gam702mjordan

[gam702mjordan]

Final Post

Final rationale post.

The three that I have chosen for my final hand in are as follows:

1.      Love-sick (dreckley)

2.      Did no one see the abyss at the party? (one minute)

3.      Huzzah (celebration)

I chose these three because they are simply the three best games that I developed. More than that. It goes deeper. I am particularly proud of these three, and I solemnly believe that these are some of the greatest works I have created in my entire dev career.  

Love-sick is a beautiful little game. I really like the how the theme loops back and tie backs into every aspect of the game. Having the characters and then relating it to the gameplay rules and how they relate to the characters are beautiful simple, and it just makes sense. It’s the first time that I have created something like this. Wherein the themes bolster the rules.

Did no one see the abyss at the party shows of not only my skill as a writer, but it has meaning and depth to it. I used it as catharsis, I used what I know and people that I have met to create the characters, and it is my strongest story to date. I feel like its honest and true, and I feel like it’s a positive realistic representation of intimate male relationships.

And finally; huzzah. Huzzah is my personal favourite of the three final hand-ins. It the only one of the three that I have manged to get people together to test, and it works. Not just on a surface level. It really plays well. It encourages people to come out of their shell. Helped along by the booze obviously. It’s nice as a designer to see something that you have created evoke joy in people.

What have I learnt during the creation of these three projects is this; that I’m not as helpless as I thought I was at the beginning of the project? I started this comparing myself to other people, and their skill level. And yeah, their games are definitely more advanced than mine. But I feel like  I have created something much more interesting and weird than other in the class. That is how I will distinguish myself when I get into the industry, by setting myself apart from what considered ‘normal’.

What I have learnt form this entire experience is as such: that I have to write what I know. Following on from this I need to have both life experience and knowledge to work form a place of honesty. Because when I’m honest I don’t just create my best work. I come out in the end with something that I both really care about, and am proud of. I need to create things that have meaning to them in some way. Otherwise, Its just artistic masturbation.

If I was to potentially tackle a 6th potential prototype. I’d not spend so much darn time making endless notes. I spent 90% of the time just faffing, turning myself around in circles until I’m dizzy, and even then. I find that It doesn’t help. It tends to just confuse me more. If it wasn’t a prototype, then it’d be fine. Again and again. I shot myself in the foot. I need to limit myself in the future. Second to that, I need to understand the limits of my own knowledge and experience.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 5. Part 3.

Post-production

What was the theme and what attracted me to it?

As I have previously stated, the theme was celebration. what was attractive for me personally about the theme was that; I love celebrating. I love dancing, drinking and shouting at the top of my lungs. This was kind of the inspiration of the final piece that I created. I wanted to make a gaem fro me personally that I would be able to play with friends, in which is could exhibit the things I like most about partying.

What was the subject matter, materials and techniques did I use?

The subject matter that I chose to emulate for this project was pure joy. I wanted to create a agame to persuade people to be happy while they are playing a drinking game. As in past experiences with drinking game. They either go one of two ways. In a fight, or the better option; the whole experience of drinking and having fun, it can end up in some of the best, funniest evening of your entire life. The material where basic, just using pen and paper to work it out at first and then taking the notes and using draw.io to create the flow chart and layout of the board, and the creation of the cards. Which frankly; was amazing for the creation of the thing. As for techniques? I’m not sure if I did. I feel like  a created the game from a panoply of sources. Mostly from drinking games that I played as a teenager. I obviously didn’t want to plagurize, so instead I used the knowledge that I already had, and tweaked it to make it fit.

The product

What I did create in the end s a life size drinking game in which you and others use your living room as the board game space itself. You use chairs and table as platforms or board spaces, and navigate around the room. Play is very simple. It goes in order of the people whom manage to down their beer first. In this order they pick player and then they must complete feats, the type of feat dictates the amount of spaces (or platforms) to move forward. Players must pick up beers and drink them as they go. The progression is dependant on the drinking and finishing of beers. So, the game actually encourages you to you to drink so that you may win. Which is basically the core premise of dirnking game. I didn’t want to just use the things I already thought. I wanted to build on it, and that where the inclusion of the cards came in. The crads add another level of mechanics to the proceedings.

Does it work?

I played it with a bunch of firedns the other night, and yes it work. It really really works. I thought it’d be too confusing. But not its not. Everyone got it after 3-4 turns. From there it just got crazy. The characterization aspect of the game works really well, especially after a couple of beeer. That’s when people really start to get into it. I have not laughed as much as I did the other night in a long time. and I think that is indicative of how good the game is.

Problems?

Not really. Which for me, is kind of weird. I’m kind of impressed at how well it came together, and how well it plays.

What would I do differently?

Once again. Not much, maybe give the thing less rules. So its not as confusing at some point, but being that I was going for a game that was complete chaos, it works really well. I am so happy with the final piece, that I would change a thing.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 5. Part 2.

Production.

So, our theme is celebration. Coming up with ideas for this one was hard. Not as hard as the ouroboros project. Luckily though, I manged to jump in on a group idealization project this time around. It was alex that asked for it, I wasn’t seeking it out. His intention being that we would help him out, shake some ideas loose and all that. It didn’t seem to work for him, but, it did work for me. So it wasn’t a totally waste of time. I was really struggling t=with what to create for celebration. I knew that I wanted to keep it simple, but as to the how and why. I had no idea. I wasn’t really comprehending what celebration meant. When you think of it your mind organically goes towards generic ideas or celebratory activities such as birthdays and wedding and the like. I was only thinking about the surface level of the thing. Not why we celebrate in the first place. For me to get inspired I have to dig into the under meaning of the theme. The WHY of the thing. In the case of celebration and the why of thee thing. Fundamentally, its about death. Its about pushing back at the blank hand of fate. Instead, opting for joy. That is what celebration is about. Dancing in the face of oblivion. Creating moments of pure ecstasy to ward of the dark.

Inspired by this. I am going to create a drinking game. The idea is that I want to create a game that fosters comradery and joy. I don’t know as to how I will do this yet. I feel like I should focus on some sort of board and/or card game. I think that I fits better with a drinking game. In addition, I have yet to make anything in the medium of card or board games (or traditional game as it were). So I feel it would be appropriate for me to do something like this for my last prototype.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 5. Part 1.

Pre-production.

For the fifth and final prototype for the 702 prototype project our theme is celebration. This has to be the single most attractive theme that we have gotten as of yet, and a fitting finale considering Christmas is coming up. It’s a welcome reprieve. Since the dreckley project a lot of my work has had me plumbing the depths of my soul. Delving that deep, having everything have some sort of meaning, or rather, creating incredibly short amount of time has been frankly; exhausting.

I have been spending to much time in the idea and planning stages of the projects. I feel like ideas are great and strong, it’s pulling the trigger that is where I have issues. When I get around to the creation of the work. I have planned to much that it has created an unmanageable beast, and/or the try to write about themes and concepts that I have no personal experience with. So than nothing happens and then I panic and spiral.

It seems to me that I am eternally chasing ideas that are ‘interesting’ to me at the time. This is not great for prototype work.

