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i made this. you play this. we are enemies
Fresh on the heels of our discussing game, game, game and again game, Jason Nelson has released another work in a similar style. i made this. you play this. we are enemies appears to have some similar things going on, but I'm intrigued by the sense in which we as players/readers/critics/students are the game designer's "enemies." The comment in direction number 4, "stop trying to 'get it'" seems particularly targeted toward or relevant to our discussion of the game, especially since I made sure to set the game up by asking you to try and "get it" instead of "just" playing it.
So what do you think we should do with this? On the one hand, its energy seems somewhat more focused on playing with / mashing up specific online spaces, but I don't want to be a "shark with bees for hair" for saying so. Do you?
on to something....
the comment....stop trying to "get it" is perhaps a misfire.....more in the linguistics/semantics of the
phrase....
in every section.....of the game....all elements are intentional, each level is a stanza....and each graphic/sound/motion/text an important part of the lines that make up that stanza....(with the all game levels creating the poem)
yes the writing (as in all multimedia elements are texts and thus writing) is non-linear....and "LANGUAGE" poetry-ee...which makes it a bit baffling to the large public audience I open my work to....
and hence the comment....to encourage those who read entertainment weekly (they reviewed this game today by the way) to just experience the game and not worry about making it a puzzle....
but then it is a puzzle....
so "get it" is all wrong......I'll change that tomorrow....
but what else should I say? hmmmmmmmm.....
cheers, Jason Nelson
but then it is a puzzle....
Semantically/etymology, "apprehension" encapsulates this difficulty as well, perhaps? In the sense that one "apprehends" a work and takes it for one's own, it kind of ceases to be the expressive property of the author/artist. "i made this" is, I take it, in at least one respect a response to the responses to "game, game, game." But that sense in which I "take it" puts us at odds, maybe.
That's a lot of waffling to say, basically, the work can be gotten or not, and there's always already a conflict between author and audience. Games like yours are especially good at exposing the mechanics of that antagonism in a (possibly) meaningful way, and as such I'm honored to be enemies.
Another way to put it, as a student on another blog did, "I would love to be a shark with bees for hair."