359P

a few people who read "on michael's roguelike pond, and on gameplay (forever)" recently expressed a kind of dissatisfaction with the way it ended -- in my mind, this was born from a disconnect between the writing and the conclusion, and i was already sure that the next step was to create a working study in repetition.

but, i think that the above-linked post has no good conclusion because it circles the great, deep well of kill gameplay, that taught me and stands for what i already know: it is trivial to do something forever.

i iterated upon 359P for a number of hours, with the idea of 'repetition' in mind. how to create a game that provokes, captures, and speaks to the indomitable spirit of repetition? (i poorly cite Peter McDonald's oblique repetition in the above post - this is not an exercise in his oblique repetition, but sheer repetition and variation.) i thought, what if i want to play this game forever? isn't that interesting?

i think it is not very interesting after all. it leads to places that i don't like and am not interested in. however, it leads to places that, themselves, go on and on forever...

i had added a number of different mechanisms to this study. what if there was a level counter? what if there was a score counter that went up predictably or unpredictably? what if there were little coins that appeared to draw the player off the path and encourage exploration? what if there was a timer that encouraged searching for quicker routes? in the end, i stripped all that away, and i kept the beautiful playground that you see above.

like gameplay (forever), i could certainly play this for hours, repeating, but - ironically or appropriately - it was the removal of all such capturing of that form of play that released me from it. the final transmutation of my study in repetition was to make it a straightforward single level.

i hope that someone after me comes to enjoy its many routes.