I believe that If I had more time to research these ideas and concepts (maybe around 6 months). Then I’d be in a comfortable place to create. Instead I am pursuing ideas that have no… umph to them. What seems to happen is that I fall in love with an idea and then realize I don’t have the experience to write about it, and then I start to hate the thing that I have created. This time, I need to hit this one out of the park. I only have two useable prototypes at this point.  I got to get this one right.

I need to keep it simple, and stay away complicating it, so that I don’t start to hate the work. Which is the single most destructive aspect of how I work. That my mood dictates how I work.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 4. Part 3.

Post-production. (I done messed up)

I butchered a really good idea.

So, the theme was ouroboros. The snake eating itself. Symbol of death and rebirth, blah blah blah. Yes, we’ve been over this.

I had in incredibly difficult time coming up with any concepts for this project. The concepts that I stated in the previous post were, on researching them, far to difficult, I attempted something really simple and still nothing, I found myself pressed for time and panicking. I needed to do something, get something done, no matter what it is. But I had yet to have an idea yet.

The only reason that I came up with something for this project, wasn’t because of any idealization I had done or from a flash of inspiration. The idea came from the other project, the synergy project, in which we had to create a game in groups based around empathy and responsibility. Whilst researching projects. I came across a  thought experiment called the vampire problem, the basic premise is as follows:

“If you were offered the chance to become a vampire — painlessly and without inflicting pain on others, gaining incredible superpowers in exchange for relinquishing your human existence, with all your friends having made the leap and loving it — would you do it?”

-  Maria Popova. Published 13 Sep 2017. https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/09/13/transformative-experience-vampire-problem/.

This states that It is a leap of faith to become a vampire, knowing that you will have potentially see all those that you love die, of course- If vampires can even have normal relationships in the first place. It goes deeper than that thought. Who is the onus on? Should the vampire fully know how the person is before they get to change them? Does a criminal have the right to live less than a saint? Or because of the nature of vampire, whom are normally seen as ‘evil’ or Are they only going to choose ‘bad’ people?

I realized that this concept was sort of in the same thematic area of the ouroboros. Inspired by this concept which I got from a weird source. I figure that I could take this concept that I had learn form another module and run with it. Because the concept is very very pertinent to ouroboros. Turning someone into a vampire is quite literally about death and rebirth, and having it be a criminal means that there another level of responsibility to the piece.

 Inspired by the synergy project I took it and ran with it. I decided to create an interactive fiction game about a conversation between and vampire and a criminal. The setting was decided that it would new York, mainly because I thought that this was a fitting place to have as a backdrop for the piece, and because it was literally the first place that my brain thought of when I thought “Where does crime take place?”. The idea was that the vampire would be going around his secret vampire business and just happen to come across a ne’re-do-well bleeding out in an alley.  The player would play as the vampire and the gameplay is a simple conversation. You the players as the vampire would have to figure out how this person got here, why they are here, and if they are worthy of being saved. Through gameplay they must ascertain to the who what where and how of who this person is through branching dialogue tree and the like. The goal being that the player must deduce the truth by selecting the right options. The player doesn’t realize at the beginning that the character that they are talking is a criminal. They will only find their way to the truth by being compassionate and by probing gently to get to the truth. The conflict of the narrative will come from the the fact that the criminal (by their very nature) is a liar. On having worked out (or not) whom this person is, or a least having some sort of vague idea, then the must decide whether to save the criminal or to let him die here in the alley.

As I said, the ouroboros aspect comes from the narrative itself. Because it is literally about death and rebirth. Does the player having determined the truth? Knowing this, does the player save this beast, knowing what he is- potentially letting the cycle continue, or let them die here in the alley- or does everyone (no matter who they are) deserve a second chance?

As a self-declared transhumanist, the topic and its implications are fascinating to me. It brings into question potential future scenarios in which longevity becomes a sustainable practice, and as medicine goes form treatment to prevention. When full body regeneration becomes the norm, enabling people to become biologically younger. Who egst to choose who is worthy of functional immortality? Will it only be the elite or will it be accessible to everyone? What about criminals and fiends?

In addition to this subject there are many more themes that I could have gotten to play with. How does a criminal see themselves? – are they evil? Are they born wrong- or are they Victims of circumstances? That whole thing of does a pirate no they are a pirate and all that. Does our environment dictate who we become or is a hardwired into our DNA from birth? And do our interpretation of action differ person to person?

So yeah, it was one hell of ana appealing idea for me to do as a writer. Lots of wide open space to frolic. The similarities between vampires and criminals are many. They both orbit normal conventional society, falling through the cracks of civilization. Usually due to no faut of their own. Both exist in the night, whether they choose it or not. The night is the world in which they function.

Starting the dran thing was so hard though. Genuinely  it was one of the worst projects that I have had to work on. Not because it was particularly hard. More that it was the starting. The beginning the piece. I planned it to absolute death in the hopes that it would just fall together afterward. To combat it I spent days and days making pages and pages of notes. So that I would just be able to work form it. I made brainstorms and talking points, tables, dialogue trees and flow diagrams of the conversations. I put them in order and felt good about the prospect of the thing. The idea was strong on paper. But hazy in my head still. It seemed like no matter how much work it did on thing nothing was coming. My min problem seemed to be the approach to the characters. I had no grasp on how I would do it.

SO they main sort of idealization that I had tried hitherto were not working for me. So I had to try a new approach. I manged to rope Louie in form the arts masters. Into kind of a back and forth verbal idealization process. It was just an impromptu chat about vampires as a concept.  Good idea right? Turns out that’s a massive no… Though I am super grateful to him for giving me some of his free limited time.

What I mean by this is: sometimes idealization is great. Especially with other people, as everybody’s single perspective is unique- and they might have some area of knowledge that you do not. In this case though, this did not synthesize well.  Instead, what it did was confuse me more. I started getting further away from the character than was good for the piece. And then by the end of it, I barely recognized the characters. They had hardened somehow. I felt good about the idea at the time. and then I sat down to work on it, and…. Nothing.

I was sitting at my computer. All my notes sprawled out in front of me, laid out in a logical fashion. And they words were still not coming. It was a complete mental block.

Even with all that planning- I could not get a handle on the characters. I started writing and it came out as barley a trickle. I wasn’t sure on the delivery of the piece. I had no feel for the players in my story, with their own personal quirks and cadences. I would write a paragraph, and then stay with it and tinker over and over again. After three whole days of this constant tinkering (and currently I was working on nothing else.) I had 5 sections complete around 1000 words- and I hadn’t even introduced the criminal. Just set the scene and then tinkered endlessly.

As to the reason why? Not enough life experience to tackle the subject matter. I haven’t live long enough or extremely enough to write either a vampire or a criminal. I could not emulate the characters. I had zero frame of reference to work form so they work would come.

I handed in a broken product because I ran out of time. I tinkered to the point of insanity and it ruined the work entirely.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 4. Part 2.

Creation.

I call this section creation, but I haven’t actually started creating anything as of yet. I am stuck as to what to do. Right now, I have two vague ghosts of ideas.

