Notgames Forum

A game created out of currently existing technology!

More info will come later.

Question: Are developer blogs/entries such as this one ok here?

I do find it interesting that when I'm planning to make a game about interfaces, about technology, and what it hides and shows, how it enables and disables, one of the main problems I have concerns interface! And here I'm not talking about my lack of computer literacy (inability to code), or the lack of WYSIWYG ways to go about ones digital art business, but the fact that I have trouble with open office and documents stretching for more than say 30 pages. Things become so hard to understand for me, get a sense of, in a holistic way. I want to be able to traverse my document by labeling chunks of texts under "chapter 1", "chapter 2", etc, and then have the option to next to the title ("chapter 1" for example), to hide or open that chunk of text that's under/associated with that chapter. Is that possible?

The idea for the game came about in part because I'm so tired of writing my Great Work, a manyfest(ival) for posthumanists, transhumanists, freaks, hypocrits, etc, and where to go from here, politically, in day-to-day interactions with people, and with philosophy. The document is now so large that I simply do not feel like I can get a good grip on it. Yet there are great advantages to keep everything in one document since the way I write is fragmented, going from one topic to another that may be 100 pages away, in a second. I also find myself constantly reminded that I do not understand how to write things in linear motions. I see connections between very disparate ideas all the time and so wish to connect them, connect all those dots which perhaps a good writer would hope that the reader hirself will connect. But I also wish to connect them for myself, so that I don't forget them, and get more to explore. I've thought about doing the document in a hypertext of some sort, a labyrinth with a compass. Even the way I write the "book" is labyrinthine; ctrl+f "death of author", oh, yes, here I can put my thoughts. Next ctrl+f...

So the game is sort of like a double structure of making understandable for others, but also making easier for me. Because I do not understand what I'm doing sometimes. In the game, I can play, interrogate all these different aspects of my writings, and perhaps learn something. From interaction with it, but also from the thoughts of others. My great work has a lack of structure, basically, and often I curse myself when I realize that I must ctrl+f the document 20 times before finding a specific passage. I get dyslexia, my eyes hurt from straining, etc. Here, I want to make the game work for me. It does not have to follow a given path, be clear in that specific way a text has to; I don't have to decide as much what comes first, then second, because the game is a process which is not linear. In a way, the game is perhaps an experiment in the oeuvre of Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, but with many times less permutations, and perhaps a more thought out framework with more specific meaning attached to it from me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Thousand_Billion_Poems

In relation to the "writing", I would feel more free if doing them in a game perhaps, even if also here there is a double motion because I think it would be good for my own understanding and the game itself to be rigorous in my investigations of the concepts at hand, so that they may trickle down into the game. A sense of freedom will perhaps also come with changing the pace from academia to art, because it is not about being precise in the same way. Art is perhaps even about not always saying everything, but give a sense of, to let the reader "get at", go deeper, and get a feeling for whatever may lurk beneath.

There is another irony concerning structure and interface at play here: the game is supposed to be a collection of smaller games, forming an inclosed space, as an art exhibition. I could release the small games one at a time, to get a sense of progress and encouragement. Yet, by themselves, these games lose much of their meaning, since the reason I make them is in part because I wish to use these small games to interrogate each other. In the game I want there even to be a function which makes split screen possible, so one can unravel whatever might lie between them, whatever connections and similar mechanics there might appear when doing so.

Sure. But maybe the Concepts and feedback board (http://notgames.org/forum/index.php?board=6.0) is a better place?

So this thread can be deleted I guess!