A new genre of game

May Day May 1, 2016 12:00

The day of new beginnings.

“When was the last time you crossed into the Unknown?

 A new you awaits on the other side. When we go forth despite the persistent urges of safety and comfort, ways and means open up to us, ones we couldn’t see prior to striking out. Support appears. Guidance comes. And eventually we arrive home to our new self.”                                                                                                      Angi Sullins

“The MANY WAYS in the WIND

and MANY MAYS in the MIND”

                                                                                                                        Admcadiam

GameWhys games are designed to offer you paths to a new self…through discussion and contemplation.

 


Transmutation through empowerment and inspiration - The Kybalion March 27, 2016 13:30

““Transmutation” is a term usually employed to designate the ancient art of the transmutation of metals – particularly of the base metals into gold. The word “Transmute means“ to change from one nature, form, or substance into another; to transform (Webster). And accordingly, “ Mental Transmutation” means the art of changing and transforming mental states, forms, and conditions, into others”. The Kybalion by three initiates 1940.

            Gamwhys games are designed to offer you the opportunity to take the “higher path” in your responses to the scenarios of your life that the games portray. And by so doing generate a warmth of emotional empowerment, possibly powerful enough, to inspire you to transmute your responses in your “real life” into ones akin to those that created the Happiness you felt while playing.


Leap Day February 29, 2016 12:57

The phrases “killing time” and even “passing time” have always seemed anathema to me, because, as I see it, time is the only real commodity we have to spend, and once we have done so, we can never use it for something again.

As an artist using game as my medium to contribute to the quality of life in this world, I view using a game to kill and pass time as not only an insult to the game, (unless it was designed for that – and for that I have absolutely no time) but also to both the awareness of the player and to time itself.

On such a day as this – Leap Day – a day that does not really exist except to combine quarters of days from the past four years that defied our calendar – consider pondering for a moment, or even a day, honoring and cherishing the time you spend and the life you have.

A day lazed

A day grazed

A day gone away

Amazed

I’d say

Adcadiam 1971

GameWhys games are designed to expand your awareness of your life and time here instead of merely helping you to pass it in distraction - or just killing it.

 


An American Dream February 2, 2016 12:39

As appropriate now, at the start of the 2016 US election, as when written from an Englishman’s point of view in 1930.

“Man seems to be entering one of the major crises of his career. His whole future, nay the possibility of his having any future at all, depends on the turn which events may take in the next half-century. It is a commonplace that he is coming into possession of new and dangerous instruments for controlling his environment and his own nature. Perhaps it is less obvious that he is also groping toward a new view of his office in the scheme of things, and toward a new and racial purpose.  Unfortunately, he may possibly take too long to learn what it is that he really wants to do with himself. Before he can gain clear insight, he may lose himself in a vast desert of spiritual aridity, or even blunder into physical self-destruction. Nothing can save him but a new vision, and a consequent new order of sanity, or common sense. America may play an important part in creating the new vision. But visions, if they are to be permanently helpful, must embody the whole breadth and depth of experience. They must not be crude, extravagant, lopsided. They must be conceived not only with originality but with sanity, even if sanity has to take up a new orientation in consequence of the new vision. In the early chapters of this book American is given a not very attractive part. I have imagined the triumph of the cruder sort of Americanism over all that is best and most promising in American culture. May this not occur in the real world! But since the possibility of such an issue is admitted even by many Americans themselves, I shall, I hope be forgiven for emphasizing it, and using it as an early turning point in the long drama of Man.”

Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future” Olaf Stapleton 1930.

 “Last and First Men: A Story of the Near and Far Future is a "future history" science fiction novel written in 1930 by the British author Olaf Stapledon. A work of unprecedented scale in the genre…  Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gamewhys - exploring game in an unprecedented scale in the genre...

