P. 325

During the 20th century, our ideas about repetition and uniqueness were distorted. . .

First, by a conviction that it was inevitable that a modern industrial process could only make exact replicas, if it was to be efficient, via mass-production. . . . it was an aesthetic idea, a philosophical ideal, an intellectual extension of the ideas of mechanism [and the 20th century mechanistic view].

Second, our concept of repetition was distorted by a conviction about atoms and fundamental particles, which seemed to provide a basis for thinking that the world is, in its essence, modular. . . . At one time physicists believed that atoms --- then thought to be the ultimate constituents of matter --- were the modular units from which everything was made. Later it was thought that electrons, neutrons, protons were the identical modular units . . . Later still, quarks and strings . . .

P. 325 - 326

. . . the intellectual bias of the century was often mixed with the philosophical (and practical) dream of a small number of components which could be combined in infinite richness of arrangement to create beautiful things. . . . [but if] wholeness as it is expressed in Book 1 turns out to be correct, and if the unfolding of wholeness described in this book turns out to be fundamental, then one must come to expect that each atom and each particle will be different according to its context, and that there are no ultimate identical constituents of matter at any scale.

I stopped reading for a few days, troubled. How do I feel about uniqueness? I like it of course, but how does it come to terms with this passage from my recent letterclub post?

"Modern values suggest common feelings are not that important, and rather it is individuality that has an overriding importance. "It's not for everyone." "There's no accounting for taste." "Your difference is what makes you beautiful." And so on. // I point this out because this [common] feeling of life cannot be fully understood without first acknowledging that underlying feeling which it contradicts."

The more I read over this though the more I understand that it is not in conflict... still I'm left a bit unsettled. Did I really sound so anti-uniqueness? It's not that I don't value, or that I undervalue, the unique... but that I value the common, too. The ayy lmao between 🌀 uniqueness is worthless, and 🐉 everyone is unique in every way or else

I started reading this book on the subway, and took notes on my phone.
Here are my notes.

Quote"[In 2005 the idea was brewing that game design should be about] experiences, such that the starting point for any game project was not technology or genre, but the experience a player was meant to have."(78)
A dichotomy is presumed: the starting point is 'technology or genre' or 'experience', not both. However, genre is plainly rooted in experience, and (in video games) experience is rooted in technology.
Speaking more generally, feeling (which I substitute for experience) is rooted in that felt artifact, which must be understood in the context of its creative process (that is, the process which resulted in its creation).
Therefore the idea as described removed focus from process, in favour of focus on some particular result, and furthermore implied or was based on, and by virtue strengthened, the foundational assumption that any return to focus on process was not game design, ergo not valuable to the game designer.

"Casual games, as I prefer to define them, are games . . . that appeal to a broad audience and are easy to start playing. . . . they provide flexibility, allowing players to decide . . . what length of game sessions. . . . a casual game is designed to fit into the player's life." (84) ". . . some of the core tenets of casual and independent games were completely opposed: if independent games were meant to express the developer's personality, then casual games were meant to be products made to please the audience, often belonging to a different demographic than the developers." (86)

Note to self: Choose festivals based on the people you want to see. This much should be obvious, but it's not been... Think about what type of player you want to meet, and select a festival that... is for those players? What's to be done if that doesn't exist? Think about the long game of each festival: what do they aspire to 5 years out? Can I be a part of that? Improv on the scale of decades. Play along.

Wow, p150-156 is all about Authentically Opaque games and is critical of them! I disagree with Juul's opinions, and agree with Blow's and Anthropy's. Juul concludes with "Perhaps the sign in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not a problem." (156) but from whence does this argument rise? He says opaqueness can "[lead] to interesting new games, without being true as a universal claim about video game design" but universal claims are all I'm interested in. Patterns, dawg.

But what purpose does opacity serve?

"Perhaps . . . authenticity also can be an oppressive way to think about games or culture. . . . ideas of authenticity help us think of new games to make and to consider that more people should make games, but . . . has the potential of shutting down innovation and change as well, of narrowing the range of games that can be made or played."(186)

I cut away a few elements of Juul's tone to help me understand the heart of the statement; these were "Perhaps the truth is that authenticity..." and "if misused, [authenticity] has the potential of [negative effects]."

These belie Juul's own bias... he too wants to find the truth... and he has an idea of what is use and what is misuse. I wish that he would make these claims outright, but I suppose this is not that kind of book, as explicitly seen in the following quote,

"I have throughout tried to avoid absolute is questions: Is this game independent? Is this game authentic? It can be better to ask as questions: How is this game understood as independent, as authentic?"(180)

Noncommittal. Use better words to which you can commit, then.

My conclusion for now is that I think I understand Braid a lot better than I once did, and though I don't think it should have been developed or designed differently, it has not changed my mind in the slightest about how games relate to deep meaning. Braid has many puzzles which seem like a smokescreen to what really matters --- a way of keeping people at a distance. It perhaps speaks about this tendency and its consequences, but succumbs to the tendency and its consequences, too.

