Ordering Chaos: making a gameish entity

Is it Time to Write Yet?   

Between scripting, organizing assets, and contemplating game mechanics, I'm trying to set more time aside for the very reason I'm making a game in the first place: experimenting with narrative. I've made use of the apartment walls, in a somewhat limited capacity: sticking things to them in various combinations.

Working on narrative has sadly taken a bit of a back seat to building the game (which is hard work!). But as I'm advancing, the whole process has me wondering... what do I really need to get my teeth into the writing? Do I need a tidy system that lets me slot in bite-sized snippets of text? Or do I need something chaotic? Walls covered in ideas, until the most engaging ones jump out, and stick to my sweater... land in my soup.

A (personal) historical look at meaningful chaos

Back in 2007, a half-year stay in Toronto had me living at the infamous street number 18 1/2 (with no neighbouring 18). It was a time-piece, a museum erected in honour of its long-time guests, the nugget of an intensely interesting community (anarchists, I liked to believe). Sometime in the 80's, the Universe had split itself open in the living room, at a party perhaps, and swallowed half of the house. A family of raccoons chewed on the remains of the missing half, in their basement nest.

It was a house of cobwebs, where half a giant plastic horse was forever jumping out of the living room wall. A mosaic of broken mirrors lined the stairwell, so that every time I went upstairs, my clothing snagged against it. My sublet room was past the shared upstairs bathroom. My bay window, with its missing third, was covered with a thin sheet of plastic that breathed calmly against the cold Toronto winter.

A colleague came to pick me up one day, and upon seeing the electricity crackling along the surface of the walls, said, a bit under her breath... that a clean house was for her, a clear mind. I could understand that. For me a clean bath was a clear mind. The bath here was painted black. For the length of my stay here, I could never quite tell how clear anything was, least of all in my mind.

Conclude and Contrast

Since that time, I often find myself thinking about what this colleague said. I was attracted to 18 1/2: to the half remaining, and to the missing half. Despite the calm of my current living-space, and how I relish this deep quiet, I still search for small concentrations of any kind of crackling chaos. Somewhere between quiet moments of reflection, and memories of the beloved (now departed) half-house, is an illustration of how the clarity of perspective sometimes emerges from a harsh contrast.

Messiness organized, deconstructed, reconstructed. Not the perfect perch, the middle ground, the method that will tackle all methods, but rather a variety of experiences, and observations, attempts to see what comes together, and what sticks, and what falls apart, and how beautifully it might hold together or crumble.

Why would anyone build a secret room no one can access?

Its a night-time cityscape, much like Montreal at night. Only this is a game: a game we are building. Slumbering birds are affected by the colour and intensity of nearby streetlights. If the conditions make them uncomfortable enough, they will leave—alternatively, they may just build a nest, hang their hats, stay awhile.

Birds have preferences related to this one focal point of the game: street lights. But how far do these lights extend? What do their halos touch? The edge of a tired dog-walker's feet? The shell of an abandoned egg? The cornea of a crow just now awoken by the nightmare scream of a bee? Or a sleeping child's first mile of hair, lightly tangled on the surface of their quiet pillowy room.

this is not a screen shot of the game: it's a bird-rabbit happily hanging out with its insect-rabbit neighbours, in the magical world of my mind.

I'm learning to code. I look at the bird's code, and I feel strongly: these birds need community. They need to feel things about the birds around them. What bird should be forced to stand alone? What bird should only think of one thing, be it light or whatever a game cares about despite them? So, ignoring the fledgling game designer in me, yelling that this is convoluted, and will only confuse everyone (the players, the code, and me!), I give the birds a tangling mess of code. I fight with myself, and the code, but after a few arbitrary decisions, its done: the birds can love or hate other birds--their neighbours. Strangely, it doesn't concern me that the code is useless. It comforts me that it's there, hidden in the folds of the game.

I've always loved secret pockets... you know that vintage perfectly tailored coat? You pull it on, and on the inside, against your breast you discover a softer seam, and the smallest button, like a button made for the child of a child, a dexterous doll that hides candies for its grown-up coat.

Now, beyond the love of hidden/useless artifacts, can an argument be made for this kind of building, this kind of thinking? Might a parallel be made with an athlete stretching before a performance?

I'm not much of a sportsman. I've heard interesting things said about stretching in the context of physical activity. I would say that what I gave myself was a little room to maneuver. Perhaps like stretching muscles, or perhaps like stretching the area through which I could think.

Baking lights--the oven light

We are working on a game that takes place at night. And I'm told there's this thing you should do, when you work on a game, which is to bake things (which reminds me: my oven light is dead...). Not all the things... just certain things. Like lights. And not all the lights, just the ones you want to crystallize into your scene.

From my limited understanding this means: take your raw light (in our case: the runny yolk of moonlight), whip it up with melted butter, and honey—because don't all these things remind you of light? delicious light.

Okay. Seriously. From my limited understanding, baking light has nothing to do with food (I'm lying). Its about "freezing" the lights in your scene into place (but with a warmer metaphor, because: light). Why? Because light is energy. It flickers. It needs to be crystallized at the right moment. Wait, wait. Whats all this got to do with baking, and my dead oven light?

Who bakes the lights? Me. In other words, I'm in the middle of the end of production, and baking lights can take hours I'm told. Just like baking in the real world, and what is all this designed to remind me of?  Pastries. So... while I let Unity bake my lights, I'll take a walk to the the bakery, and buy some streusle—or more likely, I'll walk to the fridge... or even more likely, I'll think of eating, and keep working, which is why I clearly need the language of this thing I'm working on to remind me of my actual needs.

