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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 3d

At #GamesForChange Asia Pacific today. If you're attending and want to talk about interactive impacts, please grab me.

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Reposted by Sidney Icarus

Mary Kenney @marykgames.com · 12d

Even setting aside ethics (but, yknow, THAT) - I just don’t want AI bullshit. I don’t want an AI pop star, movie, book, video game.

Art is a conversation. Why would I stare at a dictionary run through the washing machine when I could read a poem lovingly constructed by someone’s hands?

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Reposted by Sidney Icarus

Fortis Games @fortisgames.com · 15d

It’s been hard to be silent while we’ve been building our first game but now we finally have some content to share!

Introducing Twilight Towers, a shiny new website, and some words from our COO about what’s to come: play.fortis.games/tltandbeyond

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 15d

Oof. I fly out today. If you'd asked a week ago I could've been right there for you. Sorry! If the in-person need lifts, I'm happy to chat when I land.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 23d

My latest co-authored article is now available in Global Environmental Change.

Giving challenges a playful context creates meaning, meaning creates agency, and agentic interaction generates multi-lateral knowledge exchange.

Games are good, actually.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Participatory storyworld building for unlocking climate adaptation

Worldwide, local communities are experiencing increasing climate change impacts, for which they are underprepared, and which are predicted to further …

www.sciencedirect.com

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 26d

Oooh I didn't know you ran nets. I would've tried to catch you for a game at one of the cons. It's one of my favourite games to talk over.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Deep in the wank mines.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Or if you meant to apply the standard of TTRPGs rules against those other media, like, you might not be wrong, but it think it throws a lot of bathwater out. It feels like you have to reject a lot of constructive design as "not rules" to ignore their contribution to player/character goal/sucess.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

If you meant to meet each medium on it's own terms with the kinds of rules they use to construct particular experiences (whether material or otherwise), then I'd argue the lion's share of digital dev is "how do we make this easier on the player" (UX/UI, spatial design, through to systems).

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

If you say "If these are rules, then they are a fundamentally different kind of rule than the rules that shape analog games." and when you acknowledge that video game development involves both material construction and social and formal construction, then which kind of rules did you mea earlier?

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Unhelpful additional thoughts: In Hollow Knight and Silksong, nearby bugs will sing aloud, often letting you hear them before you could see them, making it easier to search, and helping you not to miss key NPCs.

NPC bugs = sing. Sound falls off with range, helping triangulate. Are both rules?

Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Which I think is how we often discuss rules! The Suitsian approach is that rules are constraints that stop you from performing acts. But, like, why then is Dark Souls' respawn system a rule, but I-frames on a roll (which is supportive) isn't?

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

If I were to agree with your OP here, that it's "common concept" that "rules mainly function to hinder player goals", it would require us to group the game's functions into "rules" and "features", where rules are everything that constrain you, and features are everything that enable you.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

I think a lot about directional/orientation helpers: Yellow paint, weenies, blue arrows on the road leading to your marked objective, light falling across the critical path at crossroads... All of these are rule structures built with the explicit intent of helping players achieve their goals.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Things in TTRPGs (especially those that fall into the "physics simulation" bucket, yknow, "functional rules" for carry weight or holding breath) tend to be explicitly "rules". But is the lighting in Silksong a rule?

Why is Physics sim in one medium a rule, and in another not a rule?

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

Coyote Time, pity timers, hit flash, even just the way the camera slightly leads your character and returns to centre when you stop moving. These are all rules built to help you achieve the goal of play (either by enforcing desired dynamics or by encouraging emotional resonance).

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · 29d

I think I disagree, but it depends on what you mean by "rules". In TTRPGs, everything in the book is just "the rules". In digital games, countless things are supporting the goal of play, and that violates this premise unless you exclude them definitionally as "not rules".

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Sep 2

Posting Through It is a Futures game of playful identity!

Can the players shape the social media landscape and craft the most beneficial future? Can they change the world while maintaining brand communication guidelines? Play to find out!
randylubin.itch.io/posting-thro...

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Sep 2

Players take on the role of organizations and high-profile individuals who are trying to influence the world by posting on the top social media platform “%ercent”. Players shape the fiction and bend the world toward their preferred futures.

randylubin.itch.io/posting-thro...

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Sep 2

New free game alert!

"Posting Through It"
A playful futures game that explores how social media has redefined what it means to “win” and “lose” in uncertainty.

I co-designed Posting Through It with @randylubin.com, so grab it over at his Itch page:

randylubin.itch.io/posting-thro...

Posting Through It by Randy Lubin, Sidney Icarus

Explore the consequences of a major disruption by playing organizations and influencers posting on social media

randylubin.itch.io

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Aug 16

A consistent body of work will ensure you always have an audience, though.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Aug 16

I think there's a version of this game where we explored everything and built the cohesive picture of the whole adventure, and I'm not sure it's a better experience by default.

I like that I could feasibly replay this, and the GM could feed it through different content paths.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Aug 14

When I say "this doesn't feel like a Small World ride through Judaism", at lot of that is adventure quality (high quality, to be sure), and a lot of it is you embodying and adding so much of your lived experience into these NPCs. It felt real because it drew on the real. I appreciate that immensely!

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Aug 14

Watching you run it must be what it feels like watching me run Night Witches as an ex-air combat nerd (who wasn't out but was visibly "queer"). Like watching water flow over rocks. Effortless and rhythmic, but also authentic and "natural". From the self.

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Sidney Icarus @sidneyicarus.bsky.social · Aug 14

But...I didn't come here to see Beyond the Pale alone. I came to hang with my friend, Cairn. I came with Cairn because I wanted Cairn to have some opinions and shout their favourite lines with me. I wanted Cairn to laugh and cheer when Beyond the Pale shouted out our hometown's name. It's a shame.

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