and surrounded with time for reflection.

This is the description that sent me running for my newforum; in my (heavy!) skimming, I had missed this, though the language is also not what I would choose. I constructed TEOG to house things that had this shape comfortably (experience and reexperience the potency of these game poems freely, as you would with objects found in a book), and i was looking for some idea of "density" but I suppose here 'compact' and 'potent' will have to do. What I wanted more of, really, was a claim that the game poem is not wasteful. It does what is necessary (but necessary for what, is hard to say). Here even 'density' fails, and the author's words then fall even further from my target.

And the last bit resonates with emergence.

almost 2 years later -- i'm chanting "kill gameplay" (how reactive can you get?) and rereading Game Poems because i might have made a 'game poem' anthology and i really love it -- and i'm not sure whether my old take on this book might have changed. excited to find out!

Season 7, Episode 4 - "Plaything"

10:5x

QuoteWe have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings. Or else, what is the fucking point of the tools at our disposal?

The solution proposed, perhaps not by the artist in this situation but the perspective character--the games-writer and game-player--is that of creation and subservience to some alternative sentience, a supernatural rejection of the worst parts of humanity in pursuit of the better.

I really enjoyed this episode, but I think for most of it that positive experience was riding from the, to my mind, climactically resonant statement quoted above made by the fictional game developer. Hell, I'll write it out again:

'WE HAVE TO CREATE SOFTWARE THAT ELEVATES US, IMPROVES US AS HUMAN BEINGS. OR ELSE, WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE TOOLS AT OUR DISPOSAL?'

... yet, I recognize that my reaction to it is different from the message that I believe is being conveyed or intended to be conveyed here. The solution, as proposed and enacted by a videogame developer who is not portrayed to be anything less than a relatively mortal human touched by genius (and a bit mad, but that's par for the course, right?), is that we should create software that is better than us.

Black Mirror has moved so much into a futuristic depiction of simulacra, of alternate realities, of all-powerful hyperintelligences. My partner was commenting as we watched these episodes (the first five of six in season seven) that the writing and plots of Black Mirror has become more full of flawed human nature than flawed technology -- which is what the vast majority of stories are about, but it feels like... it's not what Black Mirror is about?

I'm kind of irritated by the anti-human sentiment that has only been growing inside of Black Mirror. It says... look at all the wonderful things that technology can do. What a shame that people are the ones using it. Stupid, greedy people. Hurt people. Dumb people who can't have a conversation. Great technology is the solution to humanity's idiocy and misery, except when people fuck it up.

No thanks? I don't want to aspire to make software that's better than me. How resigned do you have to be to subscribe to the idea that you're so limited that you have to write a machine to do something better than you instead of just learning to do it better yourself?

People can be better.

[AB]

i'll show you.

disbelieving powers
you know, you know
how to disbelieve
and who they are--
it's not that hard.

my dreams are godless
playless
a god dies without blood
my dreams are of keeping
my blood inside
my choice to bleed
my sanctuary

my dreams are never of killing gameplay
eviscerating a god with a pocketknife, no
violent intentions

any more or were they even born with it?
did no-one teach them to track the moon through the night sky?
when they were raised in their houses did the walls keep them too safe from wolves to know?

but everyone
i know, i know
they can't see the sunrise rising
though the sun is bright
and the cloud cover light
shining isn't in their nature

it's not that hard
you know, you know
how to be a person

metric: AVERAGE 6 MINUTE PLAY TIME IS GOOD, 10 IS AMAZING
-- let it guide your choices, but don't play the metric

what do i naturally gravitate towards.
10 goals
i think of tens. 1, 3, 10 -- what a nice progression that makes.
it ends at 10.

static but interacting.
i like objects that are static, but interacting. they shouldn't move around too much, but their position should hold great meaning.

a little guy.
you should control a little guy.
nothing feels better than controlling a little guy.
being a little living pixel creature in a little living pixel world.
the world: static, but interacting. a lot of LOOTBNDT's games (mockups?) look/feel that way.

static but interacting.

what is the arbitrary beauty... you should have a goal in sight. it's achievable but distant. 1, 3, 10. you can imagine getting there, but you can also imagine not getting there. ambiguity. that ambiguity.

when you press a button something immediately happens and it's meaningful, very meaningful.

that's movement. it doesn't have to be a jump button, but it does have to be a transformative button, a pregnant button, a button full of energy. you're not afraid to press the button but you're a little afraid to press the button. you don't want to press it all of the time but you also don't mind pressing it when the mood strikes.

you should always want to press the button but there should also be a reason to control yourself. press the button, but don't give in. the button is tantalizing.

~ backlinked from still life games, haiku games