When I was about 10, I was playing with a girl that lived in my grandparent’s court. She was a bit mischievous, but then so was I. For the sake of anonymity, let’s call her “Schmebbie”. Schmebbie and I were riding our bikes around the court on a STINKING hot day, and suddenly got the awesome idea to go down to the milk bar and buy some kind of ice cream, to cool us down. My mind started racing with the options ahead of me. Maybe I’d try something different. Maybe I don’t have to get a golden gaytime EVERY time I go to the milk bar. We scattered, seeking permission, her to her house and me to my grandparents. The general consensus was we’d be driven there by my grandparents if we waited a little bit. So we continued to play in the court.

Until Schmebbie decided to go rogue. Bored of waiting, she started kicking rocks around. Then she picked them up and threw them. She thought it was funny to throw them over the fence onto the grumpy old couple’s shed roof. I guess it did make a cool noise. I didn’t throw any though, didn’t really see the appeal. Plus all my energy was going into thinking about what ice cream I was going to get. Pine splice. Holy god.

Suddenly the grumpy man came storming outside (rightfully) pissed that these kids were throwing rocks at his stuff. He grabbed us both by our respective ears and marched us home. I got in trouble. Schmebbie got in trouble. We were separated for the rest of the day, and I was made to stay inside.

No trip to the milk bar. No ice cream. All because Schmebbie let me down, man. Bear with me here, there’s a point, I promise.

I don’t normally do this, but I’d like to draw your attention to something that you might want to help out with. Transmedia extraordinaire Christy Dena, along with Craig Peebles, Trevor Dikes, and Simon Howe have got together to make this pretty amazing sounding experience, that unless it gets funding, I won’t get to play.

That’s right. I’m going to miss out, if you do a Schmebbie and let me down. IT’S THE ICE CREAM ALL OVER AGAIN.

Except this time it’s exponentially cooler.

AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS is a “web audio adventure” for iPad. I know right? Christy Dena is the designer and writer behind the project, and she was inspired by a Da Vinci Code audio tour of the Louvre in France. Instead of some dry “and this is where Tom Hanks sneezed one time” approach, the audio tour surprised her. As she put the headphones in and saw people making their way upstairs to start the tour, Dena was pleasantly surprised that she was being told to skip the stairs and turn left towards a service elevator. It all suddenly got a little bit secret, and a little bit fun. In the bowels of the Louvre, Christy’s mind started racing.

She then started musing on the idea of doing something sort of similar, but on the web instead of a restricted physical space. Also adding in elements of radio drama and fiction, AUTHENTIC IN ALL CAPS looks to have a massive scope. Being lead through the internet by a guide, not knowing where I’m going next? Sign me the eff up, I thought. So when a Pozible campaign was launched to finish off the project, I threw my money at it pretty hard. They have a $15,000 target, and around 40 hours left to reach that, or Schmebbie wins.

So this is a personal plea: If you have a few spare dollars please direct them toward this awesome sounding project. Because Schmebbie stole the ice cream that was rightfully mine when I was 10. Also because a lot of hard working people are making something pretty special that I think will be really unique and worth experiencing. But mostly the ice cream.

Everyone was mean to the biggest girl in the class. It made me uncomfortable. Taunt after taunt everyone was being a dick. The teacher took the “kids will be kids” approach, in that she did nothing. A boy sitting in the desk next to the girl pushed her eraser off the front of her desk with his ruler, and she had to walk in front of everyone to get it. When she bent down to pick it up he made a fart noise. She was mortified. I saw it getting to her. She was weird, too.

They kept being dicks to her and I kept getting more and more uncomfortable, but I felt alone. I kept telling myself I should say something but every time I went to I wasn’t brave enough. After yet another taunt and the raucous laughter that ensued, I saw someone else wasn’t laughing. A boy across the room and I made eye contact. I recognised the discomfort on his face. We still didn’t say anything.

In primary school I mostly enjoyed lunch alone. My parents owned a milk bar and I had great lunchboxes accordingly. When it was lunch time there was a mad rush to see what I had. I felt popular and special. After some truly pro bargaining, I’d swap my yearned-for bag of Burger Rings for whatever took my fancy out of someone else’s lunch (a straz and sauce sandwich was a good day) and then everyone would disperse. No one hung around. After the surge, the boy came over to me and said people were kinda mean to the big girl and I agreed. People shouldn’t be saying those things. I swapped my lunch goodies for an apple that day.

The next taunt in class, we looked at each other. I waited for him to speak. He didn’t. I didn’t. Then a girl behind me did, out of nowhere. We were shocked but relieved.

“Shut up, you guys.”

