A gentle nudge on Society’s arse cheek

I just need to write, really.

An exercise in creative outpouring. No reason other than expressing myself in words strung together to be reinterpreted by other folk at other junctions in their life and the world. Hopefully the people that see the words can comprehend them and they can see that there is further meaning behind the words. And by that I kind of mean the concept that two words together mean more than just two words on their own, on a simple language comprehension and a philosophical level.

e.g. Project Zomboid

Project: An undertaking to achieve an overarching goal.

Zomboid: A creature with a zombie-like appearance, or characteristics.

Project Zomboid: An undertaking to educate and enlighten a new generation of slackers to the beauty and complexity possible in computer gaming whilst attempting to incrementally improve society

See? It’s so much more than just the two words together, and I don’t just mean purely by the word count of the definitions as given by The Dictionary of Paul.

Beauty? Society? That’s a bit much, isn’t it?

Probably, but they do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I never really understood that phrase, I mean I thought death, confusion and sleeping rays were in the eye of the beholder, but then it’s been a while since I played any table top RPG, so who am I to judge.

But beauty – as in carefully crafted pieces of art that interlock together to form a coherent world. Suburbia rendered in 2.5 dimensions, with perfect palettes taking us to xcom-tacular isometric heaven. Pixel-jockeying of the highest calibre hitting the audience smack bang between the eyes and telling them to live and breathe in a brave new world. Because a computer game does not need to behave according to the rules of the real world in order to convince the brain that what it’s seeing is real – it just needs to behave coherently within the rules that the game sets itself. And with the experienced and talented artists at hand, it does just that.

And society, because the developers do not do what they are doing because it is a guaranteed cash cow promising them Benjamin Franklin’s rich nourishing milk – far from it. The developers do it because they have an urge to create this fictional dystopia, and they want to do it amongst friends.

And they don’t want to mislead us, or lie to us as ‘consumers’, even when they don’t like us – as any student of absolute morality will tell you – the customer is not always right. They are baffled by those of us with financial exchange / entitlement issues and if one carries out the most cursory of research before investing in the Project (which is highly recommended for any such activity, by the way) it is clear that Indie Stone work for Indie Stone. That is the reason Indie Stone exists.

So by swearing at us in the company of friends, and delivering a constant stream of hard work and honesty founded on experience and brilliance, they act as role models for us all.

In fact, I’m sure I can see Society’s cheeks glow with a subtle arousal as she is patted ever so slightly back to the right course.

But can the behaviour of these 5 games developers from the UK and Canada single-handledly re-mould the ever so slightly sick western political system to one where honesty and personal values rule?

Unlikely, but for those of us following the development closely we’ll be hoping upon hope – that lemmy101 will remember to keep swearing on his twitter feed.

www.projectzomboid.com

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1 Response to A gentle nudge on Society’s arse cheek

  1. james wright says:

    Despite having an administrators account on this, i may leave it all to you. You appear to have it all mastered, and since you are far more articulate than me it may make perfect sense!

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