290. Forever Games Are Just Rude

[droqen]

Re: Jim Stormdancer's Topic Lords'
"290. Forever Games Are Just Rude"

[droqen]

"The only place on the internet where you can hear topics discussed" is an incredible intro, I don't know how I didn't burst out laughing

[droqen]

Lena and I introduce each other lol! It's great!

Lena Guerrero - "Engineer, make videogames that are multiplayer & focused on human connection." "Support your local farmers market!"  yess support those farmers!!! i need to ask lena about multiplayer games

droqen - i make games, i plug kinopio, omfg kinopio is so good. kinopio

[droqen]

Lena - I am picturing that scene from it's always sunny (omg the meme)
me - I think that's the reaction that most people have???
Jim - Here's a pc of software that's 15 years old, it was perfect in year 2, but . . . they have to come up with something [so it's crap, messy]

Lena - choosing libraries . . when was its most recent update? . . And now years and years later, I'm like, wellll, maybe it's just done? It's done?
me - Do you look for how many crusty old users have been using it for 15 years . .
Lena - no data

damn, no data!!!

Jim - topics
me - let's lord
Lena - let's do it

THE FIRST TOPIC IS KILL GAMEPLAY
oh god

[droqen]

starseed pilgrim - crazy ego experience - very strange thing - what's happening is you have two parasocial relationships that merge into a real relationship instantly. it's very weird

oh my god it IS weird. aaaaa

right, more relationship shit... tigsource

[droqen]

nooo lol jim and i are talking and where is lena!! sorry lena!! looking forward to your voice coming back

[droqen]

me: A LOT OF WHAT I THOUGHT WAS COOL ABOUT STARSEED PILGRIM . . . WAS REPLACED BY WHAT OTHER PEOPLE SAID WAS GOOD ABOUT IT

[droqen]

me: the compelling nature of starseed pilgrim, it being hard, it having interesting puzzle mechanics, that stuff is so unimportant to me. . . as a creative motivation. . . that was never the thing that mattered a whole lot

jim: were those things that you were striving towards . . . part of the game is figuring out how this world works

me: the game that i'm working on now, the end of gameplay, it's a platformer . . . the first time i watched someone play it, it had not occurred to me that the platforming was interesting or difficult. every level i made, i was just like, this is a fun little jump that i haven't made myself do anywhere else. / / in starseed pilgrim . . . i literally designed all of the blocks on a napkin in a day. . . . here's something that makes sense to me . . . good luck

jim: so you weren't designing an experience . . you weren't thinking about how the player was going to interact with them

jim: . . . should i be rushing you through this to the part where we get to . . . killing gameplay?

me: . . . i don't want to dominate this conversation but okay!

lena: our group arrived at the destination (omg friday in japantown hii) before i got to kill gameplay

jim: people had their reaction to starseed pilgrim. . . . the reaction was that it was a very interesting set of puzzles that the mental journey you go on . . . learning to understand the world, learning to interact with it . . . is the interesting part of this game.

me: yeah, [that sums up the response]. it was repeated so many times

jim: to the point where you internalized it as true.

jim: the idea that could be put into words could dominate the idea that was in your head.

me: when i say kill gameplay . . people will take away from it what they want . . the nebulous thing is what's important, but its lot in life is to be dominated by all this other stuff . . . all this noise, noise, noise . . .

[droqen]

lena : your recent bsky posts seem very "i'm going to kill starseed pilgrim" "it's going to take starseed pilgrim down"

me : i don't even remember . . . people have very strong reactions that you take things down . . . starseed pilgrim can live on.

[if i take it down, it is the community's game]

cruel world???

me : ok, hold on, let me rein it in, there's the ssp of it all... i feel like it's distracting from the kill gameplay of it all.

jim : this is no longer a useful approach to this conversation, then

me : something that i've encountered . . . gameplay . . . there's a lot of defaulting to what's the player gonna be doing in game design . . . i get it . . but it consumes a lot of time that isn't necessarily expressive time . . . expressive space for game developers everywhere. . . all i understand is myself so i'm trying to do it for myself . . . if i want this . . . someone out there also has to be craving, i just want to make a game that conveys something . . . here's my vessel

oh boy, i'm going off the rails here, but i finally say something...

[droqen]

someone out there must be thinking,
HERE'S MY VESSEL FOR EXPRESSION [BUT] IF I WANT TO MAKE AN INTERACTIVE THING, OH, THE PLAYER SHOULD DIE SOMETIME, THEY SHOULD COLLECT SOME POINTS, THEY SHOULD HAVE A LITTLE CHECKBOX TO TICK OFF...

[droqen]

LENA: IN ORDER TO PLAY, YOU HAVE TO ESTABLISH A FEELING OF SAFETY FOR ALL THOSE INVOLVED, FIRST.

<3

.. children play question (such a good question)

Jim: Looking back on my play experiences . . I would never have any ideas (for creative storytelling play), I would follow someone else's lead.

[droqen]

Lena; For some, the structure of number go up, there's safety, you have validation that you're playing correctly. How do you respond to that Droqen?

me: . . go into it knowing that that's its function, and not going further than that? It's . . easy to make systems, this is a number that the player wants to go up, the reason it's there is so that the player can engage with something and be creative themselves but there's something very seductive once you have a cool gameplay system that's compelling it's easy to lose sight of why you wanted to compel them in the first place. . . . draw them in even further, I feel like that's the bad stuff...

 Jim : ARE YOU READY TO DEFINE GAMEPLAY