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Join host Jamin Warren on conversations with someone of the most unique and experimental artists, designers, and thinkers in the worlds of games, play and culture
Jamin Warren founded Killscreen and has produced events such as the Versions conference for VR arts and creativity, in partnership with NEW INC. Warren also programmed the first Tribeca Games Festival, the groundbreaking Arcade at the Museum of Modern Art, and the Kill Screen Festival, which Mashable called "the TED of videogames." Additionally, he has served as an advisor for the Museum of Modern Art's design department, acted as cluster chair for the Gaming category for the Webbys, and hosted Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios.
Jamin (00:10)
Okay. All right. Danny, how are you?
Danny Snelson (00:14)
I'm good, Jamin, how are you doing?
Jamin (00:16)
I'm doing good. You were in Armenia, is that right?
Danny Snelson (00:19)
Yeah, I spent the last month in Yerevan hunting down old Armenian computational devices and researching a data center. and also
Jamin (00:30)
Okay.
Danny Snelson (00:30)
being a bit refreshed after the academic year. So I'm glad to be back at home.
Jamin (00:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What
what do you normally do during your summers? 'Cause it sounds this was like vaguely like quote unquote work related as a as a yeah, as a as a as a professor. So
Danny Snelson (00:42)
It's
it's the curse I turn all of my passions into my work. I think the summer's no different. I mean I do get to catch up on my backlog of comics and and playing games. I've I've been playing like absolutely useless games like well, at least for my research, like Final Fantasy sixteen I'm I'm I'm almost done with and it's like checking off the
Jamin (01:01)
Okay. Okay.
Danny Snelson (01:02)
backlog.
Jamin (01:03)
They're reshowing Final Fantasy, The Spirits Within, at Braindead Studios here in Los Angeles. I I went to go see go see Jim Darmouche's first film and they showed a trailer for it and I like whispered to my wife, I was like, my gosh, is this Final Fantasy? Is this is this Final Fight? It's like it's the graphics have come like back around now where like they're they're
Danny Snelson (01:20)
It's back.
Jamin (01:25)
like retro as opposed to just being like Uncanny Valley. It's like, that's kind of like the look that you're going.
Danny Snelson (01:29)
Yeah. No, it's the that's that's the perfect timing to go back to that. I feel like it once it
Jamin (01:33)
Yeah, yeah.
Danny Snelson (01:34)
bears its history, it's so much more interesting.
Jamin (01:36)
No, that is a hundred percent. Yeah, it was such a weird, it was like a weird addition to the series and all that fun stuff. Anyway, all right. Well, I'm
Danny Snelson (01:42)
Ha ha ha.
Jamin (01:43)
here with Danny Snelson of UCLA. and this is the Kill Scream Podcast. And thank everybody for for joining me today. we got a bunch of things to get through. we got a bunch of things to get through, you know. I I mean, aside from vacation, vacation plans and all that fun stuff.
Danny Snelson (02:00)
Mm-hmm.
Jamin (02:02)
Yeah. So I you know, I think maybe to start, just you know, it was an interesting week for for Kill Screen. you know, just you know, interesting week for Kill Screen. Got I'm experimenting with some new formats in terms of trying to get more like news stories out the door, which would be really interesting. There's simply like too many things that I want to write about and simply do not have time do not have time to do like a full fleshed, yeah, full fetched thing. So we're adding that to the program today as a couple newsy, broadly construed, like in the last couple of weeks. I want to get
Here's things that have happened in the last like two weeks. and yeah, and just for listeners, also as a reminder, we'll be playing some clips from an interview with with Ben at Fati a little bit later. You'll be able to listen to that full unedited conversation in your podcast feed if you're if you're a member. yeah. All right, cool. Well, maybe to start, let's go to the archive. originally we ran a piece, so it's called Game Type, Capture the School.
from Brendan Keogue, who's a fellow academic, fellow academic game studies professor. also runs a website called Critical Distance and originally ran in Kill Screen issue number two, which was the back to school issue. this was Brendan's first piece for the magazine as an outside contributor. just to give a little like context for the, you know, a little bit of context for the for the for the piece itself.
the construction was like a little was was was interesting because it's sort of it's it's sort of designed as a set of a set of rules. The the conceit is basically Brendan and his friends were playing they're they're they're playing the play Halo, the power goes out, and they decide to kind of like step into a real world play space and kind of design into a real world play space and real play space. These are some some of the photos from the from the issue, and actually try to design like some of the
some of the rules. They called it you know, set game, set player rules. So it's a bit of like Halo capture the flag and they move on. It's kind of like a, you know, there's a, there's a ceramic Jesus statue as you know, it's one of the map's landmarks. And one of the interesting details was that, you know, they they as kids, you know, designed this or adolescents, I guess. There's these tennis courts that carry three, three sports worth of overlapping painted lines. So the group kind of improvises like a fourth game Pac-Man tag like over, over, over top of it.
you know, Brendan started the whole piece, you know, as a actual rules screen, like the school needed its own setting menu before the game could start. so Dan, I was gonna ask you, do you feel like putting the rules in writing if you're like doing something like this, trying to turn a physical space into more of a play space? Do you feel like putting the rules in writing first makes the space more like a game? Or do you think it just proves that like the space had rules the whole time and nobody had really said them out loud?
Danny Snelson (04:48)
Yeah, I like that I like that last twist on it, right? Like of course, like all of our social spaces have rules and mores. It's just that we're so habituated to them that they become invisible. I think that's what's great about you know, setting new rules for these spaces or recoding them, is that one, it like highlights the fact that all these spaces already have rules. So there's this great moment in the piece, for example, where they realize they could run along some kind of like I don't know, I I couldn't quite understand exactly what it was, but it seemed like some kind of ditch that's used for service.
that they were not allowed to use during the day, but the game rules kind of like opened up like new ways to explore the space. I I loved this piece. I I thought it just yeah really
Jamin (05:23)
Yeah. Ha have you ever done
something like that? Like kind of taken an existing space and kind of like turned it into like some other some other kind of like play space?
Danny Snelson (05:32)
I love making games. And I I you know, I think that's why I teach is that I I just have like a captive audience of twenty students that I can force rules upon and have them play with me. So what you know, when I teach my video
Jamin (05:41)
Yeah, that's a good way to think about it.
