I spent too much time asking what could be different about 10 Beautiful Postcards.

Ian Bogost encourages worldfulness, in contrast to the idea that mindfulness is the solution to every problem. "By holding everything at a distance, we trap ourselves within our imperfect minds. Irony doesn't protect us; it only makes things worse."

[pingback: The Nature of Order // Book Two]

[pingback: Ugly Feelings (stuplimity)]

Maybe it's not the best idea to have a place to record and dwell upon my disagreements... I need to focus on arriving at a better place, and then communicating it clearly (for my future self, as well as to be a stronger communicator generally)

I can't put my finger on what I loved about it as a whole. There is a joy there. It bothers me that I can't describe it clearly.

It also bothers me that it doesn't work on my mac! Damn you, Apple! Damn you.

And yet... why hold 10 Beautiful Postcards to this weird standard? I can definitely see myself reacting with the un-useful negative attitude, of "Here's everything I didn't like about it". What did I love about 10 Beautiful Postcards?

- No collision

- Tiny funny storylines

- A weird living world of characters living out their lives. It really feels this way, even if it's only a world I can glide through and never be a part of.

- I love the character sprite a lot

- Invitations to play

- I ate all the paper clips and was called out for it

I've been accused of being a solipsist before. I don't mind the accusation.

I want 10 Beautiful Postcards (anything, really) to be more about me to me, than it is about itself. Fucked up if true. I want to experience my own emotional highs, to have my own story, to have my self reflected back at me...

None of this is really on 10 Beautiful Postcards but as is appropriate for the accusation, I'm making it all about myself. lol. Well, this is my 1-person forum, after all. What's it for if not this: me talking to myself about myself.

I think the form of 10BP interests me but the content is not interesting. I'm pretty choosy about content; really i just want to experience those emotional highs. Give me extremely novel peak emotions and I'll be happy. Ha ha ha. Yeah, like that's easy. But playing through 10BP has me thinking that I like an obvious strong clarity of purpose...

I don't know. I feel like there isn't a strong ending, no real beginning. what's the middle. maybe i like/care about plot more than i let on. but there are no systems, no...

okay, i don't need a plot, but perhaps plot is one thing that can compel me. but it is clear to me that my interest in the CONTENT of 10 Beautiful Postcards is quite low. nothing really clings together to tell me anything clearly that i love. but the FORM is highly interesting.

what does that mean? i duno

I only took a few screenshots

10 Beautiful Postcards is a place, a zone of wandering. I suppose that it is easy to describe it as a "walking simulator". Where did I walk, what did I feel?

I felt lost most of the time, moving from emotional curiousity to curiousity. I came across mice playing instruments and there was another mouse the next area over who was sad. I am a casual tourist, gliding from point to point; the simple mechanics and low investment mean that I am not... well... invested. I know that I cannot change the mouse's fate, and I know that the mouse's fate will never change on its own, and I know that the mouse cannot affect me. It is a simple tableau. I can remember the mouse fondly but there is little reason to visit the mouse again, unless I have forgotten what it said.

I played 10 Beautiful Postcards because I wanted to see what it did with text. There are some simple techniques at work here that I could learn from:

- moving over things causes triggers
- text always appears all at once (no marching text)
- text often sticks around once triggered
- sometimes text is already visible
- sometimes untriggering a zone will make the corresponding text disappear

Movement in 10 Beautiful Postcards is an intangible affair for the most part, though your body is an important driver of the camera and toucher of trigger volumes. Characters do sometimes react as if you are a creature in the world, interacting with them or being noticed by them. Sometimes it's just a matter of 'overhearing' something, rather than interacting or being noticed.

The camera does not follow you in a tight or reliable sense. It is very possible to walk entirely off-camera for a time.

QuoteAshbury himself can't articulate what they are about. They are the ideas in their purest form, presented in words as best as he could manage. They are their own explanation.

link

This is in that space of "truths that maybe can't be turned into bricks". To say that something is an idea in its purest form is, of course, metaphor. I am tempted to break down the metaphor here, and describe what its constituent parts are. But a dissected frog dies, and metaphors are tools for the brain...

What's to be done?

In MMORPGs, text and reading is one window of many. Chatting with friends happens alongside the action, not in its own game-locking mode. Dark Souls has a similar feeling: the game isn't waiting for me to finish reading; it's up to me to find a time to read when it's comfortable for me.

Hmm.

I could characterize this as "indifference" but I'd rather not.

Perhaps I can simplify. Creating a dichotomy of good and evil... I don't want to do that. Show me where I'm going, not what I'm running from.

Aliveplay is now Lifeplay, as in life-play (see jack's Recognizing Play), as in the act of playing with life. Living beings. Where possible, I want to fall in love with - or dislike - the life in something, the human desire and activity reflected in it.

Recontextualized in this manner, a big-budget, big-team game contains people driven by more sorts of things. But even acting in pursuit of money is quite fascinating as far as human pursuits goes.

The life-player can see that there is no such thing as a Deadgame.

I will post more in "aliveplay", but i appreciate the focus of this piece on human concerns

This is a way of looking at games through the lens of "what is randomness?"

I can relate to it, but where do we go from here? What use is it to stratify paths to victory into these three categories? For the most part, I abandoned thinking about this when I stopped worrying so much about winning individual games. Hmm.