Eight Seconds: Manipulated Through Time
For the past month, I’ve been working on my entry to the Idle Thumbs community game jam, Wizard Jam X. This is the final Wizard Jam, due to the Idle Thumbs podcast going into a long-term hiatus from which it…
Category Narrative Design
Subsystems
Last week I wrote about how no two people walk away from a piece of art with the same conception of what they just saw. I mostly couched that in terms of older media like visual art and film, but…
Static
If we are alone, and we are dissatisfied, we can change the scene – either by traveling or adapting the world to suit ourselves. If we are with a few other people, it is usually still possible to convince them…
Virtually Real
Virtual reality will never be what you want it to be. What do we want virtual reality to be? We want the complete experience of being someone or something else. We want to be able to do what they can…
Mundane
To play a game is to perform a series of tasks it asks of you. Most of the time, these tasks are some sort of challenge of dexterity, cognition, perception, or some combination thereof. There are also, though, a number…
Hyper-Competition
Most games are competitive in nature – some might argue that as part of the definition of game, that anything that isn’t competitive is really a puzzle or some other sort of interactive entertainment. What the word ‘competition’ even means…
Gray Areas
In games, actions have consequences. This is broadly true in all cases: The game is defined by its reactions to the actions you take within its spaces. However, when we talk about games – and when games talk about themselves…
One-Track Minds
Everyone feels trapped. Helpless. We have a problem, and it’s a trolley problem. We are on rails, and the scope of our choices sharply constrained. There is no preventing the harm, only, perhaps, reducing it. In the face of impending…
Counterpoint
Every day that passes, the events in our lives create for us a unique blend of experiences and emotions. Most of the time these aren’t very interesting, but every once in a while it creates something incredible, a moment of…
Sekiro: Intimacy and Immortality
I finished my playthrough of Sekiro a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve had some time to sit and reflect on the experience. If you aren’t familiar with Sekiro, it’s the newest game by From Software, developers of the Dark…