I don’t mean to imply that I have conquered my numerous OK Plateaus, but long before I watched the video, I’ve seen the work of others this way. I will often find myself peering through a window into the creative effort necessary to produce a given work. For instance, when watching a movie, the way the camera moves makes me think of the crew behind the equipment, affecting how the scene is captured. Sometimes I’ll take it a step further and try to imagine what the director was thinking.

It’s not a look “behind the scenes”, it’s more of a limited intuition into the technical creative process.

A good example of seeing nearly all the way through is with most of today’s comedians. Even the “shocking” ones aren’t too opaque. Being a comedian is, like a good illustrator, more about observing the world in a certain way. You go through life with certain filters in place (this appears to take a conscious effort), and you methodically record all of your thoughts. Add a few showmanship flairs, and you can make a pretty good comic routine. Yes, this is an exaggeration or an oversimplification. But it helps emphasize the ability of a small subset of humorous creatives to bring something truly special and new to the table. For example, Leon Arnott’s twitter writing is special, because most of the time I can’t even get a glimpse of the underlying process. His work is behind a creative veil, so to speak.

Here are some other examples of works that I’ve experienced recently, or have stood out in my mind, that demonstrate this creative veil:

• The Haruhi Suzumiya anime — especially the “Endless Eight” episodes, which defy my every ability to discern how they were conceived and produced
• Most of David Lynch’s work
• The film Enter the Void
• droqen’s Starseed Pilgrim, which remains a consistent yet impenetrable fortress of creativity, despite my long hours and diagrams
• Phillip K. Dick novels
• Music by Akufen — I know HOW he made it, I just don’t know HOW he made it
• The MyZaza video — no matter how short it is or how many times I watch it, I still can’t figure out how it was made, or why. I hope I never find out.

I most recently experienced this veil with Liz Ryerson‘s latest endeavors.

It began with her newly released collection of music & sound, Scraps. I hesitate to call it “experimental”, because the pieces sound so directed and purposeful. They may be disparate snippets, but there’s a strong coherence between them, definitely alluding to something grander that is utterly invisible to me. There is nothing random or thrown together, it all seems to serve something, something that, for me, is inaccessible. And I think that’s why I like it so much.

One of her blogs, l0stw0rlds, is of a similar texture. These images of hyper-obscure games, alluding to entire worlds that no longer exist, is crushingly wonderful. I don’t recognize nearly any of these places, and yet I’m instantly drawn into a nostalgic mood. And like her music, I can’t understand how these were made, or what thoughts stood behind them. Why do they strike me so?

Finally, her game Problem Attic which I have been playing in ~30 minute slices, and not yet completed. Its grain is quite thick, and the player is met with formidable impedance. The challenge of progression goes beyond the glitchy controls, relentless “enemies”, and strict goals — the entire game exists in a different plane, where the rules change often, seemingly trying to reject the player’s intrusion into this space. I perform actions in the game in order to get to the next level, but I cannot be sure if my actions are positive or negative. Am I breaking out of a prison? Am I the jailer? Am I reliving an endless Sisyphean struggle against a system I cannot comprehend? There aren’t any names for the sections, and players refer to them as the “first” and “second” parts, etc., which tells me that people don’t feel comfortable describing what they see in the game, which makes me feel that I am not alone in my inability to discern what is going on here.

These uncertainties are, again, due to my failure to see into the creative process from outside. This is what keeps me coming back, session after session, to throw myself against the jagged wall of Problem Attic. If I ever do finish the game, it won’t be because I “understood” it or “figured it out”. I will have completed just one stage of a process of understanding that may never be completed.

But ultimately, I hope I never find out. I want to continue interacting with this world, with my imperfect knowledge of it, and never crack the code. I’m glad Liz herself does not endorse any particular interpretation of the game.

It’s interesting to note that Liz spoke much about her troubles with the Stencyl game engine via Twitter, and therefore I have actually been exposed to a substantial amount of the inner workings of the game (from a technical standpoint). And yet, I still don’t feel I know how it was made.

In conclusion, the world is very large, and my experience of it is negligible. Mainstream media is authored by ≲1% of the creators, and represents ≳99% of the content that is visible by default. Untold fortunes exist outside of this narrow field of view. When it comes to revealing things to your audience, less is more. Go outside your experience to find wonderful things.