Danny Snelson (05:42)
game classes, we often we almost always have an at least one IRL session. So whether we're like writing our own LARP, we actually did a great when I was studying Final Fantasy VII, I had them do a Final Fantasy Seven LARP where they were some students were NPCs and and others were, you know, heroes on the
quest and we we kind of filmed it as a machinema.
but
Jamin (06:02)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (06:03)
I think like, you know, taking those kinds of spaces, especially so that for me it's the university, but you know, this high school that that that are so over determined by certain kinds of rules of what's proper in academ, how buildings are supposed to be used. And then like taking those spaces and then making them like playful, I think both like there's a a kind of like liberatory like, we're out of the normal right now, but there's also a way in which I think that recodes
the academic space to be something that's more open and and stranger and less you know necessary, that that all of the the assets of this this space could be rendered otherwise.
Jamin (06:40)
Yeah. Yeah. No, that's like such a that's such a good point. I mean, it's interesting, like like looking at live action roleplay as, you know, because there's also this like division in live action role play between, you know, the American versions, which tend to be much more fantasy, like rules based, versus like the Nordic or European tradition, which is, you know, much more much, much more open ended, much more improvisational, like in that way. you know, I think with this piece it's it's it this feels like something that
frankly comes more it felt like it came more out of the kind of like the American tradition of like roleplay, like creating something new, having a structure to the game, there's rules to the game and that kind of thing. but yeah, it it is interesting to kind of see some of the differences in traditions in terms of like how how people sort of approach these things. yeah.
Danny Snelson (07:26)
And I was thinking
Brendan's approach as well. If I can just add, I I I mean I think there's something about this piece that so beautifully anticipates the academic books. both the the video game industry does not exist, which is about, you know, independent play beyond commerce, and my favorite of Brendan's works, A Play of Bodies, How He Perceived Video Games, just a beautiful, you know, phenomenological approach to the embodiment of play. And here like the the way that he writes about him and his his you know his friends,
demonstrates that kind of co attentiveness, that that like deep embodied form of play. And so I I always find it really fascinating to find these seeds that turn into these like larger projects, you know, that that's, you know, a decade after writing this piece, for example.
Jamin (08:09)
Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll link to the article in the in the description. I'm going to continue publishing things from the back to school issue. We finished up all of issue one. and so that's available for members online. but we'll be going piece by piece. this was the lead, the lead article from that issue. So it's fun to like, you know, ultimately like get that out there. All right, cool.
Danny Snelson (08:27)
can I ask
did you do you do that? Have you built game spaces for yourself?
Jamin (08:32)
yeah,
it's a good question. You it's been a funny thing with you know, having a having a a four year old, she's constantly creating like new games. I find that that like expressive quality in in making games on the fly, I think it's just like a personality thing. I have like I probably have a harder time doing that. like sort of like stepping outside of that. You know, I've never really liked I you know it's in you it's interesting. Social deception games kind of fit into that category. Mafia, werewolf.
Danny Snelson (08:59)
yeah.
Jamin (09:00)
Those kinds of things we have to like embody a role and there are kind of maybe more fluid improvisational rules. I think sometimes that's been that's probably been been harder for me to I think frankly has just been like harder for me to be able to to to I've made peace with it. Like I I'm okay with I'm okay with that. I you know, I I can I can I can live with that, but you know, at the same time it's it it's I don't know. For some reason it's just been harder for me to kind of like do. I don't have a good I don't have a good like reason.
reason why that might be. yeah, I mean it's interesting that you mentioned that just because you know, we had this great piece by a great pea a great profile of a of a I believe that they are from they're from Uzbekistan, and they're living in Belgium now, named Nikita Jagu Jagudjev, who is an Uzbek an an Uzbek choreographer.
And they have this great this great series called basically that they've been doing. Let me see if I can pull this up.
it's this open, it's like this open play space, basically, like as a as a choreographer. Here, let me share my screen here.
Okay. So this is yeah, this is the this is the work and it's in like it's this improvisational work basically where Nikita brings in these different actors and actresses into a space. They're all kind of set in high school. And then Nikita's designed these relationships between the different between the different actors and actresses in the in the piece that have these like rules that exist in a book, but it's mostly playing through the like the the intense dynamics.
of the intense dynamics that that sort of like pop up during high school and they've been performing it over the last like six years. and so the reason I bring this up is because like you know as a as a participant when you come into the space they ask you to kind of like interface with the interface with like the different actors and actresses, which I I just is I can play along, but I don't know. I just have always had like
Danny Snelson (10:54)
Yeah.
Jamin (10:54)
a hard time I a hard time like being a a participant like in that in that particular way. I don't know. Maybe I think it's just a per like ultimately just like a personality thing.
Danny Snelson (11:04)
That's so disciplinary
specific too. And I think it, you it feeds on our last conversation about, you know, games that tap into these other traditions. We were thinking about art last time. But choreography is a like a rule based art form, especially the more improvisational variants. I think that there's something really yeah, I I I love one and I love this piece and I love thinking about this in relationship to like an improvised call of duty as being choreographed instead of rule based.
Jamin (11:28)
Right, right, right, right. Yeah, that's a right. So that is an interesting way to think about it. It's like, there's an existing rule set. What what might that look like if it was expressed over like an individual environment? I don't know. Maybe I would have an easier time than maybe I'd have an easier time with that. Yeah, yeah.
Danny Snelson (11:40)
Yeah. The more
rules the better. I find if I have like a ton of rules, then I can like easily follow them. But if it's like one or two scattered rules and I have too much freedom, I get completely paralyzed. Maybe I'm
like you in that
Jamin (11:51)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (11:51)
regard.
Jamin (11:52)
Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. All right. Well, let's move on to let's move on here. I wrote a piece earlier this week or it's an interview with with Bennett Fatih. you know, Bennett Fati is a philosopher turned game designer, an Oxford undergrad who co authored a still cited paper on performance enhancing drugs before leaving academia in 2007 to teach at the NYU game center. And over the last 20 years, Bennett has been
really interested in the body and like how it moves that started with a game called Quap, which I think a lot of people are are familiar with. Yeah, I can pull that up here. we can go through a couple of of Bennett's games before jumping into the the main course.
so this is Quap, which is a I mean it's a little interesting. It's basically you control each the thighs and the calves. That's basically that's like basically it. so Bennett worked on that. And then there's another game. Here's a bunch of like Bennett's games. You can see they're all very bodily focused. Another one called GURP, where he plays a climber, can only control their arms. but probably the thing that broke him out into like the public consciousness.
was was probably getting over it with Bennett Fadi. I believe that game was like fairly successful. There's a pretty successful game in with streamers in particular. but basically, you know, that game you play as a as a as as a person in a in a giant pot who again can only control and only control their hands. Their most recent game or Bennett's most his most recent game is a game called Baby Steps, which came out, I believe, last year.
baby steps really interesting conceptually. it follows a felt follows a a fail son, another son who is responsible. It basically gets dropped into this is drops gets dropped into this world after, you know, basically their parents are are really mad. And yeah, functionally they they can only walk. That's like the only thing that you can do. It's just basically a game about a game about like walking and space and that sort of thing. I had a great conversation with with Bennett.