 


Ziggy Stardust January 11, 2016 12:47

Ziggy to Stardust

 

A being passed through blue and green

Real eyes sing

 

Touched us through blue and green

Real eyes sing

 

Awakening us to the colors of

Real eyes sing

 

And then

Left us

 

Blackstar


Israel Palestine Peace Talks December 21, 2015 17:34

Peace Talks

Having an idea for a game about something of major importance to humanity such as the continual cycle of violence in the Middle East is daunting to say the least. My new game “mOre” has proved to be the most difficult game I have ever attempted. On the one hand I wanted it to offer players the opportunity to experience the feelings of the people living the conflict for real, coupled on the other hand with a compelling reward for interacting in a manner that would eliminate imposing pain, suffering, and loss in the pursuit of the security of a home. After just a few short months I had a game that worked well but it was so true to life it was absolutely no “fun” at all, and a game has to be fun doesn’t it, even in terms of my definition of the word.

For the next half year I struggled to find a reward powerful enough to motivate players to switch from taking from each other in order to expand, to combining with each other to expand even further. The "go to" method for centuries of taking turns to brutalize one another to get what they wanted has long been accepted as the way, not by the neighboring tribes contesting the territory in their small strip pf the earth, but by the rest of the world looking on from the outside.

How could I beat that? Who was I to presume there could be another way for the players of my game to find a lasting security that would transcend fighting for good.

Then on an eleven-hour plane ride from Paris to San Francisco, after I finished reading Paulo Coelho’s Pilgrimage, and just letting my mind muse on the story’s conclusion, I got my answer. In the story the hero, who is journeying in search for his metaphysical sword, realizes he will never find it until he knows what he is going to use it for: the sword is just a means to an end. The focus in the story switched in just the way I had to switch focus in the game and I realized the answer had been staring at me all the time.

In the game I realized that I could employ the one thing both players' tribe members shared – their souls; the foundations of their beings operating at a level deeper than their manipulated surface tribal identities causing their perpetual grief, as the bridge to develop peace between them.

If the players could notice how the souls of displaced refugees, regardless of tribe, automatically connected in a bigger picture, they would see perhaps an alternative route to a safer and longer lasting security – than the only option at the beginning of the game. In this respect the game actually shows you a more fulfilling way to win – Peace Talks if you are willing to listen and try.

 


Games of my genre December 13, 2015 15:31

Interactive Portraits of Life

Some years ago when I was demonstrating my new game Paradice at the GAMA Game Convention in Las Vegas, I was approached by two ladies from Mensa. They had been part of the Mensa team that had reviewed new games for the Mensa awards that year to which I had submitted my game Paradice. They had voted Paradice “game of the year”, and although many of the Mensa judges didn’t like it because of its environmental message, they said many agreed that it was a new sort of game - a phenomenon that is a very rare occurrence in the game industry. It was the novelty of my approach to game design that had prompted them to seek me out in Las Vegas. They wanted to know how I had developed Paradice’s unique and compelling structure without overtly referring to past games.

I simply replied that I am an artist whose interest in portraying the appearance of things had expanded to not only exploring the situations that lead to appearances of things and situations , but also to offering an entertaining frameworks for others to do the same. As a result my art has become more and more interactive, my subject matter had become the serious stuff of life, and over a period of years the card game and board replaced canvas as my medium.

However, not piggy backing on a well-known game format sets a game apart not only in a good way but also in a bad way. Its very nice to get respect for one’s novel approach, but the down side is that most people have little or no interest or time to learn a new way of interacting in a game. Many glaze over when presented with a rule sheet, or try to hack their way into a game as they would a video game.

In response to this, I limit the illustrated rules of a game to one and a half sheets of 8.5” X 11” paper at most, which they share with the story from life which the game invites you to explore and experience. Furthermore, I will be posting animations of the rules sheet diagrams currently accompanying each game, with a voice over both explaining the rule/move and the its metaphorical meaning in the game. I would like to think that watching a game and it's story unfold together will teach and inspire you at the same time.

I call my games “Interactive Portraits of life” and present them as "Consumer Products for the Soul".

 

 

 

 


Mission April 11, 2015 15:14

Art and philosophy combine to create entertaining arenas for you to explore values and relationships with self,
partner, family, community, humanity, and the environment, in competition and cooperation to a goal beneficial to all.
Emotional refreshment for adults • Life inspirations for children • Fun to play and contemplate