I’ve recently been getting more into playing and thinking about games. And beginning to treat games with dignity.
I wanted to share a few random thoughts that have been swirling around lately… in no obvious order:
Self-Aware Games
A few weeks ago, I finished Undertale with J. (We did the true pacifist route.) Since then, I’ve been pretty obsessed with it, admiring its “value” awareness and also “media” awareness.
If you’ve played it, you’ll immediately notice that the game forms opinions about your decisions - whether you choose peace or violence. It also breaks the fourth wall by using game mechanics as a story mechanic, e.g. saving and loading as time travel. Sometimes the game program conducts a scripted crash when something intense is going on in the story.
I’ve been reading a thoughtful and practical book called, Values at Play in Digital Games, which has been awesome thought fodder between games.
It’s full of inspiring examples and also frameworks for how to think about your own game construction. There are many levels where you can aim your intentions, from aesthetics and representation, to mechanic, to interactions with environment and other characters…
I think the fact that Undertale gives you a choice, and doesn’t preach you into a direction - but still carries an opinion - is also a great example of how teachers might lead in a classroom. One example that comes to mind: my work friend was subjected to oddly “objective” debate about American Civil War in grade school. We talked about how that was, well, weird and problematic - but the simulation experience in of itself is a valuable tool.
Alternative Universe Super Smash
Recently while talking to my brother and his friend about games, I remembered something pretty interesting from my own childhood.
I remember being about 10 years old, and playing Super Smash Bros on N64 with my friend.
Instead of playing it as a competitive combat game, we finagled the settings so that we started off with MAXIMUM damage (about 100%.) We only turned on FOOD items, which replenish HP.
We usually picked Green Greens from Kirby’s Dreamland, and we would spend the “fight” round trying to protect each other from the bomb blocks and apples in the environment (see picture.) Both of these appear randomly and deal a bunch of damage, especially when the tree blows them into you.
Our strategy usually included…
1. Subtractively building little shelters out of the star bricks
2. Waiting for FOOD items to fall from the sky, and often saving it for the person who was the *most* damaged.
Long story short - without really thinking about it, we changed the goals within Super Smash to be a cooperative game about building, environmental resourcefulness, and mutual healing through food. If you think about the crafted intent of Super Smash, it’s pretty unusual that 9 and 10 year olds might deviate from fighting and blowing each other off the stage.
Or maybe.. it’s not unusual at all?
Subverting Designer Intentions - Mischief, Arcana, Power
That brings me to another thought I’ve been having recently. Is there a word for designing systems that make the player/user/person feel like they are subverting the designer’s intention?
Especially during my time at Scratch, I’ve been inspired by how readily kids find opportunities for mischief, deviation, and “breaking” the system - as a deeply creative and joyful activity. And importantly, it’s a powerful activity as well. A few examples:
1. Young teenagers at a public school workshop goofing off during our Scratch demo by mashing the “MEOW” sound. (This is actually something that happens all the time.) As my coworker pointed out, “But they were goofing off within Scratch. They weren’t on Youtube, or on their phones.”
2. An 8-year-old visitor to the Media Lab telling me - very urgently, and importantly - that his absolute favorite feature of Scratch is the ability to use a community javascript hack to do something you’re not supposed to do with… project… thumbnails? It’s not really very interesting in of itself. But the important thing is not how special the feature is - just imagine the joy and power of peeking into the black box, and getting it to listen to you.
Leaving space for disobedience, and deliberately encouraging you to subvert what the tool makers are offering. It’s kind of paradoxical, but there are also ways to do it.
How to create a system open enough, but also constrained enough, in all the right ways? Or maybe there’s select situations where the only “right” thing to do is to ignore what an in-game authority is telling you? Or maybe it’s not so much disobedience but exploration that’s encouraged - loads of rewards for persisting off the mainstream path.
One of my favorite secrets as a kid, in SBM2. Gif from Youtube.
Folks at work brought up Minecraft as an example. I can also think of weird moments in the Sims that were delightfully bizarre. Maybe you don’t need to design the secrets, but design the conditions in which someone can create a secret of their own?
It’s something I want to keep thinking about more and more. Given the time and space, I would love to take it on as a research question.
One suggestion I got from a new friend at a party - is there a word for it? You should make a word for it.
Ffabschrift. A verb, a noun. A two syllable sound, created from air ffffffriction on the mouth, tongue, teeth.
FFABschrift. FfabSCHRIFT.
