home

When Jeff moved out, I did too. I stopped going home much, spent most of my time at work or with friends, and moved everything I cared about to my office.

With Dorothy moving in, I notice I am starting to gravitate back home. I took my plants home. I set up a computer at home. I am gradually beginning to set up two bases for myself, rather than only using work for everything.

I think I am essentially nomadic. That my sense of home is tied to people, not to place.

games as art, DigiPen student games

The DigiPen students in GAT 400 had 11 weeks to learn XNA & C# and build a game prototype. We asked them to build their games around "One Cool Thing."

One = focus
Cool = desire
Thing = it exists, you shipped it

They chose:

Jetpacks
Deformable terrain
A specific classic arcade game, built from scratch
Bullet patterns
Every country in the world
Jump physics
Phototropism
Helicopter modeling
Color subtraction
Cooking recipes
Target practice
Control-matching
Music-driven battle mechanics
Music-driven procedurally-generated terrain
Puzzle combat
3D flythroughs

It didn't matter what they picked. What mattered was that it was a) specific, and b) sprang from desire.

The process went like this.

1. Start
2. Code appears
3. The game starts to emerge
4. Keep building
5. Some Really Fun Unanticipated Thing appears
6. Veer to follow that
7. Tidy up what's there -- splash, art, audio, UI, menus, dialogs

What made it art is: They would veer to follow what was emerging. Art is the search. The dialogue with one's creation.

On our game at work, we have done a faithful job: pursued the mechanic, sculpted it into a cheerful, workable game. But at its heart, our game does not spring from someone's specific desire & longing. It's the difference between "This guy" and "This guy with whom I am strangely fascinated."

Desire. Specificity.

work, computer at home

Work is hard right now. Lots of new stuff, lots of deliverables and learning curves, as we drive toward shipping. Hard, but straight on my spiritual path.

Over a thousand people have played our game. Their comments form a murmur of humanity. Love it. Hate it. My type of game. Not my type of game. What's that little white thing? I don't get how lives work. Can I play this on my phone? Hey, check out my high score.

It is Saturday, July 21, as I am editing this. I am sitting at home, having just set up my computer. I have not had a computer at home for a year. Adding a computer is like adding a window.

update, green fruits as big as cantaloupes

My DigiPen class is finishing up. We see the final presentations of the games tomorrow. Pretty exciting. This is like being in a sorceror's art class -- it's hard work, like sorcery, but the end result is art. The students have no clue how good they are, how pure, how innovative, how disciplined, how strong.

I just finished taking two courses from Excellence Seminars, The Pursuit of Excellence & The Wall. "Seminars that inspire & support you to do, be, & have more of what you want."

My new roommate and I are settling in well. Jeff, my old roommate, got accepted at Washington State University, and has moved to Pullman to study poetry.

Work for the past year has been a demanding spiritual practice. Completing each spiritual phase reveals the next. This phase, the end-game of shipping a product, requires day-by-day spiritual practice. It never gets easier. It just keeps getting more granular, more attentive, more revelatory, more plain. It is a lot like physical theatre, in that regard. "The floor is my best teacher," says Roberta Carreri of the Odin Teatret. Here, "The game is my best teacher."

green fruits as big as
cantaloupes bow Maui trees --
imminent sweetness

a flower of flowers
in the lei of leis -- moon
hangs molten yellow

there is no splash like
this one Now! Here! Let cool salt
waters silk your hair

if the day was spent
in sand, let evening seas wash
over you -- say Yes