One is a dinner game theatre experience involving a necromancer king archetype. It’d be a theatre in the round affair. Each section of the audience would be spilt into colour defined teams and each team would have an actor play an avatar of some hero. The stage (or space) would act as some sort of fantasy land or dungeon. Th audience in some way would ‘play’ their charcters. Who though, I have no idea, all the research I have done; Its not synthesising very well. I’m just Not sure on how the audience would even play it. I’m also really not sure as to how I would include the theme of ouroboros in that, obviously relate it to the necromancer king. Death and reibirth. I like to go deeper though, Maybe I create a theatre game that never ends? Or perhaps one that Is souly based on method acting and improvisation from the actors. Creating a piece in which The play, the story itself, changes each night. Yeah, it’s a nice ideas, and unique and interesting and all that, but might be to big a beast to handle for a prototype.

The other idea is still playing with the necromancer king archetype, but instead of a theatre game, a small digital project instead, possibly could be created in stencly? The idea is a old school action turn based action RPG, but with a switch up, make it a boss rush game form the point of view of the boss. This one is inspired by dark souls, I’d have the player play as a boss of immense power, so much power he’s become positively apathic and despondent- Until one day three heroes enter his chamber, he is amazed, but quickly does away with them. Thing is they keep coming back, and each time they get stronger. The narrative arch being the necrokings emotional journey. I could really have fun with that idea- make it kind of a parody game. The battles would be scripted events and would only have a minimal amount of interaction, just simple 90’s turn based battle system.

I love the concept of beings with infinite power, and the potential boredom that comes with it. A reverse boss rush games aren’t a thing, so I’d be breaking new ground with that one. But unfortunately, its what more what I can do with the time that has been allotted to me with my still limited knowledge.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 4. Part 1.

Conception

Our theme for project for of the prototype project is a interesting one indeed. The Ouroboros; The snake that eats itself. The mythical and culturally ubiquitous symbol for infinity, death and rebirth. A pictorial representation of the mobius strip and visual metaphor for cyclical nature of all things. For me personally, this is THE most interesting theme that we have been given yet.

There is a lot of room for me to move about with this one. Many different areas to choose from. From Mesopotamia through to ancient Egypt, Its appearance in Alchemy and Gnosticism, Its use as a metaphor in Jungian Psychology, and not to mention the numerous Pervasive appearances in myths and legends from all around the world that extend from Norse to south American and even Hindu.

What does it mean for me though personally? My immediate thought was of the thing that I have most experience with in regards the ouroboros, which is the Auryn from Michael Ende’s’ book “The never ending story (No, not the film, the film is junk in comparison) It act in the story as the ‘seal’ of the childlike empress, sigil of her chosen champion for the denizens and creatures of fantastica to know that the bearer is the chosen envoy of the childlike empress and his word is hers. The ouroboros is called the auryn in that book, it is used as rather iffy, cumbersome plot device. Michael Ende Chose the ouroboros as a visual metaphor for his own personal beliefs. He believed that heaven, dreams and the imagination where intertwined. There is no map of fantastica, because it is ever changing, just as culture and the human imagination does. He used it as a very literal metaphor for the life cycle of culture.

Despite this interesting titbit. This doesn’t really help me thought. I have no idea as to what to do at this early point in the project. I usually have no problem coming up with ideas. This time though, there’s nothing. No matter how much idealization and research I am doing, I just can’t seem to get inspired by anything.

What is most attractive to this theme for me personally is that as a sufferer of thanataphobia, I think about death much more than is healthy for any one human. I hope that I can use this anxiety as a rudder to guide me through this themes dark waters (hopefully that’s appropriate for university)

I have always had a vague idea about repeated lives. That the universes is cyclical and I may have been here writing this right now many many times before.

How do I make a game from this crackpot theory though? Honestly, right now I have no idea.

Funny really, this is the most ‘me’ theme we have gotten so far and I have literally no idea.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 3. Part 3.

Post-Mortem:

Working on the theme of one minute, and the emotional theme of despair (which I was given by Alex Mitchell and his emotion generator). I have created a very basic game book. Working in the idea of ‘one-minute’ into the narrative itself. I incorporated the idea of one minute into the plot itself, and used despair as the core emotion on one of the characters and built my story using that as a foundation.

Before I started even the idealization part of the project, Alex gave me the emotion of ‘despair’ from his random emotion generator. So- this was the core foundation of my narrative, and as soon as he said it, the idea of ‘The fear’ sprang to mind immediately. I took that and then made Stu’s despair due to the bad trip the emotional axis of the conflict. I just didn’t know how I was going to utilize it yet. On the flipside though, I wanted to create something sweet. Despair is a heavy emotion, I personally felt that their should be another side to the piece, hope, the blossoming out of despair into joy, and bliss, There needed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, as it where…

The idea came from a concept in Tom Wolfes; “the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”. It’s a book about Ken Kesey and the merry pranksters- Californian Hippy renegades in the 60’s, they’d put on big performance art/multimedia projects, where people where encouraged to take mind altering substances. Anyway; They had a term called ‘intersubjectivity’, which happens when you take hallucinogens with someone. It’s a like a psychic link to people, one of the later chapters says it perfectly, written by the at the time editor of the L.A Free Press; Claire bush. She says:

“Take it again? Oh, probably someday… but no urgency, no desire to run to my friendly corner pusher. I think the best way is to take it with a lover, but someone you’re willing to have live you in head for a long, long time. Not too many of them around. It’s a closeness not easily dismissed”- (The Electric Kool-aid Acid test. Tom Wolfe. Black swan press. Page 251.)

I realize now that I must have been inspired by this passage subconsciously. I only thought about this after the fact and feel the it perfectly fits the aesthetic message of the game. Of how shared experiences like this are exercises in bonding, especially the bad times, if you have friends that stick around even during the bad, and it’s not even a problem, because they know that you would do it for them to, that’s real, and that’s what I wanted to make, I sought to make a realistic game, and I feel like I really achieved it. The dialog is some of the best I have ever done, it reads like people talk. I know there is a lot of gratuitous swearing and all three of them say the work ‘like’  when the link sentences together to much. That was intentionally done though. It wanted to imitate the removal of one’s filter while high, and the ‘likes’ are littered throughout because I wanted to create the effect of brain fog, having them say like a lot was to emulate them trying to conjure thoughts. There is not a lot of accurate male representation in modern media (Not totally vacant, but definitely barren), and I feel like the worst culprit is gaming. As the male power fantasy is what sells right?! Not that there is anything wrong with that; catharsis is healthy. I wat create narratives based totally in grounded cognition, relatability is a powerful thing. Just look at most of the modern musicians that are coming out nowadays; Courtney Barnett, Cra Seat Headrest, Yellow Days, Mac Damarco, Stella Donnelly, Rex county orange, the list could go on for ages. They are so popular with people is because of their relatability. It’s the grounded cognition thing, people empathise with characters because their struggles our a metaphor for our own. The ideal self is a constant battle with the real self. I just want to be as honest as I possibly can be. No matter what the genre is be it sci fi or surrealism, fantasy or farce.