Crosshairs were now on her. They started applying the same tactics on her as they had the previous girl, but with added harshness, because she dared to challenge them.

The boy and I stood up for her. Soon some more joined in.

I was so scared to defend her by myself. I was already a weird kid. I just wanted Justin to like me. But once others started standing up against shitty behaviour, I had much more confidence. I got mouthy. I put the mean kids on a lunch negotiation embargo. You bitches ain’t getting MY Burger Rings! I started having less tolerance for their crap, and less fear about letting it be known. I became even more radioactive than I was before, but I was oddly at peace with it.

This week has felt a lot like that day. It’s easier to be brave against shitty behaviour when people stand with you and you realise just how many others are fed up with it too. #1ReasonWhy has given many the confidence to say “Nah you know what? That’s kinda shit. No Burger Rings for you.” Now all we need is the teachers media gatekeepers to slam down this kind of behaviour when they see it. The time has come to an end where it’s more valued when people dismiss other’s concerns than it is important to have a safe space for people to talk. Someone who doesn’t want to engage in conversation saying “not this shit again” is NOT more important than the person who has wanted to speak up about something that has really been hurting them for quite some time finally finding the bravery and the space in which to do it.

I’ve never felt more like there were enough of us to get shit done than I have this week, and it was made beautifully clear to me in this touching poem by Cara Ellison.

Ain’t that the WORST? You should be glad I’m not going to do that. Cuz that is SO boring when people do that. On their blogs and stuff… Man…

INCOMIIIIIIIIIIINNG! Duck and cover, kids!

So this morning I was reading an interview TheLovelyLauraParker™ had with Rhianna Pratchett on Tomb Raider, and was pleasantly surprised to see echoed some conversations I’d had with writerly friends about writerly things (in our smoking jackets, in libraries that smell of rich mahogany). Particularly this bit:

“[Rhianna Pratchett] says developers need to put more thought into creating diverse, nuanced characters that accurately reflect the wide spectrum of demographics found in the real world. And they can start by paying more attention to game writers and encouraging more women to work in game development.”

This has been bugging me for quite some time, too. There’s a perception that everything in game development is the dominion of the artist or the programmer. I see this often, when asked what I do, so much so that I’ve (consciously or unconsciously, I don’t know) started to adjust the way I answer the question.

TheOldWay:
“What do you do for a crust?”, he asked.
“I’m a game developer!”, she answered, trying not to think of food.
“Oh cool! Artist or programmer?”, he said, unfortunately.
“Neither, I’m a writer”, she mumbled, craving validation and acceptance.

TheNewWay:
“SO, what do you do?”, she asked.
“I’m a writer!”, she answered, thankful for the lack of reminders about food. (But then that reminded her of food too, Leena don’t blog when hungry.)
“Oh cool! What kind of writing?”, she asked earnestly, whacking Leena with The 2×4 of Affirmation™.
“I make videogames!”, she grins, still not believing it’s actually her job. ^_^

Now if people’s perception of my job actually bugged me, this might be a thing. But it’s not a thing. If I gave a shit what people thought, I probably wouldn’t be playing games let alone making them. So it doesn’t bother me too much. But it does (rather simplistically) point to a deficiency in our medium. A blindspot if you will.

It’s getting better, it really is, there is more importance being placed on the role of a writer in game development. It’s better than it has been in the past, that’s for sure. But it still isn’t seen as important as I think it should be. Which brings me to my point.

Making games, we need to forget about the “writing words” part of a writer’s job.

Many games don’t require dialogue or even written copy about the storyworld. No introductions, no tutorials, no dialogue trees, no written word.

A writer’s role is to communicate the storyworld with the player. They build the constructs of that game world’s reality, they tell you where your place is in the world, and they give instruction on how to navigate it. Games as a medium are completely okay with this being out of the abstract and stated very plainly in a tutorial or instructional section at a beginning of a game, that’s already been established as a thing we’re cool with. As have the non-verbal ways of communicating this information. We see a lot more of the former, though.

The want for “more story” in games is not synonymous with “more words”.

When I want more story in games, or I want to see “better writing”, I want to see someone in charge of story. Ideally it’s their main focus. They are the advocate of the narrative. The missionary. The dungeon master. The torch-bearer of the world you’re creating. It’s the centre of their attention, and what they strive to make better.

Journey was a moving experience that contained no copy. The world was communicated to us in no uncertain terms. You can move more when you have a flaggy thing. Snow is fucking cold and will stop you moving. Moving is paramount. Mastery of movement is your objective. Go go go.

Obviously in small teams it’s hard to have someone who has just one role. We often take on many roles out of necessity, so having writing being someone’s only focus is not always practical. But every game benefits from at least _someone_ thinking about it in great detail. Outsource it if you need to. I KNOW A GUY. WINK.

