*a series of validating decisions.*

[droqen]

[ A. what is a game?
  B. a series of validating, validated, decisions. ]

invite the player to show you who they are. then,
accept them and give them what they love:
   i see and love you. here is what you asked for, here is the best gift i can think of,
   here is what you would have asked for, if you could.
or reject them knowing that you are passing judgement:
   this is the wrong person to be. i give you nothing. learn to become someone else.

[droqen]

what is the shape of validation?
i want to become in tune with reality.
the shape of belonging

[droqen]

[ A. why am i against gameplay, against skill tests?
  B. because i am unwilling to withhold love. ]

[droqen]

everything that a player does is always correct, with two significant exceptions:

- they did something that was not true to themselves
   because they did not know or trust themselves well enough.

- they did something that was not true to themselves
   because their medium* did not properly equip them to do so.

* that is, they were forced to act wrongly by a material lack of affordances

[droqen]

[ A. then what is the role of games, as a positive force in society, as i see them or want to see them?
  B. an artificial canal through which flow the waters of each player's personal values, channeled into basins of validation and rejection as appropriate, permitting the pure self to run from start to finish only rewarded, unperturbed by obstacles. ]

[ C. what is the function of obstacles in [these] games?
  D. only to challenge players to change. ]

finally, when i play a game, i ask: how is this game asking me to change myself? when i submit to its forces, getting nothing out of it, who does that make me? why would this person be permitted passage, why does the game designer choose to accept this person, this version of me, specifically?

much too often, i find the answers at best disappointing.

[droqen]

p.s. when i say "everything that a player does is always correct," what do i mean by that?
i have been a meddler, hearing what people are up to, and what they are doing, and then
noticing that i might be able to impose my values upon them, instructing them that what
they are is not what i would choose to be, and not what i would choose for them to be.
but i do not think it is my place to do this in the life of anyone, not even someone who is
very close to me, let alone to someone who exists across the internet, whom i may never
meet.

what does it mean to be correct or incorrect in the game of life, in the game of being? each
person is their own work of art, and they alone have the capacity to be themselves, and i
respect the agency and autonomy of each individual.

my developing anarchist-like philosophy can be seen in the "everything that a player does
is always correct" paragraph too, replacing "player" with "person." i think every important
insular manifesto should be capable of -- no, more than capable of, ready and willing to --
replace some pivotal humanish bit of jargon with something like "person" and still remain
capable of standing by it, even stand by it more strongly.

droqen.

[droqen]

p.p.s. not everything needs to have a function. sometimes it is enough to have a cause for a purposeless blind effect.

[ A. when else do games reject players? what other reasons are there for players being punished for failure?
   B. if it is not an intentional act of judgement passing, then it must be due to a lack of connection or understanding on the part of the game-maker, of the artist. one must never blame technological failures or limitations of the craft: it is always possible to connect. if the medium gets in the way, know that the artist is always responsible for choosing the form in the first place -- limitations and all. ]