Now, about the style. I chose to make a game in the genre of mumble core, which is ‘media about nothing and everything’. The focus for me as writer was to create a game of dialogue that was so realistic and as close to how a person would talk as I could, thus; The story itself is very basic. Lo-fi and hopefully naturalistic. As my intention was to make a mumblecore interactive fiction game, and the fundamental style of mumblecore is its stripped back, budget and almost ‘acoustic’ feel, it’s all very ‘coming-of-age’- young adults navigating life, real people dealing with real situations and mostly It’s true and honest. Inspired by this, I wanted to keep it simple and focus mainly on dialogue. It’s a tale about three male friends at a house party, one of them is about to go off to university (Lewis), one is about to start touring his company (Alex), and one of them isn’t doing anything (Stuart). They descend together on the last house party of the summer, being that it’s the last time that these three will be a back together for a while, it’s an important night for these three friends, because of this, they have decided to take LSD. Stu though feel inferior to his mates that are starting their life, this makes him feel like garbage as he compares himself to them, and thus he starts to have a bad trip. You play as a Lewis, the gameplay is very simple, the goal of the game is to just have a conversation with both of your friends, and that’s it. As an I.F game, it has very low functionality, calling it I.F. is undeniably a stretch. More like a game book, this is mainly dude to my completely lack of understanding still when it comes to coding. Though, I personally feel like it ties into the lo-fi vibe of mumblecore. Which was totally planned… and not just indicative of my inability to learn coding (Yes, Yes, It is).

How I assimilated the theme of ‘one minute’ into my narrative was via the drug. Due to the nature of hallucinogens, they cause people to perceive time differently. Inspired by the idea- I used this as a vehicle to narratively explore an alternate analysis/interpretation of what one minutes could mean. Instead of using a timer, or similar gimmick. I chose to focus in on and investigate ‘the passage of time’ whilst under the influence and how time is perceived in flow states. Layering that with the concept of Stu potentially ‘breaking time’- Its may be a tiny bit of a stretch, but it fits the theme. I want to leave the interpretation of whether they have actually broken time to the reader, I personally have my own opinions on the truth of the piece, but I’d rather just leave it open, interpretation can be incredibly effective at making a piece personal.

Though the theme was one minute and the emotion I was given was despair, as I said earlier, I wanted to have some hope, and how I chose to get the message of hope across was through having the player character play as Lewis (who is somewhat of empath). This was my own personal message. Fostering Empathy was my goal, most likely inspired by death stranding no doubt. Enthused by this I have created a piece of art that is truly representative of intimate male friendships. Theres’ not enough of it out in media (or maybe I’m not looking hard enough). I don’t know whether the piece ‘challenges conventions’, and what does that men for me, do I need to be constantly pushing the boundaries, In the feedback forms, alex Mitchell asked me what I thought the chosen genre brings to the medium of games, I hadn’t really thought of it until he ask, it made me look inwards and wonder if once again I was just ‘artistically masturbating’, but I don’t think that was my intention, I wanted to make something that people could see themselves in. I think the realness of the piece is what it brings to the medium. It’s a game about opening, and not bottling up all the toxic energy inside. At least that’s what I think, as with anything, interpretation is fluid. For me, apart from some tongue in cheek satire sci fi I have done, this was my first foray into art like this, creating something true is much easier than fantasy. All I had to do was write from the heart (Yuck, yeah I said it, No shame).

The challenge came from starting the project. I think maybe because it was honest and personal that the task itself was daunting, I planned the thing to death once again, which as I have star=ted in previous posts is one of the things that I struggle most with. When I stopped procrastinating, and sta don to get the thing out, the words just started flowing out of me. It was almost free associative. I would look at the plan now and gain, the parts came out in kind of a mess and it was up to me to make some kind of coherent linear storyline from the random thoughts, despite this, I couldn’t be more please with the finished piece.

The other challenge came from learning twine, I put so may hours into learning the software., and none of it has been sticking. Its really shows in the final piece. Parts loop and if the player doesn’t have the understanding (which is my fault) to navigate, they will miss huge chunks. In compeison to the farce game though, it’s a a massive improvement, from zero to about a three out of an hundred, but its still something. If I was to create another I.F game in twine, I think I’d be able to explore something a little more complex such as branching pathways.

One of my favourite bits and the one that most people seemed to comment on was the bit about Stu breaking time, it was the one moment that everybody gave me feedback on. I don’t know what it is about that moment. Maybe because its related to the theme. Maybe because everybody’s had moment like that, where they’ve been drunk and gotten locked on to some small detail and then had an adverse emotional reaction to something ridiculous or asinine.

Personally, This is my favourite project I have ever worked on, its intimate, true and honest.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 3. Part 2.

Post-Production:

Okay, so, I’ve got something interesting, well at least to me… others might think it pretentious. This piece isn’t for them, it’s for me, and others that are in the know.

Building upon the one idea that I had last time, related to the film altered states. Using that as the jumping off point for the inspiration; but nothing so heavy this time, my best quality is my ability to write honestly- that and my aptitude at naturistic dialogue. Spurred on by this, I am going to play with this strength, and make something sweet and unusual, and thus; I am going to make the world’s first mumble-core game. Mumble-core is a specific subsect of indie cinema. Its characterized by a lo-fi production costs, perfect realism, and truthful human interaction, it is a genre has this cute budget purity to it. the fact there are zero games in the genre (unless you class NITW- which is more ‘mumble-core adjacent’). Seeing as there is no content like this right now, I want be the first to make one. I know it’s not going to be amazing because this time around I have opted to make an interactive game using twine, instead of using the unruly and intentionally confusing Squiffy.

On that note; I am trying my absolute hardest to learn some coding. I can honestly say its one of the hardest tasks I have ever had to undertake, I look at the thing, and my brain just flatlines, it’s a weird experience, having no experience, and math skills in the minus numbers, I just look at the instructions and pull a confused face. This is the fiercest I have ever fought to learn something, unfortunately; its genuinely not going in. It’s a giant worry if I’m totally honest with myself. I look at the instructions and they are just hieroglyphics to me. Twine is one of the most basic tools to learn and I feel like I am utterly unable to comprehend any of it. I m getting things to work, but only by contextual logic.

The theme being ‘one minute’ and then utilizing the aesthetics factors of mumble-core I intend to make an interactive fiction game about three friends at a house party that have taken LSD, and are experiencing the time warping effects of the drug, the idea being that they are stuck in amount of time and can’t get out, but that’s not actually the case- it’s just they are experiencing time differently. I know there will be a fine line for me to tread when writing something like this. It can very easily stray into trash fiction, wherein all the characters are only uttering quippy one liners, this is where we get into teen movie territory, which can admittedly be funny- like Superbad, or it could venture into darker territory- woke teen drama, like the panoply of channel 4 shows such as skins, sugar rush, my fat diary, or the darkest of these shows; Pleasureland. These types of shows romanticize teen life and are not a clear representation of how humans interact with each other and are more of a writing exercise in pretention. Mumble core is unlike this type of media because It is utterly realistic.

To get this right, I have to make my story less about the act of taking drugs and lean into it, instead making a narrative about everything around drugs, the honesty that comes from stripping away ones inhibitions, truly being able to open up to people and for a time, thought it may be chemically induced, being able to be actually happy. Using this as inspiration; I’d like to touch upon the idea of the application of hallucinogens as a therapy tool, not sure exactly how I shall do this. I think making the dialogue simple. Essentially Doing the Seinfeld thing of making a game about nothing.