Some games don’t have story, but every game has a world, and it’s a world worth considering. You’re doing a disservice to your game if you haven’t got a person whose job it is to look after and nurture that.

Story that’s tacked on as an excuse to use a cool mechanic is very obvious that it’s tacked on as an excuse to use a cool mechanic. We can tell. Your coincidence is poking out. When the priority is on the mechanic because a designer or programmer made it and thought it was an amazing thing to put in a game, and they quickly rummage through their limited box of knowledge when it comes to narrative devices and grab the first thing that seems to fit, it shows. Whereas if someone works with the mechanic-maker, or if indeed the mechanic-maker is skilled in writing and narrative construction themselves, the mechanic and the story can be cohesive and complement each other.

You wouldn’t put someone with “limited knowledge” of coding in charge of programming. You wouldn’t let the work experience kid be your lead artist. You wouldn’t steal a handbag. Sorry. Lost it for a sec there. Point is, don’t fudge your way through it and you’ll have a better game, duh. Regardless of how much “story” is in your game, you need someone shepherding that. It’s midwifery.

The job of world builder, narrative lobbyist, and story advocate is one that people are realising is more important, and that’s super exciting for games. So let’s turn it up to 11!

I’d watched the @Sweden account from afar for a while, watching how different people drove it, how people drove it differently, and the shitstorm that inevitably ensued when people didn’t “like” what “Sweden” was saying this week. I found the whole thing quite fascinating.

So when I heard about one for my first love (Melbourne), I got super excited. Here we’d see in black and white the beautiful melange of what made Melbourne, Melbourne. Curated by the exquisite @stokely, we’d see the diverse (and sometimes not), the sophisticated (and sometimes not), and the progressive side of Melburnians. Or sometimes not. Either way I was keen to see how our city represented itself. Complicated beast that she is.

What I wasn’t expecting, was how I reacted when I was in the driver’s seat.

Now try and quell the little bit of vomit that’s trying to creep up your throat when I say this, or try to tame the scoff that will attempt to escape from your lungs due to you being super cool with your “outdoors” and “real lives” and stuff, but twitter is really important to me. Twitter is a reach to the outside world. Twitter is where I keep in contact with many of my “IRL” friends, where I make new ones, where I learn things, where I get support when I feel alone, and also (very importantly) where I get basically all of my paid work from. It’s friends I’ve made and relationships that twitter has strengthened that actually put food on my family’s plate. It may come as a shock to some given that some of my tweets contain bulging swears or talk about things that you wouldn’t want to bring up in a board room, that I consider it at times a work space. At times. Then there’s pictures of funny stuff and amazing reaction gifs.

This has a lot to do with how carefully I’ve curated my twitter feed. The old saying “Your twitter is what you make it” (I think it was Aristotle or something) is not only entirely true, but it’s a reminder to prune every now and then, and hone in on what’s good for you, what’s not, and what you want more of in your eyeballs. My twitter feed is a careful blend of games stuff, politics (only the kind I agree with, I don’t “hate follow”, there be dragons), writing stuff, kid stuff, pop culture stuff, and some comedians (or people even funnier than comedians, ‘sup @Brocklesnitch). It’s changed over the years, and it’s constantly evolving even now. No one’s twitter feed is the same, it’s deeply personal and people use it in many different ways. Some only broadcast, some only consume, some only follow celebrities, some only follow friends from IRL.

The weirdest thing about being behind the @WeMelbourne twitter account for a week, was the sudden realisation I hadn’t curated this twitter feed. That sounds like it shouldn’t have that much of an effect, but it really really did.

It was like stepping onto foreign soil. Not being sure if you speak the language. Not much was familiar, and I was being exposed to much more than what I was used to in my little bubble. I didn’t know many of the faces lined up on the left-hand-side of the feed. I didn’t recognise very many names. I missed certain personalities from my feed. I missed the avatars that I would stop scrolling when I saw, to check what they were saying. (We need a name for those scroll-stoppers. How about scroll-stoppers.)

I saw RIGHT WING tweets! (mostly being retweeted by others, for various reasons, not necessarily endorsements) and MEAN people and slut-shamers and fat-shamers and all these things I didn’t have to worry about very much in my feed. (It’s weird how easy it is to forget The Right even exists, once you carefully lance all traces from your life.) People talked about The Right in much more detail than I allow on my feed. Probably a self-preservation thing.

I saw people blaming videogames for bad things happening in society, and not actually taking the piss.