Bennett about this game. Baby Steps is interesting because it kind of places you in this big world. You can only kind
Danny Snelson (14:04)
Mm-hmm.
Jamin (14:04)
of like walk and traverse through it sort of like piece by piece. There's all these secrets for it. They've buried all these things. There's like birds that you can go after and bells and hats and tiny little I mean, it's a really sort of it's a really immense and textured place that really immense and textured place that that Bennett designed along with Gabe Cuzillo and Maxi, Maxi, Maxi Bach. yeah, so I think maybe maybe the start.
What were your first initial I'm sure what your experiences were with with baby steps is also one of these games because of its like difficulty, which is like in the tradition of of Bennett Foddy's games, is also like one of these games that you could definitely you can watch other people. We can talk about that. But yeah, maybe Danny to start how how was have you played Baby Steps? Was this something that that you had jumped into? What were some of your like initial impressions for this for this particular game?
Danny Snelson (14:53)
I
love this game so much. I as as w I mentioned before, I was teaching an Isekai course and I think it was Rush Fresek who was first writing about how baby steps is absolutely an isekai, you know, where you're ported into this this parallel world. And so I was teaching it this last spring and got to spend a lot of time playing it and thinking about it with my students. like Quap, I think that's important to say, like, you know, the way that you end up walk all you can do is walk, but walking is actually quite difficult, or at least it starts difficult and then it becomes
kind of intuitive where you're using bumpers and and the joysticks to to control each of the the feet. so no my my first experience with this and you know I I I maybe it's the the literary scholar in me, so I I can't help but like try to place it in tradition. And there's something so Beckettian like Samuel Beckett about both this work and I think like you a lot of Bennett Potti's work works, getting over it the the pot that the character's in.
there's a a famous play by Samuel Beckett where all the characters are in similar kinds of pots. So I've been kind of thinking about that in this like big empty wasteland that's also like, you know, like Beckett, it's like methodical, it's bleak, and it's also like hilariously funny at the same time. And the character seems to be struggling to do the most basic tasks, which like
Jamin (16:04)
Right.
Danny Snelson (16:05)
Watt and some of like Beckett's like best characters have this like like the the struggle to do anything normal, I think again like reflects so beautifully on like what we presume to be normal.
or or what we take for granted, like mobility
Jamin (16:17)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (16:18)
or or you know, modes of conversation. Or I think you this covered you covered this in your interview, like using your hands. Like, why is it that this character can't use their hands? Why is this like weirdo or this dork, like just like unable or like unwilling to think about using his body the way that other people do?
Jamin (16:34)
Yeah, that was one of the things that I that was one of the I don't know if that made the I don't know if that exactly like made the cut in the the interview. I mean we talked about it a little bit, but like, you know, one of the big developments I think for Bennett's games is he's gone from these games being purely purely mechanical and sort of having like a light like narrative layer. sports is a really helpful shorthand, right? Sports can be really helpful.
Because it grounds people in something that they probably already know. Like you just sort of are familiar. And he says that about like that is one of the nice things about like working with the body is that, you know, as a game designer, you're not trying to teach new systems. Players come in with expectations for how the body like should move, even if they've never done the thing. That's a very as a designer, you don't have to teach someone again, like ostensibly how like walking or swinging a cricket bat or you know, rock climbing, people sort of like have like shorthand for that. one of the interesting things that definitely came up during the conversation was
You know, how the kind of the narrative, the story, so to speak, was something that grew out of a long period of experimentation. You know, there's a lot of obviously back and forth about whether you should start with story or you start with mechanics. And he does really seem like to have squared the circle just by having an elongated design period and coming up with this idea. Like once you start spending time with this character who's only walking, then it's kind of like, well, why isn't he using his hands? And that, you know, offers like a whole set of like
Other questions about, you know, about Nate's unwillingness. In this case, it's like Nate is unwilling to ask for help. And that is kind of in a nutshell, like what his problem is, so to speak. He will not ask anyone for help, which is very relatable. But that kind of grew out of the mechanics as opposed to them starting with like, I want to do a game about, you know, this kind of, you know, yeah, I don't know, incel esque fail son kind of character
Danny Snelson (18:09)
Yeah.
Jamin (18:10)
who if you started with the story, maybe you would have ended up with like a different, different type of game. But the mechanics really in this case like really did.
drive the the narrative components. I thought that was really that was really, really interesting.
Danny Snelson (18:21)
Yeah, and I th I loved how that came up. How, you know, there there's so many games where that the narrative is the the sort of like starting point, and then you you build mechanics to like achieve that narrative. And I think this like this working in the opposite direction, like starting with a mechanic and then letting that mechanic then generate this whole world around it that that has to make sense of okay, like these like fundamental like design principles you covered where it's like, you know, you you like if you fall, like you really fall. Like there are no checkpoints.
if you see something, you can climb on it. So that you you linked up to that Matthew Matosis video on aesthetic deception, which I I thought was like a really useful way to think about this as well, where like, you know, the there's nothing e aesthetically deceptive about this environment. If you see something, you can you can try to walk on it. You won't quite know if the angle is just right and it's gonna make your your weird body flop over.
but I I think that there's something really fascinating about starting with the the mechanics and the principles of mechanics and then seeing what kind of world grows around them. And and I think you
Jamin (19:21)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (19:21)
can feel that kind of like organic growth when you're playing a baby steps.
Jamin (19:25)
I the other thing I like about baby steps as well is because so much of the game focuses on really understanding the mechanics of walking, you know, for those who haven't played the game, you basically you know, the character basically lifts his, you know, basically nate lifts his left and his right foot. And then you can kind of like use the thumbsticks to sort of like adjust his balance. That's really the b and that's really about it. And so you're constantly kind of like picking up and replacing the step and trying to sort of assess the grade of a particular stone or
Go trying to get over a bridge or whatever might be. And the big thing is like he has like almost no thigh strength. That's like the thing too. He like really does not have a great ability to
Danny Snelson (19:58)
Yeah.
Jamin (20:02)
like he really does not have the ability to like so going upstairs, for example, is something that ends up like being like very difficult for a character like Nate. one of the things I liked is the game is really in a rejection of I think a maximalist tendency that we see in games, particularly as it relates to complexity.