Encouraged by this idea, I am making a simple interactive fiction game about a conversation between three close male friends. I intend to fully lean into the nothing aspect of the dialog, and just creating a story about three friends navigating life.

Simply put, a coming of age story.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 3. Part 1.

Intro:

For The third prototype hand-in, we were tasked to make a small game around the theme of “One-minute”. This could have been interpreted a bunch of different ways, one could have made a game that had a minute timer or perhaps maybe something to do with having the player character is stuck in loop where they reset, and environments stay the same (or something along those lines). I am going to opt to focus on the looser definition of one minute, I’m not sure how yet, but I feel like I want to tie the theme of one minute to a repetitive phrase.

Personally, as a writer all of the themes have been really hard for me to incorporate, and yes I get that they are meant to be challenging, I have personally been finding it really hard to correlate them in a fashion that fits, If we go back to the first project, I tried and failed, and on the dreckley project- I was successful, but only after a lot of hard work. I want to make sure that I’m creating work that fits the theme and not just shoehorning a vague relation around something that I am interested in. At least I catch myself before I get too far into the the project now. That’s growth, I guess…

The most attractive quality about this for me as a writer is the opportunity to do something with time travel. Incorporate it into my game with a time loop mechanic that correlates/is bolstered by the narrative somehow. Though, It has been done to death to be fair. This is evident by the number of time loop films there are; from 12 monkeys, primer, Groundhog day, and my personal favourite; the tatami galaxy, There’s even that gosh darn insufferable 6 episode arch in the melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, The notion being stuck somewhere and only by being noble, you can leave or worse, like Jacobs ladder or silent hill, its hellish and one has to repeat their worst moments again and again. It speaks to both humans’ ideal selves and the dark part of themselves that they keep hidden. The desire to change past mistakes, it’s beautifully glamorous idea. If was to go down this route, I’d have to think outside of the normal troupes of the many facets and approaches to the Genre.

Anyway, my point is; at this stage in pre-production I vaguely know how I am going to utilise the theme of one-minute, the plan is for me to build the game around the idea of being stuck in a minute. What I mean by that is that I would have the “Characters” (if I am even going to have any characters as such) be stuck in a time loop or more like, they are stuck in time, or rather feels like they are stuck in time. The only real idea that I can think of at this time, is maybe doing a story about the time dilation effects of hallucinogenic drugs. Though by doing that, I must make it right, I intensely dislike most ‘trippy’ scenes in most modern mediums, it’s all very tongue in cheek- and so ubiquitous that it’s organically self-parodying. It never captures the reality of it. The bliss and the absolute terror, and everything in-between. I’d like to incorporate the anti-depressive qualities of the drug too, maybe in a group therapy thing. Maybe tie it back to what I was saying earlier about the repeating the same moment, a hellish thing. I don’t know, there is a lot to mull over here. I’m still not sure. My plate is full.

What I am sure of though is; I know that I want to showcase my writing skills properly this time, I will have to work in twine or something similar. I botched it so badly the first time that I need to display my strongest skill this time around.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 2. Part 3.

POST PREDUCTION PROTOTYPE PROJECT 2. ITS PRETTY PRETTY.

For this project we were given the task to create a game around the word dreckley. For it, I chose to create a playground game. What I did create in the end is a playground game with folk narrative elements. I’ve made something interesting, of which I am very proud. It got elements from other playground games, due to the sport like aspects of playground games their was bound to be some similarity, but I’ve not just straight up plagiarized. I have incorporated different rules from a couple different games (such as red rover, piggy in the middle and tag) and made something new from the pieces.

The game is called klav dre gerensa which is the Cornish translation of “lovesick”. The idiom comes from the Cornish language. Its genesis comes from a story about saint Agnes and a Giant by the name of bolster. Bolster falls in love with saint Agnes and preeceds to be a really creeper. She gets fed up and figures out a cunning plan to finally do away with the tyrant. She asks him to use his blood to fill a gap in a natural rock formation that occurs in Chapel Porth cliffs, unbeknownst to the giant though, the cliffs feed out underneath into the sea, and he proceeds to bleed out and die. The myth has many version, one in which he didn’t really do anything wrong, but as they have updated the myth they’ve really turned him into a right ogre (pun intended). In which he is lazy, crude, flatulent, abusive to his wife and very much a philandering creeper. Find the story here: https://www.toadhallcottages.co.uk/blog/legendary-cornwall-giants/.

I prefer the updated version; it at least makes the monsters a fiend. In the classic myth, he didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just a Christian allegory about class based romantic hierarchy, in which a brute must not defile something so pure as a saintly lady blah blah blah, and for no reason except for malice does she get him to cut his whole fricking arm off and then jam it into a hole from which he bleeds to death. All for only falling in love. In the update he at least deserves it for being a disturbing and wildly inappropriate stalker, and at the end she feels some guilt and lays flowers for him (which is also kind of problematic). What is this teaching kids? To not bat above your station? Jeez…

The game itself works as such: it is game in which 4-10 players take roles the roles of characters, the characters being; The suitors (of which there is 3-8 players) and father and a maiden (of which there is only one. Though for more suitors maybe you could incorporate a mother role so that it ups the mania of the play space- but anyway I digress…). the sutiors wish the rescue the maiden from the fathers clutches, the father want to stop all these lustfull suitors from spoiling they’re precious daughter, and the maiden wants a man to be saved from the clutches of her psycho control freak father. The play space is divided up into concentric circles of varying size. The outer circle is the garden in which are the suitors, this is the only circle that is divided into quarters which acts as constraints during play for the suitors because they are not allowed to leave their quarter while the maiden is play (getting on a tangent again matty pull it back), the middle circle is the house (in which resides the father and mother), and lastly in the inner circle, which is the maidens room (where the maiden resides). Play begins with everyone singing a rhyme and skipping (or running) around in their characters respective starting circles, at the end of the rhyme at each stage of play the suitors must in unison cry out “demedhi genev dreckley” (marry me immediately!- which ties back into idea of being lovesick and incorporates the theme).  The aim of play is for the suitors to intercept (catch) a favour that is thrown by a maiden, if they catch the favour they are allowed into the house, the rhyme begins again and the suitors in the garden skip once more. If a suitor is in the house, they must avoid the father for the duration of the rhyme. If they are caught, they are once again relegated to the garden. if they avoid the father, then they all once more say the phrase “demedhi genev dreckley” and the maiden throws the favour once more. If it is caught by suitor in the out garden then they are also allowed to enter the house and will add a level of complexity to for the father roles play state. If a suitor in the house intercepts the favour though, he is allowed to enter the maidens room and free her. This will cause the endgame state, in which the suitors in the out garden must sing the rhyme, the suitor that has freed the maiden must escape the clutches of the father with the maiden in tow. She will act as an anchor of resistance that will add another level of difficulty for the endgame state. If they are caught then they are relegated to the garden once more and play starts anew. But if they escape for the length of the time of the Rhyme then they win and will live happily ever after.

