Interactive Poems.

I’m thinking a lot of games that have really inspired me in my life

Many of them are RPGs and action adventure stories, but some of the more salient and memorable ones were point & click adventures made by tiny independent developers.

I miss the feeling of digital experiences feeling like these unique, strangely magical, hand-crafted toys…The interactions, the art, even the code with its sometimes janky outcomes somehow felt more… handmade & mysterious… as if they came out of some unkown woodworker’s cabin in the woods

I think a lot of it has to do with embracing limitations - with experiences being built by a few folks figuring out how to make art out of code, rather than by them being polished, perfectly engineered shiny things.

Machinarium by Amanita Design - a timeless gem.

Games like Machinarium, by Amanita Design are experiences I keep going back to - even as I age. They’re just teeming with love and attention to craftsmanship in all the right places - it really feels like the focus is on the storytelling, the puzzles, the hand drawn assets.

Poetic and intimate, kind of like looking into someone’s private sketchbook and watching it come alive - that’s the kind of experience I want from interactive media.

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As game development has become more “mainstream” and commercial game engines like Unity and Unreal more available, I do feel some of that sensibility is harder to find. In my journey with developing games, I have found that it is actually hard to retain focus on the raw artistry, and it’s always tempting to look to new technologies, focusing on technical achievements and new features.

Very quickly, the tools and technology begin to overshadow the art, rather than enabling what could feel like subtle magic.

That’s precisely why I love these kinds of experiences…they feel like interactive poems or storybooks - just saying it with less, yet reaching so deep into the imagination.

I aspire to make things of that nature.

Starting, again.

I don’t know how many times I say this to myself.

Somehow it always feels like I’m at the start of things, never in the middle, or the end.

Maybe it can be considered a blessed trait that I am always at the beginning, always seeing the possibilities for expansion, for growing, for learning & becoming.

“Just a little later, I’ll be in that other part, where I know what I’m doing, where I feel skillful and capable, where all past choices make sense, and this start bears fruit”

Never quite so.

Not to say that I don’t feel like I’ve grown and developed - as an artist, as a person, as a lover, as a friend.

Certainly I have, but every time I return - to the page, to the camera, to the dining table… I’m here again - at the ripe beginning, where uncertainty, desire and hope meet.

One day I’ll run out of starts, but today I’m starting again

I’m revisiting an old idea for a digital poem I always wanted to write, hoping to revive it with my own memories of all it’s fits and bouts - a conversation between past and future selves