• Runaway blast. Eradicate opposition.
• Where. Reach end.
• The lake. Discover mystery.
• NSBD console system. Use system.
• Campodecolor. Compose visually.
• Viewpoints. Explore possibilities.
• Hope! Embrace demise.
• Heart. Endure consequences.
• Colormatch. React instantly.
• The tomb. Discover secrets.
• Sheets. Explore possibilities.
• Allegr. Learn (forced) metaphor.
• Cave trip. Avoid obstacles.
• Walker. Reach end.
• Climbrunner. Reach end.
• Within. Remember.
• Gently. Ejaculate.
• Tumblecopter. Attempt control.
• Anything. Do (nearly) nothing.
• Wirewalk. Attempt stability.
• Prosopamnesia. Find face.
• Deconstructivism. Destroy beauty.
• nkytt. Get stuck.
• Doppelganger. Communicate.
• Runnerby. Reach end.
• Intervalo lúcido del individuo inconsciente. Don’t analyze.
• While telling with the eyes. Figure out.
• Frogs drink faces. Destroy menace
• (Sin asunto.) Write confession.
• January. Hopelessly fantasize. (Collab with Greg WS; I’m describing only my side.)
• han’you tokimeki. Hook up.

I originally wrote a super egomaniacal rambling here, but I’ve opted to save you the eye-rolling.

The design is a relic from 2010 which I never finished implementing, because back then I didn’t know much PHP. Now I decided to finish it, for the large part eschewing WordPress’s redundant, confusing, ill-documented and inflexible functions, which made me give up that time, and rolling my own code. Also for the first time I’ve tasted what it’s like not pulling so many hairs in the process of getting letters and boxes where you want them to appear on the screen, thanks to Less, an alternative to plain CSS.

Below is a picture of how this blog no longer looks. And here is the whole, long first page.

I will ramble. Please forgive.

One day, on a whim, I contacted a few fellow game makers to see if they would be interested in taking part in a little experiment. Following up on my whims has been my modus operandi since I started making games, so this just seemed appropriate. A few caught on, and what we set out to do was make a game each, and then switch around the credits, so each of us would release a game that was not of our respective creation.

As me and the friends I contacted discussed the finer points, I got questioned as to why something like this could be a good idea, what I was trying to achieve. I truthfully responded that I was not trying to achieve anything, that this was just a game, something fun to try out, a bit of a silly prank. I never explained where the idea came from, though.

I have a hard time reconciling my selfish desires with my outlook on life. I believe that everyone and everything is just a part of a whole, and that any sense of self that we have is an illusion that is normally convenient to let us do the best we can, but, for our species, has gone out of control, and selfishness has become the norm. Copyright law is just one concrete expression of this selfishness, in the realms of culture and economics. This belief clashed with my need to become good at what I want to become good at, and be recognized for it as an individual, to be favored in some fashion. So, I guess I had this in mind when I became suddenly intrigued by the thought of having another person take the credit for a game I’d made.

The people who participated were Jonathan Whiting (a.k.a. MrPiglet), Michael Brough (a.k.a. brog), Noyb, and I. A theme was convened, ‘masquerade’, which seemed appropriate. The games are the following:

• Ascension
• The sense of connectedness
• Face time
• Doppelganger

They were all released on December the 1st. During this last month or so I haven’t been in my best mind, so I didn’t concern myself as much with the outcome (or even the preparations) as I could have, but I believe that it was a positive experience for us all. From reading my fellow conspirators’ thoughts, I understand that they were not entirely comfortable throughout, and this mirrors my initial dilemma; I think that being aware of such unpleasant emotions results in a higher understanding of our self, so I’m not sorry for having sparked this charade. Me, I was surprised to find myself so anxious about what to do with the game I was to display, not because of the game itself, but because I had to consider the actual author’s feelings for their own game, their attachment to it, their willingness to place it in my hands. Even though it wasn’t my game, I made it a point to treat this one as I would any of my releases, but whatever I usually did with one, Jonathan might not have agreed. Frustratingly dealing with this dual standard (in my own mind, as he never argued) was the low point of the experience for me.

But now, game’s up.

I’ve archived the older one (in Spanish) for posterity.

More surprising is that Sheets, the game I entered in TIGSource’s latest, the Adult/Educational Competition, also got me in tenth place. This is so surprising due to my making the game in a rush to get something in at all, and it being mostly just a ‘choose your own adventure’ interactive story. More so, because there were a few very good games that didn’t even make it into the top ten, such as Gregory Weir’s Silent Conversation. All I can say is that I got lucky, this time.

He showed some of his short films/videos, or fragments of them. One of those was Little flags, which will give you an idea of what he does. The truth is, I went to this talk not knowing anything about this man, other than him being a filmmaker, and his link to music. For, you see, he seems to often work with musicians, or simply make sound a vital part of his work. The day before that talk, I was seeing Avi Mograbi’s Z32 while one of Jem’s works was being screened elsewhere, called Ciudad de México por azar, with simultaneous live music by the aforementioned musicians, plus DJ Rupture and Andy Moor. I didn’t know this event was taking place, or I would have been there, especially after seeing Chain the evening after the talk, which was already a day too late anyway. Chain is a feature-length, sharp, documentary-like view on the culture of consumerism. After the screening of that movie, he was there to answer questions and talk a bit about it.

He’s here in Chile because of Sanfic, the Santiago International Film Festival, which has been my chance to see some new films, and also hear the directors talk about them, which is quite an interesting experience. The final time I saw Jem was after a showing of a few of his shorts, including Lost book found, most likely the highlight among the bunch. In this short, he tells his story of what it was like being a push cart vendor in the city, and his discovery of a notebook that was filled with a strictly categorized, but seemingly nonsensical, list of numbers, places, things, situations related to the city. I asked him whether the story was real, to which he said it partially was. He refused to say if the book ever existed.

I’ve had lots of fun reading the varied essays on games, some of which I would not have read otherwise, as they are about aspects that don’t particularly call for my attention. For instance, I’m not very inclined to reading on game systems, even though it’s pretty much the core of what constitutes a game, so it’s been very useful. The practical work has been stimulating; since I graduated from university, I’d missed that feeling of rushing things to get them in time for class, which ultimately helps to keep me active and on my toes. The course may not be the equivalent of an in-class course, but given the price of admission, it’s been fantastic.

I’ll be sharing the most noteworthy of my ‘homeplays’ in more posts to come. They’ll certainly be improved over the rather rushed state they’re at right now before I post them, though.

The previous design has been archived.

i apparently had kept songs from my all past lives. and apparently i have been mostly female in my past lives.

ok um i dreamt music stuff

so i was like “finally, i can record an album with female vocals”

i was listening to music and i wanted to play it

<somari> What kind of music stuff? Mostly female?

i think it was something lofi made

no

“nobody will need to know i’m singing with my past selves”

something played on a keyboard, and i wanted to play it on my keyboard because it sounded so cool, kind of melancholy

then i woke up and couldn’t remember the tune
which sucked

i don’t know anything else outside of what i recited