i made a bleet asking people to share definitions of games. i may edit this opening post to be the summary.

[A -> B]

i like learning things about people. who do you think you are? what's going on in that head of yours? why?

i like to connect with people over things. even stupid, unimportant coincidences. i just like that spark of recognition.

i like to be mysterious and inscrutable, i like when i have to explain myself, i like how anytime i dig deeper i discover even more. i like not understanding myself. i like mysteries and what better way to appreciate them than to experience myself as one?

i like doing a creative task like ten times more than i need to do it, just to give myself the opportunity to choose my favourite--even if i know i'll probably end up choosing the first one.

i like falling asleep.

i like to discover new connections. i like when things finally make sense - that moment where chaos transforms or appears to transform into order. it isn't the real thing that i like (chaos into order) but my perception of it, that feeling, that sensation.

but i also like when i discover a feeling or sensation is pleasantly deep, is rooted in reality. i like when a sensation is not only a sensation but a detection of a deep truth. the thing that i like however is once again the sensation of rootedness, not the rootedness itself.

i like liking.

i like loving.

i like a moment of genuine focus, in my life. those times when all the stars align and i can bring each decisionmaking and analytical mental process to bear upon something with a conclusion.

i like to get obsessed.

i like when things end.

i like to investigate things that add up to a good life. learning new ways of looking at the world which i'll re-use to make some day a little brighter. a friend once suggested to me that art can expose us to new sensations which we might have never known we liked, otherwise. i like to learn things like that, but i can also appreciate the opportunity discover what i don't like the taste of. a sharp flavour can provide a powerful navigating principle.

i like when i can listen, remember, and utilize information.

p.s. i thought should i write another poem trying to get the same concept? not to get closer, just to show it another way. that felt powerful, seemed meaningful. i don't feel that about games but maybe someday i will. i like level design more than i like system design, but i think it's the plurality. i have a hard time believing in a system's ability to convey multiple perspectives. it's jammy. someone can have multiple perspectives of a system but that's on them, it's too second-degree for my liking or for me to be able to actually think about. (i want to make things, not make things that make things.)

ship in a bottle, no thanks

i will come back to this topic of poetry, of film via the mystery story genre, of games via angeline era.

i stopped being interested in gameplay because of its inability to communicate. lately i've wondered if i was really feeling this way? i'm not sure how to say that.

i became interested in art therapy because i thought my practice of game-making was like that, like self-art-therapy. my art therapist has a little table for doing art: paint, pencils, scissors and glue and magazines..

i finished Brick (2005) last night and it uas got me thinking a lot about story structure. well, i've also been reading and consuming a lot of mystery plots in the past months. they communicate ideas, they are a vessel for communication or conveyance. a number of those ideas have to be constructed in a certain way, to make the plot "go".

last night i wrote a poem straight into bluesky, something about 'thousand trees' and limbs and being an 'entire forest'.

i kept playing Angeline Era, and it continues to be clear to me that videogames are made, proportionally, of way  too many structural ideas, and those structural slots are too inexpressive for my liking, but things are beginning to click.

i hate that this is something i've had to discover, but better late than never.

writing poetry to convey certain ideas is an interesting short-form experiment in conveyance. the "king", the "tree", this idea of green arrows blossoming in pursuit of the star, i haven't captured it. the end of gameplay was an attempt to capture an idea. (an idea that was way too hot, but of similar inexplicableness and size: containing at least two completely exclusive interpretations.)

maybe these massive ideas, these elephant ideas which can only be understood in a small piece at a time, are not to be 'captured', and there is a better word for describing the process of striving over and over and failing.

but i like my artmaking coloured by a goal. how else do the arrow-missile-tree-branches know which way to go?

just to catch the facet of the moon we can see today, i guess.

droqen

happy birthday, droqen!

i went to starbucks today for my free drink (it's my birthday) and i was surprised to be met by such friendliness.

also i went to the bank to deposit seven dollars in small change and the person at the counter had a cool watch ring and cool nails--honestly i don't know how people deal with having nails but they were silver and black and one was like a little 3d silver sun with rays radiating on black... it was cool. anyway.

then i met someone who was selling an apple trackpad for cheap, we'd made a previous deal before and it went poorly because of some confusion, but we'd resolved it just fine. this time i think it went well, but i'll have to double-check and make sure it works.

anyway, i got this drink and chatted with the employees because i didn't know what to order and it was my birthday etc. and then my mom called me so i answered her, and altogether i just feel like i had this day of intrusive small nice social interactions. i had nothing planned for today.

yesterday i thought about creating small opportunities for people to do things that they want to do. agency. empowerment. not inside of a game-world, but real things for real people using real materials. time is a real material.

i just don't want to waste people's kindness for one another.

it remains saddening to me that game-making is so indirect. that i can't be like those starbucks employees as a game-maker, just being nice to people in the course of my work.