The ligature of ffabschrift—the twin FF's—reminds me of the double forte I learned to play on piano. Follow through with full force!
Through double-f ffabschrifting, I’ve been observing how language fills spaces. The shouting space afforded by the double ff fortissimo, or the diminuitive door crack of double pp. Pianissimo, or proceed pensively in peace.
Rectangular page spaces, the perimeter of signs, screens, books. Skin, even.
So we’ve been understanding what it means to verb these nouns, er—ffabschrift these ffabschrifts. Adverbly verbing, an adjective noun.
Is this what we’re doing—schriftily ffabbing, fabulously schrifting?
—
Ffabschrifter. A noun, an occupation: one who ffabschrifts.
I am a ffabschrifter of to–do lists, notebook margins, text-messages, e–mails. My pen is pretty mighty; so is my plastic QWERTY keyboard and my Microsoft Word, and my ffabschrifty finger on a fogged-over window.
The language I’m thinking is written, in order to be emailed, then travels to print, speech, and returns to you. Hello, listeners!
Language contorts, evaporates, condensates, yet carries constantly the autograph of the thing that made it. I tried to peel off the layer of the the text which is attached to its form, and found that even Helvetica Regular in a Text Edit document is binds to the attributes of what I’m saying.
I can take a quantum microscope to a word and speculate that is either a particle or a wave. My future-fast e–mails are made of light, right? The 21st century illuminated manuscript is handcrafted with thumbs on touch-screen glass.
—
Ffabschrifting, writing as making and making as writing.
Right, so what is writing made of?
Is poetry made of concrete? Or a softer something—like sand or newspaper clippings.
I am interested in the material life of language. What is the halflife of a word isotope left to decay unspoken? The shelflife of an offense?
What kind of residue does heavy language leave? Sticky language? The measurable density of a proverb nestled in your ear, versus the way small talk floats, a dusty and negligible waste of space.
Writing as making, and making as writing.
Or mighting as waking and whiting as raking?
Fighting as faking and writing as shaking.
Everything is a work in progress.
“graphic design for people who do not see, communication spaces for people who do not speak and technology for people who have no power.”
“The Manstruation Chair is to make a man feel that he left a blood stain on a clean fabric chair by building some mechanical parts. The project encourages the man to link his own experience to the embarrassment and anxiety woman has during the period, which is because of social pressure more than physical difference. It also encourages man to think more deeply about gender difference.”
Neri Oxman creates computational flesh, molds, forms. Gorgeous & spooky cellular automata. And this—this is another form of writing. One which grows; so could you say you’re writing your way towards life? towards homegrown aliens?
The human voice is made from purely air and protein!
And here, this is just a mechanical process, wood and metal.
And then, in 2017, when we hear Siri it’s like a no brainer
I’ve gone into hibernation. Haven’t posted all winter!
Might trickle through some photos of new places from the past couple months. Sunny Mexico City and monsooned San Francisco.
Lately, things have been calming down from school prep mode. Since fall, I’ve been up to ears in work; I’ve been scratching towards authenticity.
Since fall, I’ve been thinking and quietly accumulating interesting ideas. I’ve been thinking about vulnerability, empathy in my friends and family. Also the longevity of a piece of work. Also closed and open systems, breakable and resettable tools. Also about making from scratch. Also about design extending from and into the natural world, forms extending from natural programs.
Before that was thinking about forgetting, and the “composting of information” as a layered, emotional force. Was thinking about happiness and reality and stories we tell ourselves. Oh, and thinking about holes.
Other than thinking, I’ve been dreaming of an Eat Pray Love kind of summer. And marching about. Holding through the suspense.
the (constrained) lexicon of plant, rhizome, wood
something I saw in Pachuca, Mexico.
the resourcefulness of communities!
“Seymour talked in riddles or he’d ask questions. He would ask a question like this to kids. “How do giraffes sleep?” think about it for a second. They have such heavy bodies. Does it get up, does it lie down? Some child said well the giraffe finds a tree with a fork in it that’s the right height and it puts its head in it and the branches are the pillow. And the answers is what Seymour would enjoy. And adults wouldn’t know the answer. If you look into a mirror and it makes left right, why doesn’t it make up down? Those were the sorts of questions. And this was his favorite. That if you have a car moving at 50 miles an hour and it’s on wheels what is the velocity of that point that’s hitting the road? And obviously the answer is zero. But nobody – how could it be zero? It’s going 50 miles an hour?”
