The Shape of Things
Isn’t it strange the effect that shapes can have on us? Where do they depart from abstract form and become meaningful and evocative? A cylinder, with a bit of reshaping, begins to look like a thigh… and, once we begin…
Category Playing Games
Saving Worlds
The nice thing about having to save the world is that it’s a goal most people can get behind– particularly since the world happens to be where most people live. Nearly any other objective we could set would probably suggest…
Connections
“If this is so, then what else is so?” My brother introduced me to this particular precept of improv acting a few weeks ago. The basic idea is, something comes up about a character or a situation or circumstance: Following…
Competency
I often end up choosing which games to play on the basis of which I am best at– familiarity begets skill begets more familiarity. It’s very fulfilling to do something you’re good at, even if it’s pointless. This kind of…
Stories
The more one pays attention to things, the more one notices similarities. I’m spending a lot of time, now, writing– stories and essays, but they both have a similar rhythm. Exposition, twist, resolution. I can add more twist, or alternate…
The Weight of Worlds
I imagine a giant, immensely powerful but unwilling to move because of the unbearable inertia of his massive body. He has such power, but he gives it up every day and chooses instead to tell his servant to fetch him…
Solipsism
He also programmed robots to write books and magazines and newspapers for you, and television and radio shows, and stage shows, and films. They wrote songs for you. The Creator of the Universe had them invent hundreds of religions, so…
Strange Places
There is something bleak and beautiful and strange about old games that will always pull at my soul. Is it nostalgia? Perhaps. Nostalgia is certainly a component. It’s always a bit strange seeing a movie I loved as a child,…
Momentum
There is a satisfaction in getting something done– whether or not it is a thing which is useful. Action is fulfilling. It often feels wrong to stay in one place, it feels like the world is moving too fast for…
Balance and Expression
The capability that games offer for self-expression is exciting, but can also be onerous. In much the same way as we are made uncomfortable by articles telling us what the way we move or dress or speak says about us,…