Posts

Why do I do this?

I find my creative push and pulls are difficult to process.  I am someone who is getting more comfortable with the idea that if I lack a certain skill, it is not proof of personal difficiency or moral failing, it is not a challenge that needs to be overcome and I can ask for help or choose to spend time acquiring that skill, or choose not to do that. I think that is an expression of confidence and something I am still working on.   A constant challenge though is pinning down what I want to do and why I want to do it, and then sticking with it. What is the point?  I have this questioning with music. I can put it to the back of my mind because I go out and jam with other people regularly, and there's enough there to keep me distracted from the question.  I have a strong and unfulfilled compulsion to also create interactive experiences. I find it harder to let my imagination pull me into virtual environments than when I was younger, though that does still work on occassion. I find my

lots of features are surplus to requirement until they aren't

I don't need to make a UI for an experiment Maybe the effort is becoming too much because the expectation is  People will get excited about a little something though and recognise a good idea....... Maybe 

All the games I've had a good time with

I have decided that I will list some games I enjoyed or made a lasting impression in the last ten years ("recently") and then separately things before, so I can better understand what it is I like and spend less time fretting that I am wasting my time by playing things and not actually enjoying doing that. Note....... I don't like the little descriptions I've added as they are, but I do think helps if I try identify what bits felt good to me. Recently New stuff The Forgotten City drove me forward with its mysteries. Outer Wilds captured me with coseyness and tragedy. Rogue Aces  drew tempts me for a few minutes and keeps me for longer. FAR: Lone Sails made me horde petrol in a world that didn't have any more need for it. Hands of Fate felt like I was having a dialogue with antagonism. ADIOS Amigos: Galactic Explorers  was all the fun bits of orbital mechanics. Grow Home and Grow Up for its playfulness, character and dynamism, The Magic Circle reminded me of

Feelings of emptyness

Big brain moments thinking of how games consumers are being sold more and more vapid experiences in the same way we've all been sold on the idea that potato starch is food. I'm not enjoying games anymore because they are a whole lot of nothing there's a sweet spot between short arcade xperiences and what was being offered in the early 2010s if there's a glimmer of hope it's that the big players dilute their ips so much that they become meaningless is this becoming old biasing my view on things?

Bin the Core Loop and fire all your designers

The 1996 videogame Z, and the Men of War series have a lot in common, and I enjoy both

 Z stands out. It comes from a time when command and conquer (following on from Dune 2) was busy setting the tone for RTS. Arguably until Ground Control again doing away with base building, and more modern touch points of the Dawn of War game bringing it solidly into the collective consciousness. These comparisons have already been made in the "have you played" series on RPS in "have you played... Z" The above is a simple comparison making exercise, cherry picking examples of popular games, ignoring the melange of RTS ideas at the time and those ideas inherited from the board game or war game worlds. The prevailing narratives about which game first introduced what mechanic lack nuance and are most likely false. Like the histories of many other fields. My own comparison is between Z and Men of War.  I feel that the micro in Z resembles the randomness of Men of War quite closely. Several light tanks can sometimes destroy a medium, or just as well not. Moments of Heroi

Give old ideas a funeral

 The lack of closure on my older ideas means they take up more headspace than they should. Even a small illustration that can be viewed as a "complete"work will convey the original idea and is better than a half finished thing on GitHub "Kill Your Darlings" is something I've heard this expressed as