Phonzy

To me they’re art that someone made - and art that I make - its a machine that does something fun or interesting through the interaction of its parts. (Yes, a toy.) As someone who builds them and got into building them from playing with their functionality, I really like to examine their functionality and exercise and enact it, and it makes me sad to see a lack of appreciation - and even contempt - for the functionality.

What I’m observing and pointing out is that in the machine-that-does-fun-stuff fanbase there is a major zeitgeist of only buying these machines for the purpose of smashing them on the ground and doing a little dance on the pieces. It’s so pervasive that even people who make machines are starting to make them not to function but instead to be smashed apart, or making them with soft, brittle pieces with the expectation that they’ll be smashed apart anyway(meaning that for anyone who doesn’t want to smash it, it is likely to break down anyway).

I’m urging that you give these machines a try as a whole with their moving parts intact before you start smashing them, you might even find them more fun as toys when they’re being used as intended.

I’m telling you that if you wanted to do a little dance, you can do that without buying a machine and smashing it first, and your feet would even hurt less without chunks of plastic all over the ground.

To a not insignificant, and very vocal, subset of users, expressing this desire that my “silly little games” and the “silly little games” of my peers be used as intended, is tantamount to terrorism.

I've recently been getting into writing RPGs of my own, and this really speaks to me.

I have been fascinated with writing and storytelling for my entire conscious life, and for most of that time, I've also been fascinated with games. I like to know how things work and why they work. I like to see the machinery of the art I enjoy.

For most of my time as a writer so far, I've focused on prose fiction, but as I continue to work on these RPG projects, I've had a really powerful realization that I think can best be summed up as: "oh, this is my medium. I get it now."

Because writing an RPG lets me combine the things I'm fascinated by, and the things I'm good at, into art. I'm not writing a story--I'm writing a toy that makes stories. I get to use my skill at technical writing to present information clearly and concisely (and, as I'm discovering, I get to indulge in my own love of layout). I get to do game design. And I get to make art.

(That's not to say I'm necessarily good at it as a whole yet, I'm brand new to this, but I can say that the joy I'm feeling as I work on this is unlike anything I've felt writing anything else. And thinking about playtesting, revising, tweaking, getting feedback, making this pile of ideas into an actual, working game? I'm excited about that stuff!)