Before this sounds like some kind of spoiled-white-girl’s Vietnam flashback, it wasn’t bad. At all! It was quite fun. I saw some great tweets I wouldn’t have otherwise seen, and have thusly followed their authors. I’ve had people who were very kind to me while I was behind the account continue to be kind afterwards back in my Twitter country. Overall the experience was lovely. @Stokely was kind and professional and organised, and I had no qualms. It wasn’t a feed-full-of-Right, it was just a balanced look at the world — and the twitter world I’ve created myself is stacked. I became very aware of this (and totally cool with it, incidentally).

But nevertheless I was genuinely shocked with how I taken aback I was by this foreign twitter feed. It was paralysing. “Normally I don’t shut up on twitter, what gives?”, I said to myself, like a crazy person. I was busy the week I took over, which didn’t help, but I also didn’t know what to tweet about. I barely tweeted. I did a terrible job of being interesting, and an even worse one at giving any insight into my life. When I tweet from my account, I know generally how it’s going to be received (in that it won’t be a complete stab in the dark). I know my twitter feed’s “personality”, and the personalities contained within it. I have comfort in the fact if I’m being sarcastic about something, most people following me will know I’m not being serious because they have a vague understanding of who I am and what my beliefs are. I was stripped bare of this when tweeting from @WeMelbourne, and I didn’t expect it to stop me tweeting as much. Normally twitter is like an extension of my hand, and the bullshit just floooooows like molten lava from a really dumbass volcano. No, this wasn’t “my” twitter.

It was like the first day at a new school. I felt like I was being looked up and down, and that was completely unexpected. There was an obligation and a responsibility to not piss anyone off, that I don’t think I feel in my own twitter world. The context in which I exist, is normally enough to avoid any large conflicts, and unless you’ve been following me for a while, you don’t have much context for who I am. There’s ample room to tread toe. I don’t think I’m a “bite sized” tweeter. I think I’m a big messy package.

I think if I were to do something like this again, I would keep in mind that it isn’t just tweeting from a different account, like I’d hastily assumed. Shit can get weird, yo. I lost myself a little bit and became concerned with how I’d be received. That isn’t something that takes up too much of my grey matter on my own personal twitter account. I don’t tweet from a vacuum, I tweet from a carefully constructed safe space, and I tweet knowing that I’m not alone. I tweet knowing that generally those who have made the decision to follow me have done so for whatever-the-fuck their reasons are, and have consented to falling down that particular rabbit hole.

There was pressure that came with people not consenting to follow ME. They followed the account on a promise, an idea. It made me realise how easy it is to take for granted the little community you build yourself on your social networks. I think I like tweeting better when people have consented to listening to it.
It’s a bit like real life really. As much as I like to pretend it isn’t, sometimes.

If you ever get a chance to take the reins of a new or different twitter account, try it. Because honestly it’s truly bizarre. I didn’t think it would be that confronting at all. If you think you’re familiar with twitter, you’re probably really only familiar with one twitter feed. If you want to fuck shit up, start a new one (Or give app.net a go. Come say hi) and go in a completely different direction and see the change not knowing where you’re going will have on you.

A bit like a mystery flight. Who knows what you’ll need to pack.

After the release of “Liam van Deventer” to great critical success in May 2008, the studio has been keeping very quiet, saying they would “alert press when appropriate” of a new franchise. Since then the development team have been focused on making improvements to Liam, applying patches, updates, and providing ongoing support. Occasional challenges arose soon after release where some minor bugfixes were administered, but no time was spent offline. 2010 saw some engine issues, but an overhaul of their “Discipline™” engine and a firmware upgrade soon saw added stability, and reduced load on the servers. 4 years later it’s revealed that they’re working on another product.

Using existing proprietary tools that have proven to be successful in the past, the studio has embarked on a new journey, revolutionizing the way we play, and the dynamic of the team.

According to sources close to the studio, this new IP has been in development as far back as June 2012. Given that it’s now 3 months since that date, there is little to show to the public, and the tight-lipped studio is supplying only one screenshot to tide us through until closer to release.

“The team are expecting to see some expansions” said Leena van Deventer, designer. “Especially on the front end. I’ve alerted the team to keep an eye on the back end and make sure we don’t see the same kind of bloating we did with Liam’s development. It got a little crazy.” She goes on to explain “We have a strict 40 week deadline, after which extreme measures will be taken to ship the product as soon as humanly possible. Liam had a 41 week development cycle and we are not wanting to repeat the same pattern again”.

Co-designer Bart van Deventer declined comment, saying he hadn’t been involved as much since the pre-production phase (where his input was integral), but will be focusing on post-release support.

Fans of Liam van Deventer are excited about the news, but have said they won’t stop playing with Liam after release.

Complaint: “Whoa, I’m offended by that” or even sometimes “I’m offended by that because X and Y”
Response: “Pfff, no you’re not” or “That’s a dumb thing to get upset over, be quiet”.

