More questions than answers

Long time no see!

It’s a bit interesting to me that, while you guys were discussing what was that made games feel alive, I was unable to answer right away because I was, in my way, seeking what made ME feel alive. I read your letters through many balconies in many cities, from the kinda-cold Miramar ocean beach, to the 24th floor view of the Buenos Aires metropolis, to the overwhelmingness of the Iguazú falls and the jungle. I read you at my own pace, and so I’m answering many months late. Somehow, I was also trying to find out “what to do when I am always home-bound, but the home I was bound to no longer feels like home?”.

Before I can get my own thoughts in order respecting these aliveness subjects, I want to start answering some specific parts that called my attention. I took some of these notes while travelling, so putting them in order now makes me nostalgic of the places I visited and the people I shared them with. Funny how brains work. A n y w a y

There is a related school of thought in which being is replaced with becoming — things are not static, but always dynamic”

droqen, in Living Games

I guess when you say “a related school of thought” you mean Aristotle’s potentiality and actuality? Like things being in motion from what they are now to what they could be. But it also makes me think of languages! Of course. 

In Spanish we have two different verbs for “to be”: “ser” and “estar”. It’s usually one of the hardest things to understand for foreigners when they first get in touch with the language. ‘Ser’ is ontologic, it’s what things ARE at their core, it’s the being, the static, it’s the actuality. On the other hand, ‘estar’ is becoming, dynamic, potentiality. 

‘Yo soy’ (I am, constantly) an artist. I’m Mer. I’m emotional. I’m a native Spanish speaker. Those things are not gonna change, or are unlikely to do so. 

But then, ‘yo estoy’ (I am, currently) tired, or hungry, or happy or sad or any temporary emotion, or the place in the world you are right now, or the posture of your body. These are all things that are subject to change in the long or short term. 

My advice to know which one to use is to ask yourself “could this change this condition in, let’s say, a couple of days?”. If no> ”ser”; if yes> “estar”. So I can’t avoid thinking that things that están (are, but due to change the way they are) are more alive than the things that already son something (are, statically). Talking about dynamics, let’s move on.

Contrast the cells in the body (all touching, all related, all communicating) against the rigid and awkward shapes of a modern apartment building (all placed ahead of time, all identical, all part of a contrived plan to fit things into a contrived plan). “

droqen, in Living Games

I would also say that you can compare those modern apartment buildings to more “organic” (haha) way of building. I’m sure you’ve all seen examples of these houses, that belonged to some grandparent, and then they build a thing in the backyard, and then some more rooms on the top of the house for when the kids got older, and then… As the family grew, also did the house, following the need of its inhabitants; it preserves, adapts to, and strengthens existing structure. I know you droqen talked about cities in general in this way, but I thought that just as the tree and the forest, this could be the individual example of a construction being alive.

But let’s get back to games already. My first thought while reading about these terms is that games are more alive the more they revolve around humans and not themselves (games like Bounden rather than a shooter) [I had written”Sokoban”, but then again, aren’t puzzles (even as they are closed systems) also all about the thinking process of the player?]. But then I thought that one of the games that most feels alive by Droqen terms is Rainworld, which is a game that almost exists on its own and does not care about the players (or that’s the illusion it wants to sell). So I’m now more lost than before. 

You say that you like to see the history of a space having been LIVED in.”

jack, in Play to Live

I feel like, regardless of droqen’s (and mine) interest for cities, it must be a pretty common feeling, and that’s why there’s sooooo many games about abandoned places where you explore “the history of it being lived “. And while these games try to show “dead worlds”, they usually end up making the worlds that players feel all the more alive.

And that makes me ask the question: what is a DEAD game then?

Are we talking about LIVING games in opposition to what?

“When you are becoming ALIVE you can feel it deeply.”, Then how do you feel when you’re not? Like when you get stuck at an idle game that you feel like it’s sucking the life out of you?

I’ll leave you with this by now to ruminate, and I’ll come back with more.