I feel like I really nailed the theme this time. Thematically, it’s strong. My idea for the mechanics to loop back and tie into my aesthetic theme beautifully, and as an unintentional bonus: they complement each other well, by using the favour and the maiden it evokes classical romance tradition. Having the lovesick suitor is my personal favourite thematic element, I really like that it all ties in with the games name. It lends itself well to easy comprehension, and therefore by extension, it explains and bolsters the rules via conceptual osmosis.

My self-imposed pillars were simple and elegant, with an intention to make something slightly layered (but still not complicated) using these concepts. I gave a myself a strict set of guidelines form which I was to strictly adherent too.  I used it as a foundation from which to build my game around it. Like a idea igloo. I spent no extra time faffing and flapping. Yes sometimes creation is iterative, but as I wanted to focus on rules as mechanics, it was beneficial for me to incorporate rules into my very workings. In regards my to whether I completed my own goal of setting out rules as mechanic and tying it back into eh theme. I feel like I got it right. The work speaks for itself. It might be a little toto complicated for children but its something that teens and young adults could play.

I feel that the character personas work nicely too. One aspect that does worry me is the sexiest undertones of the thing. I don’t think anyone would mind due to the fairy tale aspect of the piece, but if it really bothers them then they are more than welcome to change the characters around to make it more progressive.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 2. Part 2.

PRODUCTION

The incitement as to why I chose to make a playground game comes from two places. Firstly from my idyllic life as a child living on r.a.f bases and in peaceful little villages in the shire, in which I would constantly have to play outside, making up little games usually involving characters, thinking back, there was a heavy emphasis on the concept of play in my formative years, and secondly; from my time in the performing art education where these sort of games where used as warm up exercises, games such as four square and bang. Playing these games in the theatre world is… complicated to say the least. The memory gives me the downright conniptions. As they were very much exclusionary exercises in social hierarchy, wherein certain cliques would game the rules via rule manipulation and covert collaboration to reject and bully others.

Inspired by this memory I intend to make a system of rules that will encourage the player to be more selfish. This will hopefully enable a system of play that is completely devoid of the ability to be cruel.

I also like the idea of the players having to say everything in a Cornish accent. Just to add another layer of funny to the play.

The main goal for me in this project is to work on the area of design in which rules ARE mechanics. Something that I am very interested in, as I want to be adept at setting rules and then breaking them for narrative effect. My aim being that I wish to create something elegantly simple, as I have stated before many times. I do not know at this point if I will be able to balance this at this point in the production, the rules aren’t coming to me, I feel like I’m over complicating the thing. The research has just made me more confused, I have all these systems of rule floating around in my brain its currently really hard to synthesis them, maybe due to the nature of rules, being that are at a very basic levels systems that fit together to create a thing from a sum of parts. They are naturally complimentary of each other, and its hard to strip it back.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 2. Part 1.

INTRO

For our second prototype the theme we have been tasked to make a game based on is the Cornish colloquial term; “dreckley”, which used to mean immediately, but due to the lackadaisical attitude of the Cornish people the word has changed over time and now means: “some vague time in the future”,  more analogous to mañana.

Honestly, I couldn’t be more pleased that we got this as our theme. As I have already have a tonne of experience in this area due to going to coming to Falmouth university in 2013 and doing theatre here. Owed the fact that it was in Cornwall, the course was stepped in Cornish fairy t ales, folk practices and language. For it I had to do a hefty amount of research, and create some performances inspired by Cornish lore and legends. Owing to this, I feel like I have an advantage this time round. Compared to the last project (that was D.I.Y), in which I have little to no experience maybe aside from some set design and creation here and there (dammit, should made a game about that…) my context bases was pretty much at zero, and veered wildly away from the theme because of having no frame of reference to work from. This time I am at an advantage, and coming of my last botched project, I am so keen for this.

Because I ruined the first project so enormously, I need to be sure that I won’t fall into the same pitfalls (the pitfalls in this case being my attention span and penchant for panic) as I did last time. This time my goal is to create something simple and elegant. I will allot myself some time for ideation, so that I may create a solid foundation to insure that I do not take figuratively forever tinkering.

So, simple and elegant are my pillars of design for this project. And in tribute to the meaning of these terms aim going to lean into the idyllic conjurations of our theme and make a playground game that aesthetically fits. Meaning that I want to create a simple and elegant set of rules. Every component of the game should feedback into the theme. That means no part of the piece should be superfluous.

At the start of this project I have some vague ideas for the game. Due to the nature of playground game I feel like I may have to borrow some elements from classic playground games, or rather that their will just be organic similarities. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because if you can say it’s like this or like it has elements of that then people will have a frame of context to work from and it will hopefully be easier for them to comprehend the activities.

Elements I wish to include:

·        Some sort of rhyme-based timing mechanic. This will have a duel purpose in which it will act as both a timer and will help bolster the thematic elements of the game.

·        A repetitive saying that must be shouted at a specific point in play.

·        A persona system based of classic characters from dogma for the players that will tie into the theme.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 1. Part 4 - Postmortem. (P.s. I hate it).

I botched it. Utterly & completely.

For the first unit of our prototype project we had to make a game (i.e. digital, board or folk) based on the theme of D.I.Y. Or more succinctly; the act of doing it yourself. Doing what? Well, that was up to us. When I first heard the theme my brain naturally went to the more universally recognised relative term usually involving the act of doing work around the house like putting up a set of shelves or fixing the leaky pipe under the sink.  Really, we were quite fortunate to get this theme as a jumping off point, the variances in what it one can relate doing it yourself to is astonishing. The depth and range of the subject was vast and doesn’t have to just mean hammer and nail business.

It can relate to crafting, such as knitting or weaving, to something like brewing beer or kombucha, or metalwork and weapon craft. D.I.Y is a vague thing, and therefore can be correlated to many fields of work.

At the beginning of this project. My first idea went for the generic meaning of the theme. I was going to make a game about a woman that had fled a rough relationship and moved into the house that had been the cause of great of a great fracture in her family after it was left to her and not her parents. Unbeknownst to her thought the house is a living thing and does not like the idea of change. The idea being that I was going to use the narrative as a vehicle to discuss the subject of change and growth. As I stated in the first post on the project: As she fixes the house, She fixes herself, and going beyond that; what happens when one party is resistant to  change, a=can someone else ever really heal another person or is it up to them to put the work in. to quote the hold steady: “I’m not saying that I can fix you, but maybe I can put you in a place where you can fix yourself”. I wanted to make a game about the redemptive power of love, and how one party can be reticent to change despite themselves. All good juicy stuff, AND relative to the theme even in a very humdrum and literal way.

Then I went and reinvented the wheel in true classic Matty fashion.

I attribute it to two key factors. Firstly, that I really felt that I couldn’t give myself enough time to get the story out and do it justice and considering the themes that I was going for. I wouldn’t have had time to do it justice. I felt it would have been too stunted and broken, I wouldn’t have had enough time to build on the story in a coherent and smooth manner. I would have ended up with something that felt like: “she gets to house, goes to bed, wakes up, starts fixing things, spooky thing happens, rinse, repeat.”. And the second reason being a mix of my own ego and idiocy, I didn’t want to something so humdrum for my fix project, and looking back on it now, it wasn’t humdrum, if I had given the time and care to it then I would have given myself enough to craft something a least half way decent toward what I was going for. It wasn’t me, it was too serious, and I wouldn’t be showing my best ability and competence. I just could get the thought out of my head that the product wouldn’t have been great, and I was so eager to impress.