I’m of the camp that people’s grievances should be heard. If you’re hurting, you should be met with a hug instead of an inquisition into your pain or reasons why it doesn’t really hurt that bad.

So when I heard people were upset about this Polygon documentary, I had my huggin’ arms at the ready. I started by watching the documentary trailer.

I blinked.

I watched it again, really trying hard to see what was so horrible about it. I turned the volume up. I looked for offensive pictures in the backgrounds. I scoured for signs we might be being Punk’d. I found nothing. Not a twang. So I started reading articles people were writing about their grievances, to get a better idea (read: any idea) of what they were upset about.

“Pompous, self-aggrandizing, and utterly without perspective”
A vanity exercise.
Pure ego.
“Pretension overload”.

Wait, I thought. Where are the hard-done-by people? Who are Vox Media hurting here?

Then the anger started to rise.

Some of the very same people who tell me to cool my jets when I talk about legitimate fucking issues are FUMING that a company wants to memorialise the genesis of their site?

Are you FUCKING kidding me?!

Like I mentioned before, I’m not in the business of deciding what people are “allowed” to be upset about. If you’re genuinely upset by the presence of a documentary based on its trailer then A) Go for it, and B) Maybe don’t watch the film when it comes out.

I’m just really, really disappointed in you. And not in a way that attempts to shame you, or elevate me as some purveyor of moral righteousness. I just need you to understand that watching you expend energy bitching about something that doesn’t actually hurt anyone is a slap in the face. Seeing people shrug at misogyny but rail against game journalists journaling their experiences is like a burn that keeps throbbing and aching after the initial injury.

Where were you when we needed you? Where was your anger when it could do something constructive? We needed this anger when Anita Sarkeesian was being attacked, both in character and in effigy. We needed this anger when Jennifer Hepler was being harrassed. Or Jade Raymond. Or Miranda Pakozdi. We needed this anger when dickwolves. We needed this anger when three of our country’s best female games writers all said that shit was really uncomfortable for them sometimes.

We needed you to direct this anger to when someone is being a dick towards someone else. For when someone is being excluded. Made to feel less-than, not welcome, or worse, hated, just because they wanted to fucking play.

What you’re saying to me is that displaying any kind of ego or vanity are far more serious offenses than discrimination and exclusion. That taking yourself seriously is bad. That it’s “silly” not to be silly. That wanting better is not acceptable. That games journalists are insulting you personally when they say they want to try something new, sans the dumbassery and immaturity we see a lot of in this culture. What you’re saying is that in a time where journalism is changing, where the once-giant Fairfax has posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss, when advertising models are in complete flux, and online bloggers working for free are putting a strain on paid journalists, that trying something new is to be discouraged at all costs. You want a fucking hug for that?

Seriously?

Take your hug, shove it nice and deep into your privilege (might want to use gloves), and go back to discouraging creatives from trying new things, acting like wanting better is a bad thing, and flailing wildly about how games “can’t cure cancer” so they can’t do anything positive at all. Because that’s worked great for us in the past.

I’ll be over where the cool shit is happening and the new things are being tried. Because we haven’t perfected it yet.

In simmary, how are these little balls of AI doing?

The two Sims are very different, despite being given the exact same characteristics and being put in exactly the same home (I’m running them each on a different machine). I put this down to there being some randomisation in terms of exactly how they “come out”, there still seems to be differing personality types within the designated traits. It’s most likely a spectrum, like real life, right?

Ted is actually not all that fun. He doesn’t like to look after his basic needs (despite being a neat freak) and doesn’t seem to take pleasure in things very much. Amy on the other hand laughs at bins and bathroom rugs. She spontaneously giggles and becomes intrigued with daily minutiae. I find this difference in them really odd and a little unsettling when I sit down and try and think about it. Surely it’s random and not some weird creative decision about women “being nicer” because that’s what the player would want. She sings in the shower. She thinks of something funny then laughs at it. She’s fucking delightful!

At the risk of sounding like I’m pushing some kind of feminist agenda (of which I was accused of via email, in response to this post) there’s a cynical side of me that thinks the fact Amy is “nicer” and “cuter” is a creative decision based entirely on her gender. It may just seem striking (and therefore noticeable) in comparison to Ted’s beige-ality but she seems almost overly pleasant. Even when she’s upset she quickly comes out of it juuuuust as she’s approaching the threshold between cute and shrill. I want to see some shrill. I’ve seen Ted lose it and be morose afterward. She seems a little more manic after she’s been upset. She bounces right back up again into Stepford territory. This could be part of her personality and where she sits on the spectrum, or it could be a gendered thing. Only time and a larger sample size will tell, I think.