I talked with him a little bit, you know, it was reminded of this idea from the philosopher Michael Pogliani. He talks about the difference between like tacit and focal knowledge. And so, like when you're learning to play the piano, for example, you just learn to play all of the individual keys, but as you become more expert, as you become more of an expert, I'm finding this now like working on my Spanish, and I have to focus. I'm
Danny Snelson (20:35)
Uh-huh.
Jamin (20:36)
at the stage now where like I have to focus on actively talking as opposed to trying to translate each individual word. And so we take for granted with certain types of skills that they all start with.
This kind of like focal knowledge, we focus on each individual keys, and then that becomes Tchaikovsky
Danny Snelson (20:49)
Yeah.
Jamin (20:50)
or whatever it might be. Bennett's approach is really interesting because I think he is demonstrating that there is like near infinite richness in very small micro interactions in a way that I think is really profound, and that you could take any kind of interaction of a digital body, a digital space, and if you work on it and you work on it, that that in and of itself could be compelling. And
That is like such a reminder about for me, such an exciting reminder of how much games still have yet to do, right? It's just a simple, it's just walking, right? It is just a a walking game and it creates all this kinds of richness. And so before we take these like big, you know, cognitive and narrative leaps about going in the X place or Y place, it's like it is possible to go very big and is also very possible. And you know, it's big systems games that do this that try to simulate each individual piece, but you can also get
Incredibly, incredibly granular. I think that is something really beautiful. And you do see this in other mediums as well, where you know, you have a great story that takes place like in a room and you have a great story that is a grand epic that goes around the world, or you know, it you there's lots of ways. Film does the same thing. You can have a great, you know, great story that is inside of just a particular interaction of two characters like sitting at a table and something that is, you know.
Fast and Furious or whatever. So it it's not it's not an indictment that say like one type of game is better than another type of game, but is this reminder of like games to re do really have this ability to go very, very small and that can provide a tremendous amount of like richness in its like interaction systems. So anyway, that was one of the things that really jumped out at me in terms of talking with with with Ben.
Danny Snelson (22:21)
Yeah, and I liked that the the
origin narrative about you know, Bennett talking about how he he learned games, which was just like playing like hundreds of flash games, like eating up as many games as possible. And and also that relationship to like piracy or this earlier in moment on the internet, where you just like encountered and gathered a lot of things rather than just sort of getting plugged into the same triple A environment. And and I think there's something about that. If you're playing a bunch of tiny games all the time, like I know you are, for example.
like every game teaches you its own rules. And I think that's one of the things that's like fundamental to games is you don't know how the world is going to interact until you until you start interacting with it. unlike the pages of a book, for example. And I think that there's something about Bennett Foddy's games in particular that are so heavily oriented toward that aspect of games, like learning language, or when you first try to write something, you draw letters before you start to write them. So you have to like kind of like start from scratch. And it's really hard, I think, to get to that place where you're so defamiliarized, where we're so used to like.
opening up a game
Jamin (23:17)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (23:18)
and then like, you Assassin's Creed style, just like sprinting forward. And so like to like take these like things we take for granted and like force us to like painfully learn them again, but in a way that like makes that painful learning funny or pleasurable or comedic, I think is really just kind of a a stroke of magic.
Jamin (23:34)
Yeah. Well, that reminds me. I mean, I have a couple clips from from Bennett here from our interview together. one of the words that came up a bunch, you talked about, you know, he's been playing a lot of games. He's kind of like someone he's sort of like an interesting character in that his story, he's both familiar but also different. Like, you know, he said growing up in Australia, and this is a common experience for people who grew up outside of Western Europe and the United States and Japan, is that their experience with games was often through these like, you know, hacked cartridges and you have hundreds of games. And so it builds this.
parapathetic, this kind of like itinerant point of view where you're constantly dipping into games. You don't and whereas for me, I'm like, I get a game from Blockbuster or I got to rent a game as a child and like I'm going to finish it or play as much as humanly possible because that is just what you have. he draws a direct line between that and the flash game ecosystem, you know, in the late nineties, early aughts, where you have thousands of, you know, flash designers making games, you can kind of dip in and out.
one of things that came up a lot was like that out of that experience, he talks about being like jaded. It's like he talked a lot about like jadedness.
Danny Snelson (24:33)
Yeah.
Jamin (24:34)
And he had this really funny story. he had this really funny story about when he was a fellow at Oxford. Oxford, when they need to, when it needs to raise money, they sell off wine from the wine cellars. And so they would bring these wine bottles, particularly the whites, like out from the cellar and they would place them in front of the in front of the fellows.
And then let the fellows, they did they did this competition once to see like, let's let the senior fellows and the incoming fellows, which he was one more junior fellows, let them judge, let them judge the wine. And here's what he had the had to say about that.
Danny Snelson (25:03)
Yes.
Bennett (25:03)
So they they brought out the wine cellar and laid out like twenty four wines in a line and and everybody had to taste each each one and kind of rank them. And
I just remember there were a couple at the end which everybody had ranked either like ten out of ten or one out of ten. And it turned out like the all of the junior fellows had written one out of ten this taste of gasoline.
And all of the senior fellows had written ten out of ten wonderful notes of gasoline.
Danny Snelson (25:29)
Ha ha ha
Jamin (25:30)
so he talks about that in the context of like games, right? Where he's like, he's at this plate now where he's like taste of gasoline. That's what he wants. He wants these things that are like these games that will like shock the system. And yeah, so I was asking you, Danny, where do where do you feel like you fit on that like continuum of your like development as someone who plays games? Are you like gasoline is a de borrant taste and
Danny Snelson (25:49)
Yeah.
Jamin (25:49)
no one should have it? Or like, gasoline perks up my senses. It's doing something, doing something interesting here.
Danny Snelson (25:55)
like this I like to I would like to think that I have a a healthy amount of gasoline in my diet as a as a you
Jamin (26:00)
Ha ha ha.
Danny Snelson (26:01)
know I turn toward Baiou and and I've been thinking about experimenting with O de Vs, which are just like pure dissolates. So, you know, and and I think in games is similar. I think it's a b part of a diet though, right? Like I I love I still love like my big triple A like I I I guess that that that would be the palatability of like two buck chuck, like you know, a a triple A game that is intensely palatable where
Like
I feel like having some gasoline, like what I like about that example is that the the gasoline came up after sampling twenty four other bottles. And and I think
Jamin (26:34)
Right.
Danny Snelson (26:34)
like the gasoline only like has that kind of potency or that kind of like shock effect if you also have like been tasting s like overly sweet wines for too long and then your your tongue is like thirsting for something else. I don't know. What's that like for you? Like do like I know that there's some people who are like pure estates who want like, I want only the gasoline, I want
like only difficulty, like, you know, cyclothes
Jamin (26:55)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (26:56)
that get into like Mario Kaiso, for example. Like that's like maybe the most like gasoline fueled platformer.
