This essay is an accessible version of an in-browser game available here.
I don’t like players.
Or, to be less misanthropic, I don’t care for players.
They do their thing, and I do mine. I make my games like I built sandcastles as a child.
Can you come play in my sandcastle?
Maybe, sure, once it’s done.
Once I’ve drawn the line in the sand that means “the part where this gets made is over and the part where it falls away into oblivion has started”.
Sometimes of course, I am a player.
I try to play appropriate respect to the people who make the games I play, which is maybe to compliment them on their artistry if there’s an appropriate venue to do so… probably not on twitter… and remain silent the other 99% of the time.
Nothing more perverse than taking someone’s art and offering them unsolicited technical advice.
Lots of people in games have a community; I wish them all the best.
But I have a community, and it is not in games.
To have a community in games I’d have to compromise my participation in communities elsewhere and I’m not willing to do that.
Like most people, I think, I’m already anxious enough that I’m failing to meet my existing social commitments.
I’m not willing to take on the burden of more friends.
Sorry.
I could get a job making games. But I won’t. No apologies there.
Without players, and without a community, and without a commercial interest and promotion and professional marketing and all that guff…
There aren’t many venues through which people to play the games I make.
I can expect a polite level of interest from my friends, like when they talk to me about climbing or rowing or filmmaking or cooking or running.
They might have a look, as a curiosity. Or they might not. Their interest is not my interest.
For the most part, this does not bother me.
I like the part where I build the sandcastle, and if I depended on other people’s validation of my art (at least in this instance) then I might act differently.
But I don’t, and I won’t.
It just seems so odd, to make a game that is not to be played.
So much so that I’ve taken some time out and made games that can be played, just to make sure I could.
But I feel just as unfulfilled in either instance.
Giving those games to people, to play them, is nerve-wracking.
When I’m at home alone, just me, I dance.
I put some music on, whatever I’m feeling like, and I just slam around.
Back and forth, up and down, in different rooms.
Or I put on some movies I don’t think anyone else would be interested in, and watch three in a row.
Or I sing, and record myself singing, then delete the recording.
These activities have never felt less than complete.
Which I not to say that I don’t appreciate participatory art; I’ve made videos, I’ve directed a play, I’ve done things which are collaborative. They’re fun.
But I make my games for me, even as they pull away from me.
They demand of me that I learn the skill of marketing and networking and twitter, and they press me against this horrible flat surface where I read about… how the steam storefront is changing and what that means for wishlisting… or else how there are game jams happening this weekend.
They even have game jams for people who make games alone.
But I don’t want any of that. I like to make my games, by myself.
Even now, I’m writing an essay so I can release an essay, in the exact space where I make my game and do not release my game.
It’s just how it is with me.
Can I make games alone if I don’t like players?
I guess, I can.