Their pain isn’t the same. Amy may have an outburst but then she’s right back on the horse. Ted stands there looking sullen, and things appear to get to him more. Is she the Angry But Never Too Angry™ approachable woman, and he’s the Sensitive New Aged Guy™? Is this just a random roll on the AI flow chart or was this a creative decision based on what I the player might want? And why do I want those things?

They’ve had very similar things happen to them in these first few entries and that was something I guided on purpose. I wanted them both to have as much in common as possible, so I made sure they both had access to televisions, computers, and eventually chose a job for each of them (once they’d run out of money or were dangerously close to doing so). This was to try and compare them fairly, but I think it’s getting to the point now where a different approach for each Sim is needed, given the fact they’re so utterly different.

One thing they have both experienced though is the sudden realisation that Relationship Status means a LOT in the Sim world. Whenever they make a new friend online or in real life, the first thing they learn about that person seems to be their relationship status. It’s like it’s the most interesting thing about anyone. At one point Ted thought about marriage and cried, and at another Amy thought about holding hands with someone. I think they want to be in relationships.

I’m curious to see whether this yearning gathers strength in the upcoming entries, and whether its strength is increased in one gender over another. Amy has dreamed about babies twice already, and Ted hasn’t at all. Jobs and money seemed to dominate the first 10 entries, and I think I see it leaning toward the direction of relationships for the next lot.

Lastly I’d like to take this opportunity to thank people for the emails they’re sending in about their personal journeys in both The Sims and in their own mental health. You’ve shared some amazing insights and had some thought-provoking questions for me and it’s been great. I feel lucky to hear your stories, and proud that you feel like I’m someone you can safely talk about it with. While Sim, Interrupted is definitely a light-hearted look at depression, rest assured I take it very seriously and this is not to be looked at as a digital freak show or The Festival For Pointing And Laughing but rather an exploration of the AI and creative decisions made when trying to simulate the human condition. Which is appearing less and less like an easy job as the entries go on.

Thanks! Remember you can always email your thoughts to siminterrupted (at) grassisleena.com, or send a tweet (or DM) to @SimInterrupted.

She goes to her computer to chat online, presumably a little bummed about the lack of funds. I suggest she start her job search when she’s finished. She cancels the chat and goes straight to the job search. I felt like she knew it was a better use of her time.

Medical Career – Organ Donor
Organs are kinda cool though… §22 per hour. Her organs are definitely worth more than that.
9am – 3pm MTWTF__

Culinary Career – Kitchen Scullion
Shitty hours, shitty pay, no chance of writing, no leisurely weekends. §25 p/h.
3pm – 9pm MT__FSS

Law Enforcement Career – Snitch
It’s not writing but could make for good inspiration later? §40 p/h.
9am – 3pm MTWTF__

Science Career – Test Subject
I heard once this guy took this job, and then he got attacked by lab monkeys. True story. §44 per hour.
9am – 2:30pm MTWTF__

Music Career – Fan
Perhaps a career in music journalism? Does Rolling Stone have room for rug-gigglers, window-gazers and bin-laughers? §21 p/h.
3pm – 9pm MT_TFS_

I’m thinking Amy would like the danger involved with being a snitch. She’s very bright (a Genius actually) and it’s hard to make her feel like the world is on top of her. Perhaps law enforcement will give her some good material for her novel when she’s finally a professional author? Getting down in the nitty gritty world of the mafia, or busting a huge drug cartel or whistleblowing on some massive conglomerate. It seems the most exciting for sure. She’ll have to spy on people.

Out windows?

Could this be? Could Amy turn her love for staring wistfully out windows into a career?!

SHE’LL TAKE IT!

Amy takes the role of “Snitch” in a Law Enforcement career, and starts work tomorrow. But for now, it’s time for some online chatting.

She makes a new friend, Pauline, and learns that she’s in a relationship with Hank. Relationship status seems to be the only thing she’s learning about people. Is it because she’s scoping for singles, or is it that it’s the first thing everyone puts out there? At 11:30 am she turns the computer off. It seemed quite sudden. She learned Pauline was in a relationship and then lost interest in being on the computer?

Amy recycles a newspaper and goes to the bathroom. In the bathroom she cleans the toilet until it’s sparkling. When she’s finished she checks out the rug and says “Laloog!”. She then looks like she’s doing really hard sums before exclaiming “Blanay!” and walking off.

She goes back to the computer to chat online at 1:45pm and smashes her head on the keyboard, yelling. Something’s bothering her. A thought-bubble came up of people holding hands. She wants to be in a relationship? Quite badly by the looks. She kept chatting and seemed to calm down. A few hours into chatting she makes a new friend, Jack.