Working from home; where to start?

left to right: unimpressed peacock, distracted pigeon, vulgar vulture,  squawking seagull, critical crow, and off-key song bird.

Working from home today? Not sure where to start?

Get to Work

Well. First, you really need coffee. Okay. Got your coffee. Now get to work. You see that thing in front of you? Looks like a disorganized mess? Yeah, that's what it thinks when it looks at you. Its okay. Mornings are hard, with all the birds congregating outside just to mock you...

Next Step: Get to Work

Get yourself somewhere in proximity of your work area. You can stare at it for a while. Its the existential version of looking at yourself in the mirror—a thing anyone rushing to an actual workplace (and not staring at the bedroom desk in their pajamas) might do every morning. You're working from home today; you get to bypass the actual mirror, and all its superficialities. You see that amorphous shape slithering away from you? This is also you. Now stab it with a fork to keep it still, and get to work.

Where to start? Anywhere. Just get to work.

Anywhere is not a place. Start at the beginning? Eh... not again. Not today. Start where you left off. Where was that again? Somewhere in the mess. Actually, its on a list somewhere. There's a list. Find the list.

The Infamous List

Okay, got it? That place where you left things off last time? Good. Perfect. That's all you needed right? Except your coffee is cold. But its okay. Cold coffee is the sign that you're getting warmer... closer to actually getting something done.

If you feel lost staring at your imaginary list, draw a square somewhere, anywhere (on the wall even). On the right-hand-side of the square, write the following: “Get to work.” Now, put an x in the box, and rejoice. One thing done. The first task is always the hardest. “X” marks the spot of where to start, its a process, not a destination. This is not a treasure map... although... your plan could deviate, you could spend the day designing a treasure map, for the children you'll never have if you don't get to work.

The Random Number Generator

Now, if you still feel lost, build a random number generator, put a number next to each task on your list, and let the system choose (or google “random number generator”). You'll find that your mind quickly comes to focus when a piece of code tells you to put socks on after it tells you to put on your shoes (or, in my case, to put a number of bird icons into my game before they exist).

schoshima - definition and etymology

What happens when two people come together to create something complex and uncertain? Like for instance, an experimental game. 

Kazumichi and Mélisandre on vacation in Val David, circa 2012

Although a million things can be considered games, and so many facets of games are compelling, this post focuses on the potential for poetry. Every interaction, every rule, every structure can be designed to break, to question, to rebel, or to meander through an experience that defies logic while using that same logic to prop itself up into existence. And so, who are we in all of this? What do we become, in the process of combining our knowledge and sensitivities, diving into experimentation?

Warning: The following definitions and investigations are not for the literal-minded. Indeed, if we must define schoshima in six words or less, schoshima is: Kazumichi and Melisandre, experimenting with games. But then, Mélisandre wanted to pretend she could build the world anew... including the following dictionary entries and clarifications:

schoshima

/skōSHēmä/

noun:

1. An island that isn't surrounded by water.
   Mélisandre made a schoshima of folded paper, and gave it to her aunt.” see also: conceptual art, “who is an island?”, and aesthetics.

adjective:

1. A place made by combining two or more geographically incompatible places or elements.
   When Kazu and Mé meet in their dreams, they each choose a different meeting place, and end up someplace schoshima, like Toky-fax, a place neither Halifax nor Tokyo, nor neither.” synonyms: chimerical, quixotic, far-away...

schoshimate

/skōSHēmāt/

noun:

1. A deck officer on the Schoshima
   The Schoshima, a small game company constructed in 2017, in the shape of a small amorphous landmass, to test the theory that an island not surrounded by water will move more freely than a water-bound ship. The Schoshima will disappear in late 2223, sole surviving schoshimate Alan Ptel will describe the vessel, and its voyages in his memoirs:  Unprintable; memoirs of an npc.
2. An inhabitant of a schoshima

Word Origin:
 
Scho /skō/ from Schofield, a name that crossed the Atlantic in the 1800s and shipwrecked on the coast of the Magdelen's Island. The roots of /skō/ either point to a lost medieval village in Northern England and the Old English schole: hut, or to the German schön: beauty.
shima /Shēmä/ from Nakashima, a name that crossed the Pacific in the 2000's and became landlocked in Montreal. The roots of /Shēmä/ point to the Japanese 島: and island that stretches so far its nose is pink while its toes warm in the sun.
 

Controversy: 

 

schole or schön being equally likely origins, a small subset of schoshimates feel the important question is one of self-identification. The hut-like, spiritual descendant of hut-dwellers, engaging in a hut-born philosophy. Or the cognoscenti, whose moral values are derived from a deep engagement with Aesthetics. On the other hand, a predominant number of schoshimates feel that the best theoretical model is one that leaves aside questions of identity and focuses instead on creating not a probability space, but a possibility space. In this model, schole and schön are placed in a false dichotomy, and through the process, emerge as a complex question. A salient and urgent contrast between social classes, as these have defined both Aesthetics (schön), Architecture (schole), and the very question of “who is an island?".

Who is an Island?

Although at first look, the term: "Who is an island" appears to be an identity question, this obscure call and response game (similar to the Marco Polo game), has at its origin another type of question, one that explores an intersection between social isolation, geography and poetry. Is the world inflexible? Can a land mass be folded into a paper crane, and sent to heal a sick child? Is there something in our understanding of geography that can help us understand social isolation? "Who is an island?" one player yells, "No man is an island," the other responds. And the players have tea. High tea. And they discuss whether a woman can be an island, whether an island can be transformed into a golem, and whether that golem should be heeded when they insist on being called Xanthippe. Or the game can be played in solitaire, or in an echoey stairwell, or while on a raft staring out onto expanses of ocean.