Making Gardens

[droqen]

Some of my favourite places in the world have been literal gardens.

Other times I have enjoyed sites of activity -- I love walking around the city. Archaeological dig sites, project sites... These places that I can see and explore, even if I am not part of them. Haven & Hearth. I feel like there are plenty of words that capture these "explorable places that someone tends" -- museum, gallery, home -- but "garden" may be the most beautiful.

I spent some time making oubliettes, but the word feels ready to be retired and left behind. The emotional range it suggests is so very limited. I think Zeigfreid's The Valley is a garden. Perhaps Tic-Tac-Crow is one too.

Gardens are not gardening games, nor are they open-world games. They have more in common with my playables than those other genres. Gardens are not about player expression or agency... The play is in exploring. I want to make open-source gardens so that if someone wants to express themselves or change the world, they are empowered to do so using real tools. Gardens cannot be venues designed to fractally contain the experience of self-expression. They are the end result.

In some ways, gardens might be walking simulators. But I think they're different.

[droqen]

The only goals and rewards that a garden is allowed to have are exploration and discovery of art to appreciate, of new ideas (or old ones you want to touch again).

The only challenge a garden is allowed to present is overcoming your assumptions, reservations, misunderstandings, and self.

These are written wrong. Let's say that a garden's paramount goal is to reward a curious fellow with new ideas, with life-changing ideas, with transformation, with beautifully sticky memories. If there is an evil system at the heart of a garden it is that it wants to live forever in your heart.

[droqen]

pingback: http://newforum.droqen.com/index.php?topic=296.msg1102#msg1102

what do accessibility options mean in [the context of gardens]?