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I do think we have to make games that are better than existing games in every way.
...
I'm long resolved to doing it all, alone if I must.

In the last 4 years since this conversation took place, a bunch of interesting videogames were released that heavily featured a notgames design mindset, and some of those released games went on to be commercially successful (most notably selling Minecraft to MS for an under-priced $2.5 billion). I think it really is true that all we needed was to create and keep creating experiences that were interesting enough, and the rest of videogame culture could help build them up. So you're right in the sense that the largest piece of the puzzle is making the right videogame.

I think where you're wrong is that much progress has already been made, and it was by some indie developers who were often working toward this non-deliberately and as a broader community more so than as one collaboration. They talked to each other at conferences and shared ideas and gave each other feedback, as artists do. And they built upon years of evolving previous work in their medium, along with adding some of their own new ideas here and there, as artists do.

Was it about making better videogames? Yes. Is it possible to single-handedly accomplish the task and do it yourself? Certainly not. They've already accomplished so much and have paved so many roads, there's no way you can accomplish anything without standing on their shoulders, unless you both never release your games (which prevents your effort from being proven) and have no prior knowledge of the medium.

Your enthusiasm is inspiring! Thank you. But I think it's impossible to create in a vacuum in 2015 and emerge later as a hero from outer space. Acknowledging the progress already made is a good thing, hopefully it can encourage you as you move forward.

Thank you for elaborating! I was asking not because I disagreed, but because I sincerely did not understand your language.

And now I can see that we are very much in agreement.

I came here because there were interesting people, conversations, thought experiments, and critique to be had. It wasn't to join a militia. Some people here are more militant than others. I can tolerate it, but I think it drove many others away, most notably Stephen Lavelle, although that case was also due to explicit rudeness.

To answer your question about TDC, Ryan and I started the project together back when it was an interactive art installation in 2012. So I lead the studio with him as his business partner and have collaborated as an artist early on when we were establishing the art direction, and now more as a programmer and designer as we have grown the team. Being busy with That Dragon, Cancer is the primary reason why I stopped being active here, ha.

Hi, and welcome Can you elaborate on what you mean re: your last few sentences? I'm not sure I get what you're saying.

Thanks so much for sharing, this is really helpful

Ok I can't remember if I told you this on twitter, but this looks amazing. Great job!

I tried to spend some time looking through a couple of your links to try to give feedback on narrative world / story, but it seemed kind of cryptic. There wasn't a clear place that simply explained that stuff in plain language on a single clearly-marked page. Would you be willing to provide some more info on your narrative so I (and hopefully others) could provide better feedback?

Oo, thanks for the heads up! Looking forward to checking it out

I saw this covered on Kill Screen. Been wanting to check it out, I'll try to do that soon and provide some feedback. Sounds very intriguing

Welcome. Are you currently developing anything?

If not, maybe today is the day to start! Making stuff and seeking feedback is a great way to engage other designers.

I was inspired by your work and shared it at a recent talk I gave to kick off a game jam. I thought you'd like to know some of the developers made something inspired by it at the jam. So good job

Personally I've never felt very comfortable writing fiction. But before TDC I started a narrative heavy project. My solution was to have writers create the content while I did the design. I basically told them the format and gave them a brief and started sharing builds.

Maybe you're happy with what you have, but if it feels like a struggle, don't be afraid to make it a team effort.

Thanks for sharing this. My feedback after playing around for a few minutes:

I really appreciated the structure of this. To me, it has just the right amount of choices, number of paths, looping around, etc. I thought it resulted in a satisfying rhythm and pace, largely thanks to the short text.

The presentation was minimal, which caused me (for better or worse) to think more abstractly and focus on the structure more. However, I would love to play an audiovisual version of this. The text is simple enough that I can walk through the narrative quickly, which I really appreciate. But I want to take in more of the world, I want to go deeper, while keeping my relatively quick pace. To me, that means exploring a virtual world, since adding more text would change the pacing.

A problem you might run into moving to a virtual world would be the "maze problem." I'm not really a fan of getting stuck in mazes, and what happens is eventually I get too focused on spatial exploration and trying to get to the end and don't end up focusing on the story much. Another issue could be causing players to think they should only experience the content once, whereas there's a nice poetic refrain effect from running into the text again. Hopefully you can still have that with a virtual world.

My biggest point of critique is that the content doesn't really grab me. I didn't get very comprehensive in my exploration of the narrative tree, but in my first couple times through there's wasn't much happening. I got a cool feeling of narrative style, where it was more dreamlike and I wasn't sure what was real and where I was. I liked how it was more domestic and intimate. It felt like exploring memories and I really liked that. But the memories themselves weren't very compelling to me. I wanted more human intrigue, or more conflict, or beauty, or more something I guess. Because of that it doesn't really hold my attention after I start to get a feel for the experience.

Overall, this came across as strong in narrative design but not strong in narrative content. As I mentioned previously, adding strength in narrative content might lead to communicating more information, which might mean adding audiovisual content in order to keep the strong pacing.

Also, I got stuck in a spot:
Wind barely blew, took off my shoes, turned on light, photograph, Stanley park, one memory. Then I'm at the beach, firecrackers, and being bored. Can't get past that point, none of those 3 do anything.

Hope this helps ^_^

One of my favorite games is The Dig, too. Welcome

The Twin Paradox video is great! Nice work, man. Some of the themes you explore are intriguing. I like how your usage of the gun makes everything darker, instead of more heroic.

I hope you release something playable, soon, whether this or another project.

I love your aesthetic. Great job

I just wanted to encourage you to keep going. Please keep going.

Hi

You should become friends with the Arcane Kids and Christoffer Hedborg, you seem to share similar sensibilities with regards to your audiovisual thingy. Which by the way has a nice atmosphere and surreality to it!

I'm intrigued by the screenshot

Any chance for a Mac build?