Jamin (27:02)
Yeah.
I mean, I think a lot of the like a lot of times the conversation kind of revolves around like difficulty. And I think this is like an aesthetic question about like whether or not like is games main language is difficulty is that and you know you can make an argument whether whether it is or not. But I think when we we talk about sort of games that are like gasoline, we often I think we often think of them as being like difficult mechanically. I mean, I probably would like to expand the aperture, just because I'm like 'cause I do think this idea of games being difficult or boring.
Or boring. It doesn't just have to be, I mean, it doesn't just have to be I don't think it just has to be difficulty. I think there's other ways that games can be difficult. They're not necessarily like mechanically complex, but they can challenge you, obviously, in like in in some other ways. I don't, you know, I don't necessarily know if that's true. I, you know, seeing an interview like Christopher Nolan, he was talking about his love of the Fast and Furious franchise, for example, which I also love. I'm a big fan of that franchise.
Danny Snelson (27:54)
Yeah.
Jamin (27:56)
And so I think it you can kind of go in opposite directions where it's like some people are like,
my gosh, the only thing I watch now, I watch so many films. The only thing that gives me joy is like watching very, very s you know, very specific genre that's like nearly unwatchable. And then some people go in the opposite end, which is like, you know, honestly, so much of my consumption is work. And so I really want things that are going to be like really, really easy. So I think the fact that Bennett has moved in that direction for his free time, I think more speaks to the kind of like person he is and the kind of player he is. But I don't think it necessarily is a prerequisite for
I don't think it's a prerequisite or it's a it's a natural outgrowth of of of literacy. I don't think it has to be you don't have to kind of like move in move in move in that direction. So yeah. Yeah.
Danny Snelson (28:37)
Yeah. Yeah,
and I think you y so there's yeah, there's that the difficulty side, but I think there's also like something on the game developer side that was interesting that came up in your interview
around what he calls good hands. That like okay, cool. Yeah, I've got some thoughts
Jamin (28:44)
Yeah. Yeah, I have that I have that clip. I can play that. Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Snelson (28:50)
on that.
Jamin (28:51)
Yeah, here we go. We'll play that clip.
Bennett (28:53)
I mean chairman, this is actually something
Jamin (28:53)
Ha ha ha.
Bennett (28:54)
that I've recently been talking about with my game designer friends. I'm really interested in this problem, right? So this is the what we call the problem of of good hands, you know. So you're talking about if I'm playing a game by a designer whose work I have previously loved and and felt like was was really thoughtful with my time and really rewarded putting in a lot of time.
Then I have some kind of reason to assume that their future work is like that. But also, does even within the context of a of a single game, games have language for letting you know that they're not wasting your time, right? we
Jamin (29:27)
Right, right, yeah.
Bennett (29:28)
call we call this the feeling of being in good hands. It's like it can be a level design flourish that is kind of compact and is delivered early on. It can be that there's polish everywhere, right?
that's that's called being in good hands. I'm really kind of interested in this because that's something that I worry about as a designer. I worry about trying to do that as a designer, but it's something I'm kind of bored of as a player. and the games that I'm really loving lately are the ones where I can't tell if I'm in good hands, where they're not,
Jamin (29:56)
Ha ha.
Bennett (29:57)
you know, they're not because
The the the more that I I feel in good hands, the more I feel like I can probably predict what the experience is gonna be like through the through the end. it's like, this person is a fan of Jonathan Blow's design thinking and and you know, they've set up four different puzzle mechanics and they're probably gonna combine all of those in every possible way, and there'll be one puzzle per every implication of that system. And
then when we've exhaust fully exhausted all the combinatorics of these of these systems, then that will the credits will roll and that's what I'm that's what I'm in for, right? Like that's this person knows how to do that. That's hard to do. That's like the that kind of works, right? Takes an expert designer, but it's also like I have this feeling like sometimes I'll pick something up on Steam that has like three reviews and it's just like it's not clear to me whether the
Designer knows what they're doing. And then that being the case, I I can't predict which way it's gonna go. And maybe there'll just be something that's kind of absolutely glorious and beautiful, or maybe it will kind of fizzle. But either way, it's like I'm in uncharted territory, right? I feel like I'm I'm on a voyage of discovery in a way that I'm not when I'm in good hands, you know.
Jamin (31:06)
he talks about this concept of he talks about this concept of of being in good hands. that, you know, that he and you know, and some of his like game designer friends, for example, they talk about this concept of of of good hands. And more they and good hands is a concept where it's like you step into like a game space and you want to know if it's you're familiar with the game designer, then you trust them to sort of like
put you back into they're gonna take basically gonna take care of you. And that could lots of different ways that gets expressed. That could be like a little design flourish. It could be like the polish for the game. it could be like a certain like narrative construction. It could be something that basically it could be something that like sort of walks you through the experience. But this idea and he he was using this example of saying that like he wants games that he doesn't want to know if he's in good hands or not. So it's like you find like
'Cause there's games everywhere now. He's like he kinda likes the little unknowing of like, does this person actually know what they're doing? 'Cause it is possible sometimes to like have games that are sort of extremely difficult that so your complexity of a complexity of output is not a reflection of complexity of process necessarily. And so sometimes you might end up with something that is very hard that is designed by the hands of a master, and sometimes the other things are very hard. And it's like
Danny Snelson (32:21)
Yeah.
Jamin (32:21)
someone who has no idea what they're doing. So that concept of good hands I thought was was I thought was super interesting.
Danny Snelson (32:27)
Yeah, and takes that that concept of difficulty and puts it over on the the production side, which is you know, part of what I was you know, I was thinking about the the wine the stay with the wine metaphor, the liquor metaphor for a minute. Like, you know, good hands, like having a ventner that's gonna have like the right balance of complexity, or the you a cocktail maker is gonna like balance everything right. versus like, you know, somebody who's just like making moonshine at home and like nine times out of ten it's awful. And then like one time
Jamin (32:48)
You can also buy
moonshine now. I mean that is like a thing that you can that that you can that you can do. Like
Danny Snelson (32:51)
And then one time they get
like the the the balance of like corn to yeast just right and it's fucking incredible and bizarre and unlike anything
Jamin (32:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Danny Snelson (32:58)
you've tasted. And you guys think about that with these like unpredictable amateur games that are made. Like, you know, every once in a while if you're if you're sampling all this like homebrew moonshine gasoline, like there's there's often like moments where like something extraordinary pops out. I feel like this happens in the classroom as well, where like all my students who are amateurs will will have these like wild experiments they're approaching, and most of them are failures. I encourage them to be failures.
