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‘Trashy , expressive & human incarnate

‘Trashy , expressive & human incarnate. Paul MacAodh. `Trashy, Expressive & Human. A - Tyranny of Systems, OPPRESSION of Definitions and Death of the Great American Indie Mechanic B (interlude) - Game Texture, Games as Sense, Games as Poetry

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‘Trashy , expressive & human incarnate

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  1. ‘Trashy, expressive & humanincarnate Paul MacAodh

  2. `Trashy, Expressive & Human • A - Tyranny of Systems, OPPRESSION of Definitions and Death of the Great American Indie Mechanic • B (interlude) - Game Texture, Games as Sense, Games as Poetry • C - Feeling & Time: Rehumanizing our experience of the world • Conclusions! • AKA: Quick fire cheat codes

  3. Episode IV The Tyranny of Rules • Games are not just systems, not just rules. • Game mechanics mean nothing by themselves. • They are the frame, they define what we can do.

  4. For example:

  5. For example:

  6. For example:

  7. If you mean lines of code…

  8. Definitions suckare reinforcing • Pop music =/= Popular music =/= music which is popular • Exclusionary. Define what we pay attention to. • Also, simply wrong. Rule-based/goal-based are the subset. We need to use words to specify those.

  9. Film is not editing • Comics is not panels

  10. Procedural Rhetoric • Systems can say anything.

  11. The Marriage, Rod Humble • Colour is key • We bring our own contexts and cultural understanding (LIM) • That still doesn’t cover what you experience.

  12. The Quiet Death of the 'Great American Indie Mechanic' • The ‘Gold-Mine’ single mechanic is bullshit

  13. The Quiet Death of the 'Great American Indie Mechanic' • The ‘Gold-Mine’ single mechanic is bullshit • The spatial metaphor is bullshit • Games are choices is bullshit • Games are emergence is bullshit • Also ‘games as rules’ is still bullshit • ETC ETC screw dogmatism (*RUFFF*)

  14. “Games have yet to reach their true potential” • Same old techo-utopianism • Find the magic bullet • VR • Chris Crawford • David Cage • Thinking (maybe) • Excuse people for making crap

  15. We have already have forms

  16. Pure-cinema

  17. HOWEVER, bullshit can be useful • “What I say, I do not say with words. I do not say it with images either, with all due respect to the partisans of pure cinema, who would speak with images as a deaf-mute does with his hands… I show people who move and speak” – Eric Rohmer, 1989

  18. Just not dogmatism & exclusion

  19. Edu-macation • Less Vocational! • Training for traditional industry jobs which don’t exist.. • Skills generally not widely applicable. • If independent: student games should be at least 18 months ahead of the curve. PERSPECTIVE

  20. Intermission

  21. Part II – What games are & Substance • (HINT: The English Oxford Dictionary defines them as: things which have cheat-codes)

  22. Holistic • GAMES ARE SENSES, duh. Phenomenology of games in future talk.

  23. Games as poetry • Synaesthetic experiences • To FEEL, we need metaphor

  24. Games as poetry • Synaesthetic experiences • To FEEL, we need metaphor • What Mario be like with different sound effects, music?

  25. Games as mental texture • How the elements interact • How they clash/reinforce • If saying the same thing, why bother?

  26. Hauntology • Derrida, spectre of Marx over Europe. • ‘Past in the present’, how the present exists only with respect to past, haunted by spectres that cannot ne ‘ontologised’ away. • Repurposed: Boards of Canada, Peter Doig

  27. Holistic • Design/write/create your games holistically. • Each element works together to get closer to the ice sculpture you want to express

  28. What really matters • Something can have awfully game design but shine. ‘SUP TIM. • Discrete units of resonance. • Personality. • Strange. Funny. Heartrending.

  29. NO REASON

  30. Intermission 2: Intermissioner If mechanics don’t really matter and subtance does. Why, besides pragmatic reasons, make a game? Why make a game to express something?

  31. That slide was irrelevant just funny

  32. Part 3 – Concerning technology, dead inside. Can play can save us? Feeling & Time.

  33. The mediator is the message • Technology transforms objects with properties to reusable/flexibleeg: electricity • As such loses inherent significance, meaning.

  34. JUST GONNA QUOTE, YO • Affects entire world view: even humans are just ‘resources’. • "driven by the desire to get the most out of their possibilities, without any real sense that any of those are inherently worthwhile“ • As we become addicted to ease of technology, our experience of the world is lessened and made uniform. • No longer have to accommodate. “dealing with objects and people that have fixed properties require us to develop bodily and social skills.” • Eg: music

  35. GPS • We see space and travelas voice instructions. Unthinking. • Lose the ability to navigate, understand the environment • ‘If I were a carpenter’ • Technology should amplify our understanding of reality not replace it. • Where it gets pernicious: social networks & the ‘refresh’

  36. Games! Play! Revolt! • “Free movement within a more rigid structure”, needless complication / layers. • Force us to engage with an experience, understanding more deeply (revealing). • Play can attune and refocus our receptivity to the world. • Intrinsic versus Extrinsic • Goal driven is bad. • Commodifying play is even WORSE.

  37. Starseed Pilgrim • Entirely new language. • Forced to experience the world and understand the properties & relationships. YES. • We’ve explored a tiny little corner, there’s so much out there. “Gain from loss one does not measure but broken hearts yieldStarseedtreasure” - Droqen

  38. Gamicking • Musicking, Christoper Small • Playing (games) in every sense, a new culture • Forget consumption: • Creating games • Writing/talking about games • Creating them in response • Games as memoir, souvenir • Creating them as presents • Play playplay • Bogost’s maturity

  39. CONCLUSIONS • The personality, creativity, texture, interest of your game is what matters. • Appealing to the “mainstream “means appealing to no one. NICHE. • What is your game in a sentence? What is the headline Polygon will post? Why do you have to make it? • Let things cook. But FINISH, go with your grain. • If you are not 10 times better than your competition, think again. • Interactive/reactive. Weird relationships, interesting games make. • Unique / personal thoughts, interesting games make.

  40. CONCLUSIONS • Forget all that, make cool stuff.

  41. THANKS! (SMILY FACE)

  42. Tell me something! • @_dreamfeel • paul@dreamfeel.net • dreamfeel.net

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