i think the premise should be really simple. you make something with its interactiveness in mind, without using coins or walls, with an eye on enshrining the player's natural capacity to act upon the world as sacred.

I'D LIKE TO HIDE
 WOULDDN'T IT BE SWELL LIKE WAVES DO
  LIKE PHYSICS AND WATER_TENSION AND THE MOON
   AND THE SUN, AND THE SUN, AND THE SUN, AND THE SUN, AND THE SUN
YOU CAN'T LOOK AT ME DIRECTLY I'm BRIGHT TOO

EASY TO BE HONEST
 WHEN YOUR OUTLINE BLINDS
  AND GIVING DIRECT LOOKS
   KILLS.

in my small world the sun shines.

i'm after the end of gameplay
   now and then what is it that i am?

who killed me?

i don't know
that weapon i made
not dull but sharp
i cut my ties
gameplay defining
who am i?

"but it's my gameplay's knife too,
and we too have graves,
and we need our weapons,
and we're responsible too,
and who are you, killer,
   to kill our gameplay?
   who dares?
   who kills?
   who are you?"

it's not there, i swear
i sent gameplay's knife
i buried its blade in my grave.
and when i die i'll die clutching
its hilt in my hands, i swear.

but the thing that i'm feeling most cleanly
is that murder's a bloody affair
   is that killing and closing
   my eyes to the bleeding
leaves the shooting and eating to those holding weapons
   as if equipment's distribution
   went through nothing unfair.

i'm after the end of gameplay
i'm singing the praises of death
   as though when it goes
   as if everyone knows
that love is that all we'll have left.

I think my focus will be on constructing little worlds to visit. Movement mechanics, scene switching, various audiovisual effects, and... yes, probably how to pace a world, how to think about a player's journey through it or within it, but no focus on other game mechanic like things.

Worlds don't have to be open, they can be linear, but... well, I guess I'll need to define it a bit better.

Planning a Godot workshop for later this summer. It will be online.

I decided yesterday that I was going to make & release a video for the full moon... so... here I am. I'm not sure on what, but I think I've got a lot of thoughts bottled up that I've been letting leak out into bluesky in a way I'm not happy with.

I'm writing the guide to a single card every day. I will be finished sometime in late September, although I'll still need to write supporting text (spreads, intro, etc).

Jul 5 - Sept 23-ish

when thinking, what do i get out of this project/collaboration? i drew the six of coins, which reflects how i felt. i didn't like this feeling -- i want to be a magician working with magicians, parallel creatives. whatever the project is or was, it felt more like a give and take... 'charity'. i don't know what card could capture that dynamic better.

anyway, the project is over. the friendship isn't (necessarily).

x

this has been droqen's close reading of Art & Fear. if i could summarize the book, allow me to corrupt its title and each of its chapter names out of frustration.


title: Art [is something we want to make, but we have] Fear [of not being a Great, like Mozart]

chapter 1: The Nature of the Problem [is: we have the desire to become Great too, but wanting to be Great doesn't result in Great work]

chapter 2: Art [is hard to make] & Fear [is a force that compels quitting, which is a shame, because for some reason we really want to make art, but we're not going to really get into that right now]

chapter 3: Fears About Yourself [for instance, you aren't Mozart]

chapter 4: Fears About Others [for instance, they might not like you as much as they like Mozart]

chapter 5: Finding Your Work [hint: it probably isn't Mozart]

alright that's it, it's out of my system lol. apologies to the authors. thank you for the book, for laying your fears bare, for sharing your wisdom and experience and experiences.

love, droqen