My inspiration of the farce aspect of this project came from my time in the theatre, where I was introduced to practitioners of the craft of farce such as; Dario Fo, Edgar Wright and Harold Pinter. Ever since I have been fascinated by their work. The fact that they both artists work in the same field of comedy and the datum that their work is very different form one another.  Both have aspect of physical comedy, but Fo works more in the surreal- having works that are more akin to satire and parody. He tends to work more from history, taking historical figure and then using the medium to ridicule them. Whilst Pinter employs aspect of absurdist, but his style is far more naturalistic. Edgard Wright is a Master of Physical comedy, taking dire situation and then having his characters react in funny ways, usually applying music to make the scene more humorous.  Pinter tends to work more from a point of characterisation, focusing in on human flaws to create funny scenarios. Creating situations in his plays that build and build until the last act where the plot crescendos into an hot mess. As I stated in the first post, farce resonates with us as humans because it mirrors life, and through no fault of our own, situation snowball until they are ridiculous.

I felt that I had enough experience and knowledge to pull it off. I felt that I knew enough about both artists that I could blend their work into something that I would utilise the best aspect of each of these artists techniques.

Thus, begin the new project, an interactive fiction game in which I would seamlessly blend farce and horror. In which I would go for a new angle on D.I.Y and having nothing to with something as pedestrian as handywork. Opting instead to make a game about a delusional father that attempts to do an exorcism on his daughter. I’ d be playing to my strengths, I can do funny, this’ll be a cake walk…

Oh, boy was I so very wrong.

What I meant to do and what I ended up with where two completely different beasts. The piece that I ended up with was something entirely different and not at all seamless like I had intended. on finishing the project and looking back at the outline that I had created for the project I certainly overextended the project. The notes and layouts had the piece in three easy manageable “acts”, all with their own narrative branches and multiple endings. As I was writing though I kept building on them repeatedly. Getting further away form the outline that I had set out for myself. I kept reading over parts of it and then realizing that sections were not gelling chiefly well. I kept thinking about the reason why, I got hung up on the idea of naturalism, being that it was a farce I kept adding connections and filler. I became utterly blinkered in my quest to get the who, what, where and how perfect. Adding sections to make other parts of the work make sense, and before I knew it, I had spent so much time adding filler that didn’t really add anything to the piece that I had run out of time. I had filled so much of it that the ending that I had created in the planning section of the prototype would not make sense. I ran out of time and panicked, and inspired by Pinters work, I felt that I should just end the piece in a great ridiculous climax, and what I ended up with feels flat. Its not funny, and I leaned to far into the horror aspect f the piece and made one piece of work that feels utterly dissociative from each other. Both aspects are there, but they are separate from each other, like two ships passing in the night. The end work feels like it has a spilt personality and the two parts are contradictive.

Setting aside the story, which I spent far too much time working on and promptly forgot about the other aspect of making a game book. I did not look at the tool to help me make the game the first place. I had never done interactive fiction game and felt that the software would be so intuitive that I’d be able to figure it out in a day or two. This did not happen. I was complacent and arrogant that I’d be able to figure it out. Once again, I was wrong.

I ended up handing in a piece of work that I utterly hate. I spent to much time getting bogged down in filling in the gaps, and thus left myself to little time to write the narrative branches that would tie up the ending in a neat little bow. The cherry on top of the garbage sundae was not looking at the software. There are parts that repeat themselves, branches that don’t go anywhere and only one ending that has nothing to do with the any of the choices that the player makes. It is a piece utterly devoid of sense. Its not even that funny. Which is what I felt that I would be able to do.

Once again, what you plan and what occurs can really run away from you. In future I need trust in my outline and then darned well stick to it. If I had done this, then I am positive that I would have ended up with something that would have made sense, and I would have given myself enough time to get comfortable with the software. Instead made a broken game, that isn’t indictive of the quality I can produce.

Though I may hate it I feel like I needed this to happen, it has been a real eye opener. I needed it as a first attempt at art after being estranged from any form of creativity. It has also humbled me; I know I’m not at the place that I was when I last did anything creative.

That adage of use it or lose it applies to a multitude of areas. Especially creating art. For the next project I will simplify things, start small and then build from there. I am ashamed of the finished product and really do not want to have this happen again.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 1. Part 3?- (The Thing itself)

I'm having a difficult time with the characters themselves- I have a sense that there isn’t much depth to them as people, and yes that might be indicative of the characters as people, being that they are upper middle class, and its very easy for me to fall back on the trope of that upper middle class unintelligent every-man and woman. I’m becoming more and more aware that as I write them that I have subconsciously made them a self-parodying reminiscent of the medium itself. I blame the pythons for this, the unaware and fumbling upper middle-class Englishman is so ubiquitous in farce that calling it a cliché is an understatement.

The other side of this coin is that my personality blends into the characters, I find myself going back over sections and re-writing them over and over, to try and erase myself from the piece. For example: There was a lot of swearing in the first draft of the piece, and this was just me, and swearing is all well and good for certain characters in other works, but I should not have been doing it for the Willis’. Swearing is the cheapest form of comedy. Yeah, it’s funny, but it doesn’t really add anything to it and when your characters are quite well to do, then you’re not really doing it for any substantial reason. It doesn’t make sense for them to be f’ing and blinding constantly. The pressure comes from the desire to be funny and make it as amusing as possible. Instead though I’m making something coarse and worn.

Though I will admit that due to the horror element, the swearing comes in handy in some respects, as swearing is a natural response to the supernatural, and is more in line with how people would react in reality. That aspect resonates with me but can be used a crutch and detracts from the work.

[gam702mjordan]

Game 1. Part 2- (Oh hubris, you wry wench...)

Remember in the last post when I said that farce was easy, I stated; “I’d written comedy before, so how hard could it possibly be?”

Yeah, so, much harder than was initially apparent to me.

Farce is one of the most difficult medium of writing I have ever come attempted as an author. I have always been fascinated by farce as a comedic expression and as I attempt to try my hand at it for the first time, it is dawning on me that it really isn’t as easy as I was anticipating.

To add to that, I have never written horror before and though I might like it as a genre. As I work, I can really see my lack of experience and expertise is showing. While I can appreciate that one must practice at something to hone the craft, to use the cliché: practice makes perfect and all that jazz… I am personally feeling that right now I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I am trying to synthesize these two mediums, which I have no training in and the result is that am being hyper critical of every single line of dialogue and descriptive prose. I am spending far too long on each section trying to get the balance betwixt the two just right. I do feel like I’m not sticking the landing though. I feel that it might in part due to the fact that I am writing it and the written word is much more open to the individual readers interpretation of the piece. As I am writing the work, I find that I am creating the characters on the fly. I’m reading lines in a certain cadence and whilst that might be humorous to me. I have no idea how someone else is going to read the work. To someone else, it might be construed as a serious piece. That is the authorial problem though, am I competent enough create someone clear enough that will be interpreted the way I want. As I am reading through the work as I go, I feel more and more unsure, and don’t have the knowledge and experience at my disposal to know how to right the ship.