PS. Anna Anthropy recently wrote about the lost art of 90s web design, which strikes a similar chord.

Get It Up - an impromptu folk game

Having finished my degree the previous summer, it would appear that everything should just go “back to normal”. The craziness is over, my brief foray into a bizarre and even slightly antagonistic field (Physics) has come to an end, and now I can return to the workforce with renewed vigor. Because there is only so much exploration a person can do, right?

But it seems that 2012 is already distinguishing itself from previous years. Just over a week ago, I found myself nearly halfway around the world, attending a conference with the most energetic, talented and interesting people I could possibly dream of. This was the Game Developers Conference, held in San Francisco, USA.

A few themes permeated the conference in my perception, themes that resonated with me, my thoughts, and the mindset that brought me ten time zones west of home. In the hopes of making this a mini-series of posts, I’ll discuss one of these themes here.

I’d like to talk about folk games. The first time I had ever heard the term “folk game” was at the inspiring session given by Douglas Wilson (of Die Gute Fabrik). All but devoid of tactical and strategical elements, these mostly physical games are generally very simple and easy to learn, and demand a certain cunning and skillful coordination. According to Douglas, a good folk game makes the players feel extremely competent (or able to gain mastery over the game), while being extremely entertaining to watch. One game cited had blindfolded players  dueling with wooden spoons in slow motion. The popularity of the game was attributed as much to how “badass” it feels to move in slow motion as it was to watching someone move in slow motion being “really fucking hilarious”.

So folk games are fun for all involved, even if only an observer. In the blindfolded example, the spectators play an important role of mediation — bystanders must verbally discourage players who move too fast. This theatrical element immediately brings the folk game into a broader context of interaction between people. It affords a place and justification to make a fool out of one’s self among friends.

Of all the games Douglas presented in his talk, my favorite remains the only one made by Die Gute Fabrik that I’ve played: Johann Sebastian Joust. The game is reminiscent of Lemon Jousting, where players attempt to knock the lemon off their opponents’ wooden sticks while protecting their own. But JS. Joust has an extra layer too it, which is the computer. A lemon on a stick is an excellent feedback mechanism indeed — however, there is something intrinsically external about having a computer mediate. I feel it adds a great sense of fairness to the game, and less of a need to rely on “house rules”. Winning is extremely satisfying, and losing tends to make you think, “I can do better next time”, accompanied by a desire to play again.

It might seem unrelated, but I find that Bennett Foddy‘s work is extremely in tune with this sort of philosophy. In Bennett’s talk (by absolute coincidence, right before Douglas’s), he explains how he believes that the player wants to be humiliated and frustrated. He showed a video of the ending of his game GIRP, in which the player took too long to reach the prize at the end. Winner: Bird. This subversive move on Bennett’s part brings to light so many positive aspects of his game: the emotional connection made during those fateful 20 minutes. The fact that the player actually uploaded this video to YouTube, “shaming” himself in the face of the world. And the idea that when the player does finally beat the game, he will have achieved a mastery over it. Similar to folk games, Bennett’s projects are extremely simple to understand, needing little to no explanation. Finally, a collaboration between Bennett and Douglas led to Mega-GIRP, which turns regular GIRP into a single-player game of twister. This modified version is even harder than the already-hard game, and players look ridiculous playing it. This kind of spectacle sport becomes a nexus of truly social gaming among groups of people.

Early on in the conference, I had the pleasure of being involved in an unusual game jam. Many people were involved with the final product, among them Harry Lee, Stephen Lavelle, Sara G, Stephen A, Matt Thorson, and Alan Hazelden. Instead of focusing on graphics or programming, physical props were laid out and explored. Paper cups, chairs, and some dice Harry had that denoted parts of the body. The game we ended up playing was dubbed “Get it Up” (photos here!). Two players go at a time, each rolling a die. They then have to transfer a single paper cup from one pyramid to another pyramid, while only using the body part designated by the die. The group wins when the new pyramid is completely built.

Another example was the game DRINK, by Anna and Loren, which is a real-world drinking game played against a virtual opponent.

How can I summarize and/or wrap up this post?? There’s a growing feeling of moving games into a shared physical space, while taking advantage of available technology to aid the way. Let’s make more games!!!