The Living Library

An organization called the Sacred Science Institute is in the process of compiling an archive that will function as the basis of the Glass Bead Game's Archives, as faithful to the book as possible.

linkipoo

The shockingly poor design is not testament to the amount of insight the site provides.

proposal inspiration

I failed to blog this while it was important, but this essay was a big influence on my rational behind my first proposal for the project: linkipoo

This essay argues that the glass bead game could become a genre of games, a game designers "Holy Grail," rather than a single, unwavering game. I've deviated from this as the main focus of my project, but the thought has remained.

On Project not being New Media

Conceptually, the game is the opposite of New Media. It values reflection and order, or one might say stagnation and hierarchies. The glass bead game players in the book are of an all-male elite class, taken from the outside world to be brought up in pure isolation. The elite class is also forbidden to produce anything of their own--to be creative, in any way, is taboo.

These aspects, which define their elite society and hold it together, are just the opposite of what we talk about in the New Media major. Here we talk about disseminating hierarchies and making everyone a producer, encouraging everyone to be as self-assertive and creative as they possibly can. I think both ideals are important and valuable, I think it is important not to become too bent on any one way of thinking.

For my project to be successful, I need to be able to bring this idea across.

marketing this project

I think that this project is a very personal one, and that its commercial value, or value to anyone outside of me, will remain elusive unless I market it falsely: here's that strategy:

Think Hello Kitty, or any of that cutesy anime style stuff. In-your-face cute. Completely the opposite of the mood of the real project, which will probably just put people off.

I'm thinking of making posters in this style and putting them in the UMaine arcade room. I'll also make a website, of course, which will front the game in the same way, but go into greater depth, revealing the joke slowly.

meditation progress

I've done terribly. I stopped keeping up with the meditation regimen for a few months in the middle there somewhere, but I've been getting back into it. Yesterday I had an interesting session, I came to several realizations; That I live blindly and it's my own refusal to see that causes this, that I just put too much starch in the sauce and that was why it was not thickening properly, and that I'm developing a neurosis over this very project.

The neurosis is an inability to talk for extended periods of time, and it's becoming easier and easier to set me off. What happens is I get very shaky, as if I'm freezing, or like I'm incredibly nervous, and it becomes impossible to continue talking. It started with these project presentations, as I was very nervous for them, which was only compounded by the difficulty of the topic, and has progressed to anything where I need to simply talk. For example, I experienced the same sensation while on the phone with my mother talking about absolutely nothing.

Oh, in reference to my last blog, I guess the term would be "vertex" or "where the vertices meet"

game variation: what number am I on now?

yeah so I've been working on da glass bead game and yo, like I've been workin' on a like board game version an' shit, check it out.

Ehm, this version actually incorporates the actual glass beads, which is nice. What's not so nice is I've only figured the beads in, the pattern manipulation bit is yet to be incorporated into this version.

Anyway, what I have so far is this:
You move your bead around a pattern, rolling a dice to see how many spaces you can move. I say "spaces," but that is incorrect, you only move onto where the tiles intersect. But that's the wrong word too...I guess the English language doesn't have a word for it, but it's the point at which all of the tiles touch, their combined angles, in degrees, reaching 360. Is there a word for that, I'm sure there is in geometry. Maybe my next blog will be about that word. I got 13 more of these babies to pop out so nothing's too insignificant at this point.

The good thing about this version, especially if I can find a good way to incorporate pattern associations in a meaningful way, is that it has the idea of a game "form" incorporated from the get-go. The first version of this game was also boring. BOORRRINNGGG. Speaking of which, did I mention I need to write 13 more of these, and since my attitude is so off the mark I'll probably get little or no credit for them.

I bet no one even reads this. You there, you aren't reading this at all are you?

Logo! everyone loves a logo

Here's a logo, I'm sure there will be plenty more (to blog about) where this came from.



and in inverted colors:

First Game

Thankfully, I got the game pieces today, so I have some insight into my game before I have to present it tomorrow.

It feels a bit incomplete, the pace is sluggish, and I got bored after a while. Here's a picture of the first outcome:

rule variations

One idea I'm toying with is the possibility of changing certain rules of the game, while the game is being played. The idea is that as soon as a player reaches a certain condition, he/she may change or add or subtract a rule (whatever condition they've met may determine what rule they can change). Rule changes, if good, may be added to a directory of possible rule changes. Good rule changes should significantly alter the course of the game (pattern). These rules may become the basis of a sort of grammar used for the symbolic language; they may switch the “topic” of a game, or somehow alter the meaning of the same topic.

starting the symbolic language

If the I Ching can be used as a model (see I Ching blog), the bead game may have a solid starting point. In this case, the shapes used in the bead game are analogous to the yarrow sticks used in the I Ching, except there are three basic shapes in the bead game instead of the two yarrow sticks. This will create a base set of 27 elements, to the 8 elements possible with the yarrow sticks (3 to the power of 3 versus 2 to the power of 3). In the case of the bead game, these elements may be used to set a topic, such as “language” or “mathematics” or “art” which will determine the meaning of other things being played in the game (The single shapes themselves may represent more basic ideas, and other types of combinations may spring into existence as well, but this should be discussed later.) For example: it’s a possibility to have the first set of 3 shapes (that make a symbol representing a topic) become the base, giving meaning to the shapes surrounding it somehow. The surrounding pieces themselves may not have any meaning until they have achieved a certain form that has meaning. This makes for a sort of tiered effect, the most basic meanings being on the lowest tier, and the more specific meanings emerging later on. This creates new possibilities with the game; for example: a new end-game condition might be to simply arrive at a specific concept, i.e. music. Following this train of thought, it is logical to extend the scope of this language and create more specific end-game conditions. Music might then extend to “Bach” or even “Fugue No. 21: B-Flat Major.” How exactly these concepts are determined is, then, the most critical question.

mail, please come soon

I still haven't receieved the game pieces I ordered a few weeks ago. I believe I ordered 3-day shipping, so something must be screwed up. I can only hope they come by Monday, by 9:30am.

I Ching

I've neglected to post about this, partly because I haven't much to say about it, and partly because I have not gotten very far in studying it, which may account for my having little to say about it; I'm studying the I Ching.

In Hesse's book, the main character is well versed in the I Ching ("book of changes"), which serves him as a guide within the story, and is described as a predecesor--one of many--to the Glass Bead Game in the introduction.

wiki entry for the I Ching
Basically, the I Ching is a doctrine that focuses on describing the dynamic between opposing concepts and giving order to the seemingly random events of the world. In this way it is very similar in philosophy to the Glass Bead Game, though the Bead Game takes the philosophy into more concrete realms.

The I Ching's use of symbols is also highly suggestive of a possible manifestation of a Bead Game. If you look at the sections "Trigrams" and "Hexagrams" in the wikipedia entry, you'll see what I'm talking about. Using this as a model, my version of the Glass Bead Game could begin forming its own symbolic language in the same way the I Ching has associated these symbols with concepts.

game variations: 2

This variation of the game incorporates the idea of a symbolic language, still abstractly, in the form of specific groupings of shapes made available for play, like a complex bead.

In the basic instructions of the game, there are three possible game pieces. In this variation there can be many game pieces, made from combinations of the basic game pieces.

This variation might work well with a computer implementation, where the creation of playable pieces literally expands the size and complexity of the game. These player-created pieces may also form the basis of a symbolic language, the symbols representing specific concepts, which may open up an alternative way of playing the game--purely conceptually.