3587(0) vertigo

[droqen]

i made a way to dance all alone for jack's avoidance jam which i believe was inspired by an angel dances in the sparks of a bonfire and perhaps brlka's subsequent blog post, designing avoiders.

my participation in this jam followed a personal experience with striving to get a very high score in gameplay (forever), which i could discuss in great detail and yet never enough detail: the way that i passed hours in deep meditation on seemingly infinite and yet deeply finite variations of block placement:

narrow chimneys like those in blood perforated by gaps, climbable by tumbling up alternating left-then-right walls when the gaps are small enough.

wide open spaces only momentarily as free as those in summer, faint aspirations of flight cut short by the reality of obstacles.

awkward trails of fruit like the coins in camp games -- curves i could follow were i only more perfect.

tiny little gaps to struggle to squeeze into like on the first screen of snow or in contribution or in other levels, but never quite in the designed ways of gameplay (killing), there's no time for such difficult impossible elaborate jump sequences, and no need when you can just brute-force your way through.

cleverly wrapping around again like in blood, spotting something impossible and moving through the slip.

endlessly climbing through narrow then open then narrow spaces again like in tower, tower, tower.

and pressure, like in digested.

[droqen]

contrasted against gameplay (forever), a way to dance all alone is structurally so simple, so flimsy. playing it doesn't overwrite anything in my mind. there aren't any outside relationships there; the positions that appear in a way to dance all alone are no less poignant, but there's nothing to hold onto. there are no line numbers, level names, bookmarks that help me find my way back to these moments:

twirling three-quarters of the way around to zip away in the right direction

cutting straight through an open channel (it seems like a miracle, but it happens comfortably often)

cutting almost straight through an almost open channel, skimming this way and that

taking a hard right turn, a strict L-shape

all these situations with the white square there nearby, poised to strike, its exact timing not totally knowable to me but it's probably fine, right?

boiling red dots that might become squares

wanting but not quite succeeding at timing my movement to skate right through an active red block at the moment it slides into nothingness

[droqen]

i think this was enough. playing gameplay (forever) for hours on end showed me something more.

playing a way to dance all alone for hours (while tweaking, while making) showed me something else.

i should not say "something less," but what, then?

on July 23, i purchased and began Splatoon Raiders, and i think that gameplay (forever)ing was some kind of extension of that, and although i played Splatoon Raiders together with friends i think that a way to dance all alone shows some fullest-extent of where this structure goes. i am a little sleepy, tired, but i will write one more post about structure before going to bed.

[droqen]

     A simple videogame structure to
construct: produce, according to some
algorithm or principle, a large state
space; and add or subtract to this space
by means of altering this algorithm or
principle (usually 'code' or 'rules').

when i play a game like this
the effect is quite intoxicating
and likewise making is thrilling
and surprising and frustrating.
as brlka writes,

I love avoiders because they're easy to
make, but still meaty and engaging to
design and play. They're the closest I've
found to a gamedev equivalent of
sketches - a piece you can bang out in an
afternoon that might end up being one
of your favorite things you've made,
something I've always loved about
making music.

there is an effect that making and playing games that are composed of
this structure has on me, which is that it takes me further away from
intentionality, and i start to lose touch with something that i love about
making things at all.

do i have control over my mind or what it outputs? this is arguable, and
the question may not even be sensible. however, there is a difference in
kind between a process of creating something and a process of coming
to love and appreciate something.

the structureless object that i discover does not reveal to me anything
about my mind or my thought processes. i do not wonder, when i
lose myself in the vertigo of an algorithmically generated structure such
as these, about the mind of a person.

i perhaps have an experience, but i cannot describe this experience as
empathetic or reflective.

i feel a little bit dizzy, and i will rest now -- convalesce from all the
vertigo of gameplay.