Loving writers, as I would love a thoughtful player

[droqen]

I like signs of human activity.

In Haven & Hearth I loved just walking around the land & seeing the farmsteads that people had built. I could not interact with them because doing so was a crime and I had not spent my learning points on the ability to commit crimes, but it was not about interaction anyway--it was about seeing the consequences of interaction, the footprints of play. I knew the world was lived in.

Although it once irritated me, now I love walking around cities & seeing the things that I do not, and may perhaps never, have cause to interact with. Maybe it's age and experience, maybe it's just a new perspective; regardless it's enough for me, to imagine with confidence that there is a fascinating way in which these things are used by real people. With experience seeing the guts of how urban spaces function comes the ability to imagine how urban spaces function comes the ability to trust that urban spaces function and are not just constructed absurdities.

.

"Who's your favourite games writer?" I asked on Twitter. Here is a list of the responses, simplified for my browsing pleasure.

• Raph Koster (@raphkoster), "especially the social aspects of trust and ownership that lots of people talking about online worlds don't address" -- @Tegiminis
• Holly Green (@winnersusedrugs), "being a game journalist (or, in a broader view, developer/player) struggling to deal with the contradictions of a toxic industry" -- @Tegiminis
• Jimmy Maher https://filfre.net -- @jseakle
• Sin Vega (@withoutaplain)'s review of Eliza -- @internisus
• David Wolinsky (Don't Die - An interview series about [humans in games]) -- @Beetlenaut
• Rob (Punching Robots) -- @FarbsMcFarbs
• myfriendpokey (https://myfriendpokey.tumblr.com/) -- @AndJamCol

[droqen]

One person is more beautiful than all of games.

But we design games to be accessible: one person is beautiful blossoming into the future; there is a Quantum theory that I hate that posits: from every moment, every possible universe unfolds at once, they all 'exist', and Quantum dynamics are just the consequence of our selves going down one path of infinite.

I hate it, but this all started when thinking about the enormity of death after watching Army of the Dead and pondering the anguish apparent in the actor's reaction. What about death is so powerful? A game is a straight line. A person blossoms. The death of a person is an enormous destruction of possibility.

Maybe it's biology that demands I think this way. But maybe it's just the way things are.