But I think when you wade through a lot of that, like every once in a while, something like truly surprising that like is that like someone with good hands would never consider. Right. Like there's something like, you know, about like a an unpredictable amateur that might surface some kind of mechanic that like anyone who's well versed in game design would abhor and would like that their like good hands training would keep them maybe from take taking certain kinds of creative leaps.
Jamin (33:44)
Right. All right. Well, we have one more clip to play. I have one more one more clip I can I can play here. one of the things that came up was a desire for for for it was a conversation around like realism, like broadly, broadly construed. it was a conversation that he was having with a conversation he was having with with Gabe Cuzillo, who is his co-designer, which I thought was really interesting. Let me let me play that clip.
Bennett (34:10)
we had been talking about letting you reset back and he just really, really didn't want to do that, right? Like he but felt felt like if I fall off a cliff knowing I can warp back to get my progress back, then I haven't really fallen off a cliff. It's not real, right? It's like fake falling off a cliff. It's like I'm pr playing pretend.
Whereas if I know I have to do the work to get back, it's real in a way that video game losses or whatever are generally not real. Right. So it's so this is the same sense of reality, I think, the same aesthetic reality that that drives not wanting to have invisible walls keeping you off a particular mountain,
Jamin (34:46)
Yeah, so this conversation about like to what extent, you know, a game like baby steps, he says that, you there's certain things that are real. there's certain things that are real, like the sort of the the physics. And he talks about like you know, he likes games that don't sort of like cheat. He said there's a tendency sometimes with physics-based games that you want to sort of like cheat the design. You can feel like the game designer sort of like stepping in, kind of putting the bumper rails up just so you don't get like a tool a little too far out over his keys. And there's a big sort of sort of creative disagreement, I think, between him and Gabe about how to the extent to which
It needs to be like real, real. And there's some things like, you know, the ground is wet, but doesn't world doesn't get more slippery. Like there are some things that they sort of they sort of quote unquote quote cheat. But in general, they really try to make the experience as quote unquote real. And then that meant checkpoints as well. So it's like when you fall, you fall. It's like one of the sort of the remarkable things about the game. You can get quite far and then you lose your footing and you have to go like all the way back down to the bottom. That you know can regale you with you know, certainly regale you with ex experiences.
certainly
Danny Snelson (35:41)
Yeah.
Jamin (35:42)
for streamers, it's just like someone gets somewhere, they fall off the mountain, they slide like all the way to the bottom. yeah, tell me a little bit about your thinking in terms of like the extent to which something needs to be something needs to be real in order to be like believable in that way, like in a in a game system.
Danny Snelson (35:56)
Yeah, I think there's like a kind of rhetorical impact for that. Like that that use of the word real, right? Like obviously this is all like a a kind of like simulated environment. And I think like from the very beginning when you crawl out of the pond like some kind of amoeba, you have to like figure out how to like how the legs work. And and and like you're putting in a lot of labor, I think, as a player for a game like this to try to figure out what are the laws of physics, how do I move my body around, how do I interact with the world around me. And and so I think that there's something
rewarding that the game does if it if it keeps those laws really consistent. So like you're having a hard time just like taking a step. And so like I could imagine if like you're you're really struggling to take steps and you run into like, heaven forbid, a an invisible wall, or, you know, like a a bit of the terrain that's maybe like mapped inaccurately. I think that would throw the kind of trust you have in in the the the the work you've been putting in, like the real knowledge you've built around this world, it would throw it into doubt.
And so I I I I see there that there's something really useful there. the giant falls are hilarious.
Jamin (36:59)
itself. Yeah.
Danny Snelson (37:00)
It's like a like in a FromSoft game. I feel like the falls like like it it felt to me like I was like going down one of those like dungeons or corridors where it's like something horrifying is gonna jump out at me at any second. And I I feel like that was how I felt about the falls. And so like even when I got confident with walking, I was so stressed that like you know, especially when you get close to an edge, like it just like it it it accelerates my like endorphins, like you're in this kind of like stressful situation. And I think if you didn't have like a real consequence, like knowing like, okay, if I miss one step, I'm going to lose the last like hour of
progress I've made.
Jamin (37:31)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (37:31)
I think that like it it produces that emotion that I think it'd be really hard to get at if you had checkpoints or these other things that that broke that world.
Jamin (37:39)
Yeah. It's a little paternalistic, I guess. That's one way we think about it. It's like you will you like you will you will learn you will learn to love this. So I I you know, just that that's my hope for me. Anyway, well you can read the the whole interview with Bennett and members can listen to the whole conversation. the whole conversation. all right, moving on. We got a couple quick kit things just before we we close out for for for today. the first is is Gareth Martin, who is a Gareth Martin who was a
Writer for Kill Screen many, many, many moons ago, has since turned to become a game designer, revealed Signet City. It's a first person quote unquote fungal punk RPG. it's in the same like universe as his other game, Cis and Sleeper. And it's set in this monochrome 1978, 1979 Britain during the winter of discontent. yeah, so we got a couple screenshots here of you know of of of the game.
you can tell it shares like some of the same like kind of like visual notes, some of the same like visual notes as as and actually I have like a little little clip here as well. yeah, tell me a little bit about like maybe tell me you want to tell me a little bit about what what your response is to to a game like this. I know you know this type of like strong narrative, strong narrative RPG is like
Danny Snelson (38:58)
Mm-hmm.
Jamin (38:58)
right up your alley. yeah, Danny, what were some of your first responses to to the game?
Danny Snelson (39:03)
I was so excited to see this. I mean, the the the two citizen sleeper games are are really like at in in my top ten list. I I love, love those games. And and both of them inhabit what what what I think Gareth calls like you know the ruins of capitalism and like deep space. And there's something so compelling about that. So seeing this, I was immediately thinking like, right, like the like where you maybe might end up in this kind of like post capitalist ruin in space and the distant future in the Citizen Sleeper games.
There's something about like this specific moment in the eighties and like hyperinflation, the the rise of postmodernism, the like you know, the the development of global capital at this like specific moment is like well, it's like a spore or like you know, it's like a seed point for like the the kind of like unfettered capital that we've seen, I guess, over the last like forty, fifty years. so I'm
Jamin (39:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Danny Snelson (39:52)
I'm really excited about like what I love about the Citizen Sleeper games was the the the politics, the care, the the kind of the aesthetics of course, but
They just seem to bring so many things together in a way that that felt to me very urgent and and very capable of speaking to big questions about capital and and politics. And and so I I think like immediately I was just like I cannot wait to see how this plays out. and the the the you know, all the materials that we have right now are very evocative, but to see yeah, how some of those same themes will carry over to Signet City.