Of course, I am biased here. I don't like solving puzzles, and the more I do it, the less I like it. Games tend to get harder and harder, for whatever reason; I like the puzzles that serve to show me one crystal-clear concept in a satisfying way, but the puzzles in Braid actually get worse by this metric as they often do in puzzle games. They show me muddier and muddier concept-heaps that are increasingly ugly and convoluted and unnecessary. It is truly unfortunate.

In my opinion, games should get easier and easier as you go along. What else is the point of gaining familiarity, skill, and comfort in them? They should get easier and more satisfying, not harder and less satisfying.

Braid explores some interesting concepts and the gameplay does serve those concepts to a point, to a degree. I won't summarize the concepts here, now, but I might come back to this idea later.

The end.

Epilogue.

Tim is searching for the Princess -- for something -- through science, questionable science. "I am here // I am here. I want to touch you. Look at me!" says the something for which Tim searches. "But he would not see her; he only knew how to look at the outsides of things."

(What is with the empty green books, by the way? They are empty now. It is the red books that show text. Do they only appear under certain conditions? Do some players see only empty green books instead?)

Then comes the book that suggests Tim finally has found the Princess, and that she is the atomic bomb, only it never says she found her. It says "Through these clues he would find the Princess, see her face" and then proceeds to describe the bomb. There is a larger idea here, a larger concept... Tim's pursuit lead him here. Where else would it lead him? For what was he searching?

"She couldn't understand why he chose so flirt so closely with the death of the world."

Now his desire is framed differently, as childish rather than scientific. 'She held him back with great strength' from breaking the glass to get at the candy behind it, at the candy store. She speaks down to him, perhaps he is just a child, she says "Maybe when you're older" as he shrieks and whatnot at what is behind the glass:

- the chocolate bar
- the magnetic monopole
- the It-From-Bit
- the Ethical Calculus
- so many other things, deeper inside

knowledge, technology, secrets.

The green books are back, we are grounded again. The icons of the levels in the game are moments-as-stones, they form a castle. They have been put together into the shape of a castle. Ah, and there is that cloud, off the edge of the castle, where you can stand.

I remember this part fondly! It was a great conclusion, a great reveal.
Very easy to take this on surface reading-- the Princess is actually a person, and not some concept... You know, the easy reveal is that Tim is the bad guy, that you've been this bad guy all along, stalking/harassing someone who wants to be left alone. Conclusion, done.

But that's not really what's going on here at all, this is noticeably not some good-to-evil bait & switch, although it wears the trappings of it. The gameplay and visuals are misleading, even intentionally so?

World 1.

Going backwards, backwards...

Book 1.

What is the Princess? What would it mean to find it? He wants to find it, finds hints of where it is (to the North, rather than the South) in "the gloss of the lips on the screen", in "measuring the angle of the plume of a distant helicopter crash" (not on the screen?)

Finding, knowing, the Princess would reveal something momentous, but the 'light' of such a discovery would "flicker down to nothing, taking the castle with it; it would be like burning down the place we've always called home, where we played so innocently as children. Destroying all hope of safety, forever."

Whatever the Princess is, the 'other residents of the city' do not want to find her. She is some secret knowledge... If Tim, or perhaps anyone, were to find her, it would
- be bright and illuminating
- become dark
- take 'the castle' with it, also into darkness
- not make dark but burn down "the place we've always called home, where we played so innocently as children" (what does it mean to burn something down?)
- destroy all hope of safety forever

I don't think I can see anymore without completing all of the puzzles, and I don't see the need when longplays exist... I'm going to go see the rest of the game now.

I have thoughts about the way a game can hide itself, though. It was easier to release poetry in Starseed Pilgrim knowing --- wrongly --- that only a small number of people would read it. Maybe it is a way of dealing with fear without dealing with it. To demand others put the work in before you share with them the inside.

The Princess must be in another castle.
I've never met her...
Are you sure she exists?

World 6.

In this world . . . I have lost some measure of faith in the design of these puzzles . . . not that I don't think they're interesting, but I've lost faith in the rewind power, the ability to control time to solve puzzles. They have been getting more and more elaborate: I am not interested in that. In some way this is terribly appropriate. In Book 2 -- World 2 -- we were naive, we thought controlling time could solve all our problems easily. Now we see that the problems become more complicated in order to meet our ability. By World 6, controlling time is no longer a power but a burden.

The ring. What is the ring? I might say that the ring is another power. When Tim took it out . . . it made for more complicated puzzles. Harder problems.

I preferred the game when the ring was hidden away.

The levels, the puzzles, saw the ring and now I must "[trace] a soft path through their defenses. But this exhausts [me], and it only works to a limited degree. It doesn't get [me] what I need[.]"

Book 6. Hesitance

What is the ring? He hides it away because it complicates interactions. People hesitate when they see it. He prefers that people not hesitate. On the surface, this seems like it suggests infidelity. But what is the ring?

World 5. Many puzzles. The music here is more solemn, and I often succeed by abandoning my past self. Or, really, my parallel self. As Shadow Tim, I do something which must be done in another timeline in order to help Foreground Tim in his timeline. Decisions.

Book 5. Time and decision. Books in opening.

There are only two books here. It is a brief book. Tim leaves her to find the Princess. Who is she? Here 'she' and 'the Princess' are (finally?) decoupled. 'She' is a passive thing here, resigned to love him anyway, even though she was being left, abandoned.