Jack’s in a relationship with Judy.

She turns the computer off and sits there. She doesn’t get up. 3 minutes pass as she’s staring at the blank screen of the computer.

She turns the computer back on and plays some videogames.

I went down to ACMI to watch ‘Indie Game: The Movie’ last night and thoughts are bouncing around in my head to the point of becoming distracting. So in the interests of getting-the-fuck-on with the development of the indie games I’m currently making, I’d really like to get this out so I can appropriately redirect my grey matter to what it’s supposed to be doing.

Making stuff!

Which, awesomely, is what this film is all about. The fact it’s videogames is merely a bonus. Indie Game: The Movie is a documentary about making stuff and the blood, sweat, tears, lawsuits, sacrifices, losses, and highs found while doing that. There was a conscious effort to focus on the people involved and their journeys as creators, which I was really relieved about. I wasn’t interested in how many iterations of the engine there was or how thanks to some clever epiphany the coder had they managed to cut down the amount of processes they had to do by 40%. The technical specifics weren’t really what I was there for. I was there to see people breaking their arses making things, and to get an insight into why they do.

I wasn’t disappointed. I even learned stuff. Helpful stuff.

This was about the maker’s journey, and considering everyone’s journey is different, how you can best equip yourself to get through it. Before going in I thought the film would be about a bunch of makers all going through their struggles to release their games, some sort of Act 3 crunch time or road block, and then the elation felt on (the very aptly-named) release day. I wasn’t expecting a lesson on working out what you want from making games in the first place and how this impacts your happiness when it’s all over. Their motivators seemed to be the real defining factors between each person.

The Team Meat guys behind Super Meat Boy — Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes — proved a stark contrast to Jonathan Blow and Phil Fish when it came to their motivations for making games and it’s got me thinking about mine.

Jonathan Blow has always seemed a little odd to me and this film helped me understand why a little better. Previously I knew of his gift for suddenly appearing in any thread that mentioned (his game) Braid, and I knew that if someone took issue with the game he would be there either demanding they properly explain themselves or he would be trying to explain to them what they weren’t “getting”. This made it easy to label him as an arrogant guy with a massive ego who was looking down on all the schmucks who just weren’t smart enough to “get” his genius, but it wasn’t until I heard McMillen say his reason for making games involved “trying to find new ways to communicate with people” that I realised maybe Blow wasn’t annoyed at people not understanding how smart he was, but perhaps he was hurting that he was trying to communicate with people and they just weren’t hearing what he was saying. That must suck as a creator. It was an active decision to put his deepest flaws and vulnerabilities thematically into Braid. Calling out over the ravine and not hearing any of his echo sent him into a deep depression after the game was released. Despite financial success and rave reviews and people enjoying his game, he didn’t get what he wanted out of it, and that was to show his exposed nerves to the world and to have the world validate them. That’s a lot to ask of a videogame.

Phil Fish seemed motivated by making the game world go “Ooooo”. He took the iconic 2D pixel-art and thrust it into moments of 3 dimensions. He wanted people to think it was amazing. He seemed fixated on attributing immense value to Facebook likes and tweets. He was caught up in a messy legal battle with his previous business partner over the intellectual property of Fez, and was visibly angry and bitter on camera exclaiming “He’s going to be a millionaire, and because of ME!”. He seemed consumed by the want for financial success and the fame that would come with it. He even said the only thing the game really has is the rotation into 3D. He was so close to it he “couldn’t even see the mistakes anymore”. His motivating factors were external and he had no control over them. Fittingly, he started to lose control of himself a little, too. He said he wasn’t Phil Fish anymore, he was “Guy making Fez”. The wary balancing act between giving something his all and it becoming his all was going in a very dangerous direction. He said if he didn’t manage to release his game he would seriously consider ending his life.

My eyes widened and I began to worry for the mental health of everyone making anything ever.

Tommy Refenes had a heart of gold and just wanted to work hard to pay off his parent’s mortgage. A noble cause for sure, but one that applied immense amounts of pressure. You know in bad action movies when the antagonist hurts the protagonist’s family member or best friend and the protagonist turns to the antagonist and says “NOW IT’S PERSONAL!”. Well… Tommy kind of did that to himself. The stakes were switched from “Try your best and if it fails it fails” to “Your parents will be financially punished if you don’t get this right… jerk”. Heavy. His heart was always in the right place, but due to these high stakes he threw himself so completely into making Super Meat Boy the rest of his life stopped. When he finished making the game, he felt lost. That was his identity for over 2 years. Thankfully, the game was a huge success and the release he was looking for was soon made a reality when his parents were officially debt-free. He was okay at the end of it all, but it was always a very real possibility that he wouldn’t be. Mentally, his journey really looked like actual trauma.

