xenoglyph - Topic: Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

joshua on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:22:33 +0000

Adam, these are statements of identity. This is who you are. The conclusion that you're not that person, that your identity is flexible is an answer that the players have to draw on their own (even if the questions we're asking are pretty leading).

If my character, in order to stay relevant, has had three extra logic structures implanted in his head and none of them bear any resemblance to human ingenuity, and I as a player no longer feel I can comfortably role play him any more, what happens?

That's time for an epilogue, at most. It might just be that the character's story has ended there. It's OK. You can make more.

It might help players if you can intentionally ludite your character a bit, throw away the cell phone trait, box up the computer and go live with hippies who build homes in the wilderness out of garbage and mud. Maybe you lose that attachment or goal that was pushing you towards becoming a foglet, but you get to hold onto a character that you kind of like, rather than lose him to incomprehensibility.

That's a matter of transhuman privilege at that point. I don't think our spec is really stretched there.

Adam Dray on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:40:55 +0000

Change “I am [age] year old [sexual orientation] [ethnicity], etc.”

To “Today, I am [age] year old [sexual orientation] [ethnicity], etc.”

Illuminaughty on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:50:51 +0000

Hi, only listened to the last lecture.

Just finished reading Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and must have found this site browsing on some similar or related topic.

In the novel, the Bitchun society has already taken over the whole Earth, so I don't know how relevant it would be to your game where you want to tell the story of the changes happening… except in the prologue, a missionary does talk about his work, what he did before the Bitchun society was ubiquitous, when there were pockets of people who refused to use certain technologies, people who grew old (not on purpose), people who died (not on purpose, and stayed dead), people who got sick, or didn't have enough of certain resources.

Anyway, the plot is something of a noir murder mystery in which the protagonist, Julius is murdered and he's only died a few times so it really gets to him, and he's convinced it's part of some plot to take over Disney World. Oh that's hugely important because their economy is based on Wuffie, other people's approval of your actions, so people love Disney World, you work in Disney World, you get mad wuffie and can do what you want. If you have no wuffie then you have no friends and your life is boring but still not dangerous or unpleasant in any way. Nobody's going to let you starve or die or force you to live in one place or another.

Julius eventually loses it in a way that changes his life in a big way.

As far as the game design I heard in episode 3. I'd like to hear more about some sort of endgame scenario. You touched on it a bit. If my character, in order to stay relevant, has had three extra logic structures implanted in his head and none of them bear any resemblance to human ingenuity, and I as a player no longer feel I can comfortably role play him any more, what happens?

Perhaps, if I want to make my character more of an ordinary human, to pull him from the brink of inconceivability, I could attempt a save of sorts. I'm imagining a situation like in James Patrick Kelly's Mr. Boy (IASFM June 1990), in which a 13 year old boy who is chronoligically an adult (gene therapy to stay young) lives inside his mom, who has turned herself into an actual size replica of the statue of liberty. At the end of the story he decides to live for a while with ordinary humans who work in a shopping mall.

Alright, that example was rather obscure. To use a better known example, Spider Jerusalem does occassionally go up to the mountain to get away from the city and the staggeringly difficult to understand lives of the people therein. It might help players if you can intentionally ludite your character a bit, throw away the cell phone trait, box up the computer and go live with hippies who build homes in the wilderness out of garbage and mud. Maybe you lose that attachment or goal that was pushing you towards becoming a foglet, but you get to hold onto a character that you kind of like, rather than lose him to incomprehensibility.

Just something I'd like to hear more about in the future.

Robert Bohl on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 20:55:06 +0000

Well, it's possible that part of the game is going to be about postgenderism if you want it to be one of the things that you care about.

Simon C on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:29:50 +0000

I think it was Joshua saying something like "change your gender through technology", which is possibly exactly what he meant to say, but in the context, I think "sex" would have made more sense.

I think there's interesting potential for the game to look at both new genders, and new sexes, though in some ways I feel like that could be its own game, given the complexity of the issue.

Robert Bohl on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 17:18:04 +0000

Thanks. I wish I could remember the context, because I like to think I use them consciously in the way you're supposed to.

Simon C on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:38:09 +0000

Oh, I remembered another thing that I wanted to bug you guys about:

Sex vs. Gender. It seemed like sometimes you were confusing the two. They're both social constructs, but in different ways.

Josh Crowe on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 04:07:09 +0000

Human suffering is something that is very broadly and interestingly applied in transhumanisim.

The reason for this is that it covers some interesting ideas.

Increasing technology may make working for a living unnecessary. Robots and AI's might be able to do all the basics needed for society. So now, what do you do? How is your life different? What do you do when you don't need to do anything?

Another idea is better access to education. Here the interesting idea might be “how.” How is ubiquitous education achieved? Mind links, robot teachers, personal AI's.

Unlimited Energy is another concept from transhumanisim and it could be used to ask why. Why are people letting you have this solar space power? (or nuclear fusion or whatever) Or why aren't they?

End of disease. End of Death. What, How, Why.

1838

Robert Bohl on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:10:53 +0000

It also seems possible to me that "what I care about" might be background or foreground depending on whether it matters to you, and it may be more of a player than a character priority.

Simon C on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:35:08 +0000

Rob,

Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Obviously it's early days, but the "what do you care about" stuff worries me because I think it would be very easy to let that become the focus of play, and (I'm getting the sense we agree on this point) that leads to weak, abstracted play.

Sure we all care about human suffering or equality or whatever, but on a day-to-day basis, how much does that really effect how we behave?

I wonder if it is better to let that stuff become an emergent property of play?

joshua on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:37:33 +0000

Everyone here is wholly gruntled.

doc on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:34:07 +0000

Cool. I chose to take it that way. If sounded disgruntled in response it was probably me being hard on myself for not thinking to separate the strands of thought there.

joshua on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:11:25 +0000

Hey, Ungooglable Troy!

The link to the Triangle Theory of Love was not a correction or anything. I was expanding in that Internet Agreeing (that is, tonally identical to disagreeing) way.

doc on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:50:29 +0000

Yes. Commitment and love are not the same thing. I think that was kind of my point, though I comingled the two in the same conversation. I should be more precise.

My name is Troy. I used to use my real name in forums but Google searches were bringing up far too much information about me and mingling my professional and private life in unhelpful ways. I don't mind people knowing I'm a gamer, but I need to be a public figure for my work. I'm the president of a company that serves thousands of institutions of higher ed and tens of thousands of users.

I really do have a doctorate degree though, so I feel like the moniker is not entirely without meaning. And it fits well with my real last name, which is phonetically identical to a certain old west gunfighter/dentist/gambler.

joshua on Oo! Let's Make a Game! Episode 3: Human Evolution!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:26:48 +0000

The "obsolescence" stuff is there so you're dragged along, even if you don't want to change.

Doc, (what's your real name?) commitment and love are not the same thing. Arguably, one is only one possible characteristic of the other. Relationships move. That's a thing that's important to me in this game: not only is who you are changing, but all the things (like people) you care about are changing, too.