Re-reading the original gaming rationale I put together, I realized it's very geared to my particular perspective as like, someone who has been very "game-curious" but also not committed enough to actually play things. I think it's a fun enough perspective to have but maybe I'm centering around that too much. Sure I'd like to play games obviously, that's part of the point, but what exactly am I looking for in terms of games having something to offer that I can't find somewhere else? If I'm going to play into this sort of victorian-orphan-eats-hot-chip type perspective I should be more conscious about what stands out to me even if it's something that might have been said thousands of times before by more invested individuals.

I've become kind of obsessed with trying to reorient experiencing art as thinking about process primarily and not as product. I think games, despite my impression being that traditionally they're being viewed and marketed as product primarily (s/o Roger Ebert), are really fun to think about as these kinds of living artifacts. Not just as a thing that's relationship to other things changes over time (like how The Matrix becomes a lot of different things to a lot of different people), but as something that grew and changed through the development process. I'm basically saying that games are almost uniquely interesting to think about as like the result of a game development process than an out of box toy to play with; honestly this seems kind of stupidly obvious. But, in my experience, people I talk with don't necessarily feel the same.

I love Umineko, but whenever I get caught up on the rate at which it was being released and how the trajectory of the series changed in response to like Ryukishi07's life circumstances and ideas people don't seem quite as interested, when to me that's like exactly what makes the game feel so exciting and volatile. Games like Final Fantasy 7 or Sonic Adventure still feel so fun to engage with, because you can really get the sense of the wheel being invented; if you close your eyes it's so easy to imagine the developer team in their office discussing "how can we make this 3d shit even work/what is possible".

I do think in terms of some that is "structurally sound" or "good practice" day dreaming fanfictions of video game developers is not exactly that; it might not be good criticism but there's a lot there that interests me. Both Twilight Princess and Perfect Tides: Station to Station very much felt like games that kind of grow over play time and I think doing the weekly check ins allows me to really keep track of those interesting moments of change in tone or spirit or whatever.

So, I think I'm going to resume weekly (hopefully) Friday uploads of game diary writing. I'm only a few hours into Grasshopper Manufacture's The Silver Case, so I will do a check in next Friday of that. ummmmm yeah. Games as process/Gaming as process. luv u.
Updates can be found on my awesome gaming blog