this is not a story of escape

This month I made something filled with all my despair about the future present, together with the strange wonder of watching the plants in my garden and greenhouse scrambling over each other, flowering and fruiting. To be honest I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to spend part of the month listing all my fears and sourcing images of all the worst people on the planet for it, but, well, here we are.

There is more than enough despair going round at the moment and you definitely don’t need me adding to it, so feel free to skip this one. If you do decide to play it, I will say that it’s very short, oblique, and there are flashing images.

Download this is not a story of escape

Controls: escape: quit; mouse: interact

The Rules:

• The file at this link will be deleted 1 month from now (6/8/22).
• All downloads are zipfiles containing a Windows executable.
• All source code and assets are included, licensed under the GPL (code) and CC_BYSA (assets).
• As long as you abide by those licenses, you can do whatever you want with the download.

Further Reading

Sarah Jaffe writing on grief following the Roe vs. Wade ruling.

Ana Mardoll with a twitter thread on incorporating malicious compliance into fiction, for no particular reason.

A wonderful paper by Anne Cutler on the perception of rhythm in language (maybe read it once normally, then read it aloud).

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) by Muriel Rukeyser.

sarah mccarry writing about boat safety school, despair, and dancing.

I finally played Sayonara Wild Hearts this month. It is very good. And absurdly polished; I can’t imagine how much money and time they must have spent making it. I do wish it wasn’t a high score/rhythm game though. I feel it would be far more interesting to keep that structure, but link it to more forgiving player mechanics. It only happens in a few places, but interrupting the music because the player missed a QTE just feels terrible in a game like this.

For me a cardinal rule with this kind of game is that you never interrupt the music, no matter what the player does.

“She cares for horses. She does not care for Brits.” Huw Lemmey writing on the Queen’s Jubilee.

That’s it from me this month. I hope you’re keeping well despite everything, and managing to find joy and solidarity amidst it all.