[transcribed from handwritten notes]

words fail.

any medium fails.

to love is to know and accept knowing.

to love any medium is to notice its flaws
 and not coddle its failures or to sweep
 them under the proverbial rug but to
 celebrate such ugly little things, to point
 them out & explore them in such love that
 only a true lover can do.

to love is to accept failure to the point
 of celebration.

to love is to try the impossible together,
 knowing the outcome, wanting it.

to love it[sic] to fail together.

as words fail us, so too do we fail them.

words fail;

we fail.

  games fail;

  players fail.

via ezra s
keywords - immersion, immersive, immersiveness, immersive sim, escapism?, engrossing, engrossed

I recently stopped reading Playing Software (Sicart) because of this statement:

QuoteWhat toys and video games do for software agency is eliminate or contain ambiguity. In a well-designed video game, we know what we have to do, and we are given tools to learn to see what the software will do to and with us.

It's important, however, for me to reflect on my strong negative reaction. What does Sicart's picture miss, or grossly misrepresent, that I care about in video games? He's not saying "video games are only about reducing ambiguity," but it is a straightforward claim that video games do reduce ambiguity. So it's not a question of whether video games are being too narrowly defined in terms of purpose, but that I am having a strong negative reaction to the idea that 'eliminating or containing ambiguity', in particular of our relationships to software, or in general of the thing with which we are playing, is part of the design of a video game, or in general of play-spaces or play-tools.

I'm here to ask myself: What's up with that?

A generative sequence is a linearly ordered series of patterns. Examples are given in The Timeless Way of Building, though that book does not yet name them 'generative sequences'. For a while I had called these 'pattern sentences' for lack of a better term. Generative sequence is better, or maybe just sequence, or pattern sequence... Well, in any case, the pivotal word is sequence.

I downloaded Genshin Impact and played it for a while, and its clone-like nature, its composition out of so many familiar parts - design patterns - is almost inspirational. But it's not inspirational, rather, it's more useful, functioning for my purposes.

Repetition reveals patterns.

Answers to various formulations of the question:

- Yes, might be the only reason I play games, mostly because I don't have time
- Second priority after just enjoying the game.
-- In some instances to get a feel for {the movement/level design possibilities in FPS genre}
- Played a lot of RTS games [in theme x and other themes] to understand how other games do similar concepts
- Deus Ex to understand how it structures everything, it holds up
- Systems, not mechanics
- Experiences, not mechanics
- I like small choices made by the dev, things that weren't necessary to construct it and make it function, but nice things that feel like something. charm; personal touch.
- absolutely yes
- medium includes interactivity, annoying when interactivity is not being used to express (x2 or more)
- learning a new system is fun (x2 or more)
- how someone might use mechanics in an interesting way [does this mean a new way?]
- "a fan of new mechanics and also old mechanics with other things going on to make them interesting" [does this mean old mechanics paired with new mechanics?]
- (sometimes) seeking out new experiences/mechanics/etc.

- searching for comfort, not novelty
- learning new systems/mechanics is hard and i enjoy doing the same thing over and over again
- 75% of my playing games is familiarity based - looking to relax, play with friends, have fun

- when choosing what to make, it's got to have an interesting new mechanic or hook
- "i don't find a game worth making unless it tries to do SOMETHING different"
- when i am making games i am trying to make things i haven't seen before [did not specify mechanics but in context i think it is mechanics]

Blizzard's Timothy Ford explains how Overwatch uses the Entity Component System (ECS) architecture to create a rich variety of layered gameplay.

Regarding Miguel Sicart's
"Playing Software"
as recommended by jwest via ~Paradise ~
following my 2nd read of Games : Agency as Art

Plain text of https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/whole-wheat-banana-nut-muffins/

2 cups (260g) whole wheat flour (spooned & leveled)
1/2 cup (43g) old-fashioned whole rolled oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 and 1/3 cups (306g) mashed banana (about 3 medium or 2 large ripe bananas)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup (70g) coconut oil, melted (or vegetable oil or melted butter)
1/3 cup (80ml) pure maple syrup*
1/3 cup (80ml) milk (any kind)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts (any kind—I use 120g walnuts)
optional: 3 Tablespoons oats and/or coconut sugar for sprinkling

(1) Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Spray a 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray or use cupcake liners.

(2) Whisk the flour, oats, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together in a large bowl until combined. Set aside. In a medium bowl or in the bowl of your stand mixer, mash the bananas. Then whisk in the eggs, oil, maple syrup, milk, and vanilla together until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stir a few times, then add the nuts. Fold everything together gently just until combined and no flour pockets remain.

(3) Spoon the batter into liners, filling them all the way to the top. Top with oats and a light sprinkle of coconut sugar, if desired. Bake for 5 minutes at 425 then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 15-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time these muffins take in the oven is about 20-21 minutes, give or take. (For mini muffins, bake 11-13 minutes at 350°F (177°C) the whole time.) Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.

(4) Muffins stay fresh covered at room temperature for a few days, then transfer to the fridge for up to 1 week.

One thousand blank white cards is a creative collaborative engine which I've experienced. It's fun, people like to play and make together

Started this project last week

Sick, so progress is slow, but getting back in the practice of noting pain points


Parent/child component complaint noted

I like change_query a lot, it's very cool

Since I don't have 3D modeling in my workflow, I 'had to' create hexes out of three cubes... actually, I've been doing a lot of mathematics for this hex thing

Ray casting isn't coming out of my camera the way that I expect and it's hard to debug. Is there a 'display raycasts' debug option...? Live would be ideal but that's not happening

How can I section off my code into neat modular pieces? The ECS is actually great for letting me think this way...

It's hard to access the camera from the client... oh, but I should use the debugger to see what components it has. That would help a lot. TODO

First: power of small games is not really a topic yet, it's not clear in my mind... I want to have a sharp angle about something I can actually talk about.

Barotrauma is a pseudo open source (?) Space Station 13-like game that's selling on Steam for $49.99 (cad). Lots of copies, too. As of this posting it has 33,689 reviews.

I think I need to master this so let's dive right into Ambient's UI system. I've been advised it's React-like in some way, and Windows Forms-like in some other way. I'll be using external tutorials as necessary but mainly trying to stick to the latest Ambient 'Book'.