So, Magnuson explains that these lenses are incomplete, but does say that he has also found them "helpful and relevant in thinking about my own work". Then goes into these features of poetry, specifically lyric poetry, which I infer he is claiming better "[capture] how I most often think about my games, or similar games by other creators"

Note that the list below is as minimal as possible, I have taken exact wording but excluded such qualifiers as 'generally' and 'often'. Understand that the following list has been so threshed. Lyric poems...

Quote- are . . . short
- are . . . intimate and personal
- express or explore complex emotions
- explore meaning in the moments and in the loose ends of life that don't necessarily have a nice narrative arc
- attempt to slow the reader down, give pause, prompt reflection

Quote. . . this list . . . provides an opening for considering [certain] games as artifacts that are not defined strictly (or primarily) by narrative, or by rhetoric, or by gameplay--or even by interaction or computation.

These are all formal, structural definitions and readings; I must say that the obvious direction that I see Magnuson not going in is defining these artifacts by the list that is given. The effect, the emotional intention, the shape of the creator's relationship to the work.

Quote. . . if the games I make are not traditional games, then what are they? How should I talk about my work in light of existing forms, frameworks, and traditions?

Magnuson explores the categorizations available; "videogames" as a subcategory of "games" which he finds, and I find similarly, "limiting." (He also says, "useful.")

Quote. . . neither [the existing 'narrative' perspective nor the 'gameplay' one] seems completely satisfactory when it comes to identifying why the games "work"

He takes perspectives on his own game Loneliness as examples:

QuoteStudied as a traditional game, Loneliness is not particularly interesting. . .
it lacks any attempt at "fun balanced gameplay". . .
those simple rules and mechanics it does have aren't very exciting and innovative. . . .
Speaking as Loneliness' creator, I was aware of (and intentional about) making something that could be positioned at the outer edges of videogames as a medium . . . but was never really attempting to make a "good" game in the process.

Quote. . . [narrative-focused analysis, too,] leaves room for additional insight. . . .
the game is so. . . sparse on anything that might be considered plot or character development.
We can say that there are a few (only slightly different) miniature plot arcs embedded in the game--but are they interesting plot arcs?
[Do I] find the story being told . . . worth conveying to others[?]
And again. . . I was never attempting to tell a good "story" . . .

[32-something?]
EZRA - "I'm . . . not really satisfied with being able to do something unless i can reproduce it"

I realized listening to Ezra say this that usually what I really want is to do something such that I never want to do it again. Like, there is that step - how do I make this reproducible. But then the next step is how do I use that reproduction, that ability to reproduce, in order to arrive at the most perfect, most developed form of the thing that I've learned how to reproduce? It's very destructive, very The Tower-coded. To (ideally) create a skill, to learn it to the point where I never want to do it again, and to do it one last time. A long way to say goodbye.

[47:54]
EZRA - "IN a lot of roguelikes what you are responding to is the environment . . .
In Dorfromantic . . . you're [usually] creating lots of future problems for yourself . . .
players generate their own complexity in the game, or their own variation . . .

you keep responding to yourself"

Reminds me of some things that Starseed Pilgrim was doing, in those early days. I thought it was very interesting how you were creating the very landscape you were reacting to. I understand the comparisons that people made to Tetris.

This is, or could be, like a full-time job. Contacting press, posting about the thing, etc etc etc. It's really fun, actually -- who can I or should I talk to or tell about the thing? How can I or should I talk about the thing? It's like a beautiful fleshy puzzle made of people's brains.

[7:59] "We can collect some guilt. Great, okay, there's an infinite source of guilt somewhere on the internet."

[AB]

Quote. . something compact and potent that can be experienced and reexperienced at short notice and surrounded with time for reflection.

This is the description that sent me running for my newforum; in my (heavy!) skimming, I had missed this, though the language is also not what I would choose. I constructed TEOG to house things that had this shape comfortably (experience and reexperience the potency of these game poems freely, as you would with objects found in a book), and i was looking for some idea of "density" but I suppose here 'compact' and 'potent' will have to do. What I wanted more of, really, was a claim that the game poem is not wasteful. It does what is necessary (but necessary for what, is hard to say). Here even 'density' fails, and the author's words then fall even further from my target.

And the last bit resonates with emergence.

almost 2 years later -- i'm chanting "kill gameplay" (how reactive can you get?) and rereading Game Poems because i might have made a 'game poem' anthology and i really love it -- and i'm not sure whether my old take on this book might have changed. excited to find out!

Season 7, Episode 4 - "Plaything"

10:5x

QuoteWe have to create software that elevates us, improves us as human beings. Or else, what is the fucking point of the tools at our disposal?

The solution proposed, perhaps not by the artist in this situation but the perspective character--the games-writer and game-player--is that of creation and subservience to some alternative sentience, a supernatural rejection of the worst parts of humanity in pursuit of the better.

I really enjoyed this episode, but I think for most of it that positive experience was riding from the, to my mind, climactically resonant statement quoted above made by the fictional game developer. Hell, I'll write it out again:

'WE HAVE TO CREATE SOFTWARE THAT ELEVATES US, IMPROVES US AS HUMAN BEINGS. OR ELSE, WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE TOOLS AT OUR DISPOSAL?'

... yet, I recognize that my reaction to it is different from the message that I believe is being conveyed or intended to be conveyed here. The solution, as proposed and enacted by a videogame developer who is not portrayed to be anything less than a relatively mortal human touched by genius (and a bit mad, but that's par for the course, right?), is that we should create software that is better than us.

Black Mirror has moved so much into a futuristic depiction of simulacra, of alternate realities, of all-powerful hyperintelligences. My partner was commenting as we watched these episodes (the first five of six in season seven) that the writing and plots of Black Mirror has become more full of flawed human nature than flawed technology -- which is what the vast majority of stories are about, but it feels like... it's not what Black Mirror is about?

I'm kind of irritated by the anti-human sentiment that has only been growing inside of Black Mirror. It says... look at all the wonderful things that technology can do. What a shame that people are the ones using it. Stupid, greedy people. Hurt people. Dumb people who can't have a conversation. Great technology is the solution to humanity's idiocy and misery, except when people fuck it up.

No thanks? I don't want to aspire to make software that's better than me. How resigned do you have to be to subscribe to the idea that you're so limited that you have to write a machine to do something better than you instead of just learning to do it better yourself?

People can be better.