I was not the type of kid to obsess over a particular hobby, let alone eccentric. Or at least that's what I thought. Looking back, it is now crystal clear that I did obsess over systems. Stress-testing the design of systems through play. The computer did end up as my way to experience life through the lens of the artist. However, as a kid, I didn't really bother myself with the tedium of programming. In fact, the first few times I sat down to try and write a program I was bored to death, and quit soon after. Computer games, on the other hand, now that was my jam. I didn't care about how games were made, but I loved playing games. Playing games sure was very very fun. Not the most fun, though! The most fun was not playing the game, but thinking about the game.
My father's brother was a mathematician turned computer scientist. He had a repair shop next to our house. The best thing I got out of all this was the piles of floppy disks, then CDs of pirated games that somewhat randomly ended up on my hands. Opening up a zippered CD wallet and looking at the CloneCD logo are precious memories still. Disney's Hercules Action Game, Bud Redhead: The Time Chase, Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters, Asterix and Obelix XXL. These are some of the games that come to mind. I played them a lot. They were nice. But the games that really got me going were much, much worse in comparison. When I was a little kid, buying the nestle cereal boxes would sometimes net you a sweet game CD. One of these CDs came with the Pet Soccer (2002) game. Game was fun: you could play with the "Frogen Leverkusen" frogs, the "Shalke Sharks", or the "Bearchester United" bears. 3-year-old me was ecstatic when he figured out that, when playing with the "FC Turtelona" team, he could set up a cheese just right so that there was a very long unblockable shot straight to the opponents nets. 4-year-old me was incredibly frustrated when he got his hands on a strategy game that was supposedly based on the Greek Revolution of 1821. Why? Because he already knew the historical account: which fights occured where, the size of the armies and the outcome of each battle. Imagine his anger when he established that being historically accurate was a losing strategy with no chance of winning! And then he grew up and he played all the multiplayer games. I loved laying with my back flat on the pebblestones, sun on my face, strategizing about ways to counter the current meta and bring about the new one. AP Master Yi was so delightful to come up with!
Sure, playing games being more fun that, say, coding them, isn't very interesting on its own. In retrospect, my relationship with games, how I deeply cared about inventing rules to construct a system that is both fair but also allows for great expression highlights how I experience and navigate life. I was never into bending the machine, having it do something specific under my command. Nor did I ever care about trying to understand how it works by tearing it apart. I didn't really care about how it worked. I was all about playing with it to bring it to its limits and see what sort of ideas it will present me with. This idea of designing and playing games as a means to understand the world I find is well expressed in Jonathan Blow - Truth in Game Design. "The universe has an unlimited supply of generosity and surprise, and we as designers only need to keep our eyes open to what is here." In short: cultivate a set of few, simple rules that interact to give rise to great, savory, nuanced complexity. Then immerse yourself in this vast, rich world and go foraging for those little gems that deepen your understanding about the world you live in. Design systems that are a good solution to the expression problem. Artists and craftsmen usually feel as though they are the conduits, through which the universe communicates its truths. They do not create: the art doesn't originate from within. Rather, they open themselves so that the pre-existing surrounding art flows through them and, is thus, materialized.
My parents only allowed me to play about an hour of computer games a day. However, they made sure other forms of play were encouraged. And play I did. Besides school, I did nothing but play. From hide and seek to soccer, from playmobil and lego to creating our own magic systems, to faithfully recreating game worlds in real life. Just a ball was all I needed. My creativity would never run dry as I invented game upon game upon game, playing each and iterating on the design. I adored game worlds. I took great joy in world building or role playing. But I did all these from the place of the designer. My main motivation was designing and exploring systems. I did the rest only to be faithful to the design, respecting the underlying truths. Understanding that you only get out of it as much as you give.
team sports to understand myself and people through play My first (uni)