In an attempt to manufacture the right tone, I researched a lot of famous farce writers, playwrights and such, and looked at a whole panoply of details and theories written on the subject of farce, but as with most masters of a medium, none of them can seems to fully agree with each other and the case is that they all have differing opinions on the subject. Normally when confronted with so many differing opinions on a subject I find that endless note taking helps me climb out of my hole, though this does not seem to be the case this time. The contrasting opinions have such disparity to one another that I can’t find t tread of logic to hold on to and work from there

At this point in the project, what I personally ascertained about Creating a horror/farce is that is a delicate balancing act. To explain it using an analogy, there is a hard line, call it a line of belief, and as an author one must take it right up to the line, and then only take one step over it and no more than that. Therefore; there must be heavy undertones of naturalism to the medium. It can’t be so ridiculous that it becomes too improbable.

Farce resonates with us as humans because it is believable, because we experience ludicrous situations in our day to day life, see ourselves in it. It’s a mirror to our own ludicrousness, and in turn helps us except those moments of cringe in our own lives. At this point in the project though I feel like there is no evidence of this ideal in my work and the impression I am getting from the labour is that I am unsuccessfully marrying the two genres together. There are parts that I like, and feel that do come close, but I can’t seem to unify the two, I feel like I am either writing a garbage sitcom, or a fully absurd gory horror, and the dichotomy between the two is causing friction.

To add to this, I am really running out of time, and the pressure is constricting my brain from function due to the panic. I can’t seem to focus on the piece with enough clarity, as my inner monologue is constantly reminding me of how little time I have left to finish.

Thus, the development of the piece has been very staggered and un-syncopated. I find myself starting at paragraphs for some time, just trying to figure out what I am going for, whether the tone fits, and if I’m just making a hot mess of the whole thing.  The scope of this project has run away from me, and I am really struggling to correctly work the ideas that I want to integrate into the work to a level that I will be satisfied with, and then cherry on top is that due to my own myopic faffing, I am swiftly running out of time.

It’s funny really, I spent so much time on the first iteration of the DIY project idea, and then jettisoned the idea because I felt that I didn’t have enough time to complete the game with enough time to give the subject matter the and reverence that it justly deserves. But if I had stuck to it then I may have done. Because being the idiot that I am, I ostensibly planned two projects in the time that I was meant to create only one.

Coz I'm a ding dong... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[gam702mjordan]

Game 1. Part 1 (Ego is the naughtiest of private parts).

I have spent the first two weeks of this project running in circles, twisting myself into knots and feeling figuratively petrified by the prospect of creating something. The cause of stemming from many things; the fatigue of the mind that has been left idle for too long with the hyper critical inner voice that tell you that every idea you have is garbage on backing vocals.

Starting this project was particularly difficult for me. I was trying to generate ideas that would fit, and nothing was working. Why I found it so darn difficult is most likely because I have never created under constraints before, and while yes: thematic constrictions are there to push me as designer to come up the unique ideas despite having a strict outline to follow. For someone that has never done game jams or the like to have imposed on them for the first time is one doozy of a learning curve. The ideas that did come to me where pedestrian at best, and way beyond my technical expertise. Historically this has happened to many times, I should know the techniques to tackle it by now. Instead I unconsciously fell back on areas that I know I am adept at, which is note taking. Thus, I began a separate project which had little relevance to the project and was more akin to professional development; it was not conducive to project creation. I made pages and pages of notes on everything; narrative design, paper prototypes, writing for critical reflection, reflective language, beginning writing projects, outlining methodology, designing for boardgames, many notes in writing for interactive fiction. I was terrified of getting things wrong or not making something good enough that I just worked myself into a panic. That, right there is the thing, the ego gets in the way, especially since I’m now on a masters and working with people that are far further ahead than I in their technical, artistic and creative fields. You want to create works that mean something and show how gosh darn smart you are. And sometimes that not the case, you just must make something that works and is playable and stop trying to make everything have like 12 level of metaphor to it.

I played around with a few ideas at first, a board game involving some newlyweds that by a haunted house and as they try and move in and fix the place up they are confronted  by a poltergeist that grows in power as it gets more angry at the couple. It would be a game that would rely heavily on resource management, characterization and an emotion mechanic in which the player would employ a mechanic Comparable to hit points, but fear points instead, as the ghoul frightens them they lose points and gain them as they overcome and fail at obstacles in gameplay. While this might have been the easier choice, for someone who historically doesn’t play board games, I felt that this was the harder option for me to get on with as my frame of reference is zero.

The idea I really liked was an interactive fiction game in which the player takes the role of a women who inherits a house, a real fixer upper. Unbeknownst to the protagonist the house is alive and doesn’t want to change and will essentially try to kill her as she is fixing areas of the house. Having a simple win lose diverging narrative system wherein the player must pick the right choices to make it through to the happy ending or just die. The themes of the story obviously being about DIY. From this I came up with the idea that she should have just left an abusive relationship and using the fixing of the house as a way of cleansing herself and as a metaphor that infers that as she fixes the house, she fixes herself. Then before I know all these metaphors are crawling out of the woodwork (albeit organically), and then you have this massive pile of heavy themes, you want to use all of them because you like them and you wat to talk about them and sometimes you just can’t, or the story takes on a life of its own, and becomes to long to organically put into a small prototype without it being jarring or disjointed. Some stories demand to be told in their entirety otherwise it’ll be a downright injustice to the piece. I am annoyed with myself that I focused on this one area for some time and put loads of work into, creating scenarios and maps of the layout of the house and such, and I can honestly say that I desperately tried to make it work, it caused me a lot of anxiety, so I’m putting that idea in the vault for later, because it’s true and interesting and plays to my strength, but right now it’s unmanageable.

Then we had the ideation lecture and the techniques I learnt form it is what helped me come to my final idea. I felt I should keep it simple and play to my strengths, which Is comedy, in particular- dark comedy. Through a personal study session I came up with the idea of doing an interactive fiction game in which a teenage girl from stoke invokes a demon to help win her the heart of a boy in her year at school, but instead gets possessed and her father being the practical sort, attempts to do his own exorcism and from there it devolves into a farce. I know I can do farces, and while it may not say anything meaningful. I know I can make something that might maybe make at least someone laugh .

My single biggest problem is myself. I am a constant perfectionist. I am always trying to shoehorn ideas together so that the piece of work says something evocative, and sometimes that just doesn’t happen. This time I feel into that pitfall once again. I continued working on an idea because I felt I had put to much time into it to just give up on it, because of that I had worked myself into a frothy frenzy. While the notes may have helped me get to a place where I can start, they mostly constricted me into thinking that I needed to stick with the piece that I had put a lot of time into.

Next time I will trust in the myself and the knowledge I have accumulated. As I was reading and writing the notes my brain was telling me that I knew this stuff already and It was my ego that was telling me that I needed to brush up on the thing because I’ve been out of the any sort of creative endeavour for a fairly large amount of time.

And Sometimes you’ve just got to kill your babies and put them in a safe place for later.