THE SHAPE & FORM OF A VIDEO GAME

[droqen]

[AB]

[droqen]

If games are about anything,
it must be action. In games,
we are actors, acting. "Play-
ing," ostensibly.

[droqen]

I have been continuously
trying and failing to make
games about things that
are not very playful -- or,
not very act-ful? I must be
missing some crucial part.

[droqen]

Meaning arrives after-
wards, a house built on
top of a foundation. on
cohost i wrote a post en-
titled, "things from your
life (pattern #253 of 253);"
an excerpt from it follows:

there are a great number of videogames that do not bleed for me, ever. these come as great disappointments to me every time. i want to put Things From [My] Life in my videogames because i don't want to make things that would take up my time and leave me with nothing but a thin sense of self-satisfaction, were i a player.

but, they are found at the end of the book. the end of the process.

". . . lastly, when you have taken care of everything, and you start living in the places you have made, you may wonder what kinds of things to pin up on the walls."

things from your life.

[droqen]

in Run and Jump, McDonald
presents an exercise which
entreats the reader to draw
from their own life--not any
memory, but--a memory of
jumping.

Run and Jump, McDonald, p49
Choose a memory of jumping that has left a mark on you.

[droqen]

what am i saying? i suppose
i am saying that a game has
some structural pattern that
i would benefit from follow-
ing, if only it could stay still,
just for a moment, or maybe
as all things are relative, i am
too in motion and it is i who
must stay still, for a moment,
just.

[droqen]

and this structural pattern in-
volves action on the player's
part. consider the series of in-
teresting decisions, the game:

were these decisions merely
decisions, they would not be
sufficient to match the expe-
rience of videogame play.

each decision only becomes
a part of play when it can be
paired with an action, which
can then be further paired w
ith a judgement.

what do we want points for?