Jamin (40:23)
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So you play as a as a parasite, you're in born in the brackish water of declining coastal city bay, and you're kind of moving between human minds. And it's in this world where there's like biological computing that's actually stronger than, you know, silicon chips. And so, you know, it's definitely there is definitely a bit of it's interesting to kind of like maybe take some of the like cybernetic mechanics of like cyberpunk as like a genre and kind of like like apply it in this like different way in terms of like, you know, using biology as a way to like hack other characters and
you know, there's not like a ton of new like detail, not a ton ton of new detail. but it does seem like a like a defin definitely an amalgamation and kind of like an interesting direction also, I think, for things that are in the quote unquote cyberpunk, like that genre, but moving into like a different kind of like moving it into like a different space. And you know, it's interesting that the fungus is like, you know, this idea that your body gets taken over by a fungus as like I obviously something that's derived like deeply from nature, obviously popularized with like The Last of Us, or you know.
planet earth, David Attenborough. That was the first time I heard, I think maybe I mean there was maybe like a Radio Lab episode about some of these these you know about these like funguses that take over take over ants and basically control the control their bodies. But this idea of like, you know, some other being getting inside your body through biomechanical means, is interesting kind of taking some of those ideas where it's not just like you're hacking. It's like, you're actually, you know, you're actually doing it in a biological, in a biological way.
Danny Snelson (41:47)
Yeah. And the aesthetics, I mean, these like the the the I was thinking about this in relationship to Brendan's essay as well. This kind of like nostalgic photographs from like a distant time, tw tw twenty eleven or or the nineteen eighties. And it seems like the the design style's really like fascinating. Like I I know you mentioned you know, tracing over photographs. So this kind of like blending of like real captures and like a kind of like rotoscopic kind of tracing pattern. feels like almost like another like
Like a fungal infection on history itself or s or something that like the game itself is is kind of like, you know, reimagining and and reconfiguring these kinds of historical documents.
Jamin (42:25)
Yeah. All right. Moving on. Danielle Brathwaite Shirley, the the the incredibly prolific Danielle Brathwaite Shirley. Danielle is a UK based game designer and artist who had a show at the Serpentine called the the great called the Delusion. And Danielle released a new title. It was it was showed at the Delusion, but it's called I Didn't Realize You Thought You Were Like That. It's a free bout browser game.
it's a serpentine back backed standalone release where basically you're presented with a set of hostile online comments. ho hostile online comments, and you have to make a decision about whether or not the person on the other side of this door basically they come through this door, they present their comments, and you decide if you want to let them basically you wanna it let them in or you should basically like turn them, turn them away. It fits with some of the themes that Daniel was exploring, in terms of like identity, but in this case it really focuses on
online social interactions and and a form of i guess a form of like gatekeeping community management kind of asking these big questions about like what do you do the game has this great line it says like you know there is no there is no hope without fear like there has to be there needs to be something it feels like it it feels like a piece as because it'd be simple just to sort of like reject everything that you disagree with but you know it does challenge you to say like what kind of community are you trying to build and then at the end of the sequence
basically the different characters sort of characters, there's a little sort of they interact in a particular way. You get a little text readout of what's happened inside of your little community and you get get to sort of like sit with the nature of your decision. So it kind of puts you in the in I guess it sort of like puts you in the mind of being like a like a Reddit mod or something like that.
Danny Snelson (44:08)
Yeah.
Jamin (44:09)
anyway, I I I was it's a short game. a short game we'll link to it in in in the show notes. Danny, any thoughts on Danielle's work? How you see this maybe fitting in with like Danielle's some of the other work that Danielle has been doing.
at places like Serpentine have been really impressed with really impressed with with with their career so far.
Danny Snelson (44:26)
Yeah. Yeah. All these games I think that there there's something really special about the way Danielle hails an audience or a player that that that really puts the focus on like what are the decisions you're making, what are like the real politics or the real like stakes of making certain kinds of decisions that you might take for granted. And I and I love that they all live in the browser. Like I think that the you know that it's amazing.
Jamin (44:44)
Right, yeah, yeah. I played on an iPad. It was great, yeah.
Danny Snelson (44:47)
And like, you know what? Like our our our little browsers are like game engines. And like, you know, I
Jamin (44:51)
Yeah, I know. Totally. Yeah.
Danny Snelson (44:52)
I think this, you know, I know also think a little bit about Aiden, but
Aiden and and and others, I think recently, I think a lot of young game designers are really trying to think about, okay, like we don't have to run in Unity, we don't have to run through the Steam Store or even Itch. Like a browser can be a game and you can produce game like experiences that are that are profound and meaningful. And I and I think, you know, whenever I teach Danielle's work, that's always the the starting point that like look what you can do. Like look at what kinds of interactions just like clicking through, you know, links and videos and like
poorly encoded gifts, like what what kind of environment and what kind of real like meaningful ludic experience that can create.
Jamin (45:29)
yeah. I mean the other thing is that Danielle's been interesting as a as a as a g as a as an artist, making more of their games like pl publicly playable and available to for the public. There are quite a few games that I see at exhibitions that just like they're either in development for a long period of time, but they're just not playable. And so all you can see is photos.
Danny Snelson (45:45)
Mm-hmm.
Jamin (45:46)
And so I think Danielle has had a great ability to be able to present work, challenging work, and get it out to the public and have it accessible to the public, which I I think feels like
Obviously it's a d deliberate choice on Danielle's part, but I think it's also pragmatically, it really helps to ground what people and it's a different experience. Obviously, you play this in gallery in front in front of other people and they can watch you make those decisions. That's gonna be different than, you know, a dis an experience where you play in front of your in, you know, in the comfort of your the comfort of your own comfort of your own home. yeah.
Danny Snelson (46:17)
Yeah, builds
on that like activist premise of of of all of Danielle's work, where, you know, I think that the democratizing gesture of like having all these games freely available, so you don't have to be in the rarefied space of serpentine to encounter them, perfectly rhymes with the real questions they're asking about gender, sexuality and and race. in in all these games where you know, inside outside communities, filter bubbles, the the the rise of certain kinds of toxic online environments, like
The all of these things that like Daniel's games that they're they all have like a kind of they're very pointed activist works. And and so I think like that like why like democratic accessibility is is such a yeah, such a boon to to being able to get those messages across.