Thankfully, like a shining beacon, Edmund McMillen (who I’m fairly sure would lose bladder control at being referred to as a “shining beacon”) portrayed the motivations that made my heart sing. He makes games Little Edmund would want to play, but not in a catharsis-driven game-development-as-therapy way, as a method of reaching out to kids who feel as misunderstood as he did. Towards the end of the film as he’s looking back on Super Meat Boy’s success, he’s humble. It’s great the game made him money (it meant he could get his wife the hairless cat she always dreamed of) but to him it made much more of an impact on him personally to think that a child somewhere is staying up late playing his game, talking about it at school the next day, drawing the characters on their lunch boxes and having that personal connection to his art. He teared up thinking that he has impacted their lives in the way he wanted a grown up to do that when he was a kid. I feel like he was the only one with a motivation that seemed realistic, grounded, and balanced. He wanted kids (and big kids) to enjoy his game for whatever they got out of it. Anything else was a bonus. Succeed or fail, he’s going to be okay.

I feel like he had the greatest lesson to teach in regards to making stuff. He wasn’t asking the game to address his emotional needs or to help heal his wounds. He wasn’t asking the world to validate him. He wasn’t asking metacritic whether he was a good person, or living and dying on reviews. He got a kick out of seeing people play his game on youtube.

I walked away from Indie Game: The Movie thinking about my motivations for making games and whether they were conducive to being happy at the end of that really hard slog. It’s made me ask myself “What do you hope to get out of this, and is that okay”, which I think is a helpful barometer no matter what you’re doing. It’s a way to keep yourself on the path during your journey as a creator. There’s no right way to do it, obviously. Brilliant games are made at high and low human costs. Being happy at the end of it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the game’s quality itself or its success, but everything to do with you as a motivated and passionate creator. Making a conscious effort to look after yourself and do things for the right reasons can only be a good thing when it comes to the bigger picture of the relationship you have with your craft, and the relationship your craft has with you. We all want to get out of this alive, right? Making stuff is something I want to do. But I don’t want the stuff to make me.

He’s made a friend called Dave. Dave is single and seems nice.

His energy is low and he reminds me of this when I suggest he find a job. He whinges. Apparently there’s a difference in expelled energy when chatting online than when job hunting online. No dice, Count Tedula, get in there! You need a job by morning. You can’t even afford to pay one bill and there’s two waiting. Shit just got real, son. Whatever options come up on this online job search, he’s taking one of them. The dream of a writing career is fraying and giving way to the realities of bills and home-ownership. He’s not Robinson Crusoe there, as they say.

Professional Sports Career – Rabid Fan.
It’s hard to imagine Ted as a rabid anything really. Other than pants-wetter. Only §13 per hour. 3pm – 9pm. MTWT_F_.

Culinary Career – Kitchen Scullion.
Potential to set self on fire or impale oneself, high. §25 p/h. 3pm – 9pm. MT__FSS. At least that one has two days off in a row. Would be hard to see any friends though with no weekends.

Political Career – Podium Polisher.
Probably what would most excite Ted. What better place to learn the power of words than in the political arena. The speech writer might get sick one day and they ask Ted to help out. This could turn into a writing gig… §24 p/h. 9am – 3pm. MTWTF__. Promising.

Medical Career – Organ Donor.
I wonder if he gets to choose which organs? §22 p/h. 9am – 3pm. MTWTF__.

Business Career – Coffee Courier.
Well I guess there’s a lot of copy flying around in the business world? Oh coffee. Right. Baw. §27 p/h. 8am – 2pm. MTWTF__.

Not the difficult decision I was expecting really. At least he didn’t have to choose between military and roadie. A career in politics is an intimate relationship with words. He’s going to see how they’re used to inflate people, tear people down, bully people, inspire people, and change the laws we live by. He could be the next Aaron Simkin.

Ted takes the job, and begins his political career. He seems genuinely pleased. I hope he’s going to be okay. If a job in politics isn’t depressing I don’t know what is…

This new job couldn’t come soon enough. Not only for his bank balance, but during the night he gets -15 to mood for being “Stir Crazy”, with the caption saying “Sims should leave the house frequently for sanity’s sake. Shake well with a community marinade for best results”. Interesting. Work will get him out of the house, but perhaps one day he should go for a walk into town.

He takes himself off to bed at 3:30am (!!!!!!!). He dreams almost solely of his new job. International flags (the kind you’d see lined up at the UN), ballot slips, and podiums. He isn’t giving off the vibes of a person disappointed in their career choice. He’s excited. Actually, I think I just saw him smile in his sleep.