Jamin (46:57)
Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, the last little news item before we before we piece out. Aiden Strong is is a resident
Danny Snelson (47:05)
Thank you.
Jamin (47:06)
at UCLA Game Lab and has released a is it amalgam? An amalgam MMO, I believe is the term that is the term that that that Aiden Aiden used. it was called it's called Texture Town. Here I can pull this up here.
Pull this up here, but you know, texture is super interesting. it is a it's a mix. It's a bit of a new game wearing old skin. It's got a mix of Disney's Toontown Online running on the original source code. It's got different sensory channels from other dead MMOs, Club Penguins, sounds from Pirates of the Caribbean. it's got a little bit of textures from Cartoon Network's Fusion Fall. you know, it's a world, I believe in Ames where a world that resists understanding while remaining technically completely playable. I believe that was the
the language that that that Aiden used.
Danny Snelson (47:54)
Yeah.
Jamin (47:54)
Really, really interesting, really, really interesting, I think, like concept. especially at a time that like we're not seeing a lot of like MO like new MMOs. There was a there was definitely like a a window where they were like MMOs are the future, you know, and you
Danny Snelson (48:07)
Yeah.
Jamin (48:07)
had World of Warcraft and like all of these like virtual environments really like really really started to take off. that is no longer the world that we live in. Although the the the t the obviously more obviously more
many, many games are played online, the most popular games in the world. So that's the piece that's been pulled from from MMOs is like is these sh is these like shared spaces. do you want to tell me a little bit about like what your experiences have been with with Aiden, you know, obviously being at UCLA Game Lab. I'm sure you've you've seen this live and yeah, tell me a little bit about tell me a little bit about like your experiences with with Aiden, maybe as I don't know if you had Aiden as a student, but it's definitely a game that I thought was interesting and made made made the made the cut. So
Danny Snelson (48:45)
Yeah, that's like a class. Aiden is so
Jamin (48:46)
That was a for far in the background from the game, by the way, for anyone who's listening, just just so you know.
Danny Snelson (48:51)
wonderful. Yeah, I I I got to work with Aiden in web writing workshop course, which was a kind of web revivalist very rooted in this kind of aesthetic. So so thinking about, you know, GeoCities and the the nineties of the internet and how we can surface some of those like degraded digital cultural objects in the present and how they might be able to speak back to things like generative AI.
Jamin (49:13)
Yeah. Yeah.
Danny Snelson (49:14)
So so it's
I don't know, like I I really see this work in in some of that framework and and also Aiden's larger practice, which has really been about like gathering the the elements of of digital making, whether they're like pixel forms that are raining down from the sky or or texture maps or or bits of code. I think like Aiden has this like really amazing way of of of bringing together otherwise discarded aspects of of digital production and then and then making them sing something new.
So this yeah, this texture town is is just so funny. And and I think that the meanderware format that that Natalie Lawhead maybe has pioneered is is a good framework for thinking about like I don't know how to move through this like insane space. You described it I think really beautifully, Jamin, as preservation practice as collage rather than restoration. Which I I think is like so great.
Jamin (50:00)
Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Danny Snelson (50:01)
Like in and in some ways, like like yeah, you could preserve Club Penguin, but like I wouldn't be nearly as interested in that as I am in this. I think that there's like
Jamin (50:10)
Yeah.
Danny Snelson (50:10)
aspects of like defamatorizing and and the looping and amalgamating all of those different elements that that yeah again makes things strange. I mean this is a game this game is fueled on gasoline, I think Jamin.
Jamin (50:23)
Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. No, I mean it's a good and when we talk about games being difficult. I mean, this definitely fits as like, this is difficult, but maybe in like a in a in a in a different sort of way. I mean, the other thing is interesting about these types of games is like, you know, MMOs occupy this like very unique space in that, you know, from from a preservation standpoint, it's very difficult to preserve the social and like what makes these games work is the interactions between the individual players. And then you have this like detritus.
And trying to figure out like what to do with it because you can't recreate that moment in time. I mean, it is like they are performances in that in that way. I remember, you know, when I was working with Pal Antonelli and their team on Eve Online taking that into the Museum of Modern Art as part of the permanent collection, that was a huge presentational interpretive challenge for the museum, which was like, okay, you have this game that has like hundreds of thousands of users. How do we sort of
display it, right? It's not like these other types of games that we're attempting to display. So what can we display? And so they settled on like a visualization of the interactions that CCP developed with a bunch of the players. And that felt like you know sort of a faithful recreation of what happens in this particular world. There is another way to do it, which is kind of like what Aiden's doing is like, you just take the material and then you reconstitute it in some new way. And that is also you know, is not
It does not necessarily like preserve it's not it's not doesn't preserve it in the same way, but it does it's like an appreciation for it, I suppose. Like you create an appreciation for it. But it is it does have that unplayable nature, the look and feel
Danny Snelson (51:53)
Speaker.
Jamin (51:53)
of the thing that is unplayable, right? Like and I think I think there's something kind of like neat about neat about that for neat about that for for Aiden. All right. Yeah. Cool.
Danny Snelson (52:01)
Yeah. Yeah. I
I've way more I can say, but I I don't I won't take us over time on this.
Jamin (52:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Well, that is that is it for this week. I hope you like the new format. Yeah, we'll try and structure things going forward in this way. If you are interested anywhere, can they find more of of your work? Keep up with your your musings on the internet.
Danny Snelson (52:24)
I'm online. My name is Easy2Google. but I also just launched a new website called thelittledatabase.com that extends out from my book, and I think it's it's got playful meandering kind of design format. so I imagine listeners might might find something interesting there. It gathers together a bunch of little collections of weird things that live on the internet.
Jamin (52:45)
Yeah. if you enjoy listening to this, please share it with your friends. Kill Screen is active in many different ways. You can follow us on on social. You can obviously like check out our podcast page. Killscreen.com has, you know, more updated things. And the newsletter is kind of like the centerpiece where it's a mix of things from the archive, a mix of news roundups that like games that you should know. as well as every Friday, we do a a bit I do a playlist write-up of out, you know, one game each week that I would recommend. I know finding
There's so many games out there and the challenge is not like finding games. It's like knowing like what to play. And so there's
Danny Snelson (53:20)
Okay.
Jamin (53:21)
something kind of nice about like a, you know, a canon is is kind of nice, is reflective of you certainly like my my point of view. Danny, thank you so much. I really appreciate you
Danny Snelson (53:29)
Thank you so much.
Jamin (53:30)
you making making time and yeah, I hope to see everybody very, very soon.
Danny Snelson (53:35)
All right.
Jamin (53:36)
Bye bye.