Hi there. I’m Alex, and I’m also droqen, and this year I’m going to be two people instead of one. And when I’m droqen, and I’m posting on the droqen.com blog, it’s not going to be the brain-ruminations of my meatself who has friends and loves and feelings, it’s going to be the indestructible forceContinue reading “welcome to 2022: droqen is a goddamn game designer”
Category Archives: pre-2022 blog
Connected by play
JOEL GOODWIN: I’m actually pretty happy with giving up the term “game” myself because it has so much historical baggage associated with it. I grew up with Space Invaders and the Atari console and Star Raiders: these came to define the popular meaning of the word “game” and trying to fight the will of peopleContinue reading “Connected by play”
Front Page, revision #301
What does it mean to have a human brain? I act on impulse most of the time, and otherwise do what I can to design a life that rewards my impulses with beautiful outcomes. I think designing games is like that: designing little spaces that reward my avatar’s impulses with beautiful outcomes. Only, when IContinue reading “Front Page, revision #301”
Extended Techniques
I was looking up ‘pizzicatto on grand piano’ and found this video instead of quite what I was searching for: a man spends four minutes passionately but simply displaying a handful of grand piano techniques I’d never seen, or even heard of, before. (Sure, one of them is just slamming the lid shut, but theContinue reading “Extended Techniques”
after 7 years, my new musagi: Surge VST and Instatetragrammaton’s NES patches
No Room Signal by Droqen I used to make music in musagi until one fateful day seven years ago when I switched operating systems. Suddenly, the tool of my dreams was out of my hands. Whoops. musagi (windows only): http://www.drpetter.se/project_musagi.html musagi tutorial: https://www.drpetter.se/tutorial_musagi1.html warning: it’s so good and simple and usable, you may find itContinue reading “after 7 years, my new musagi: Surge VST and Instatetragrammaton’s NES patches”
structures, 2
I don’t know what it means to invent a structure; it’s really more like a pattern, like sequences and patterns found in mathematics. The numbers were there all along — you just pointed out an interesting way to look at them. In my last post I linked to a blog post containing a very largeContinue reading “structures, 2”
play and structure
This massive blog post describes countless story structures from around the world: “Worldwide Story Structures – 김윤미 Kim Yoon Mi Author” https://www.kimyoonmiauthor.com/post/641948278831874048/worldwide-story-structures It’s so long I’ve never read it all the way through; I get caught on something or other, inspired to play with one of these structures, and lose my place before I canContinue reading “play and structure”
when the paracosm leaves my hands
John & I had planned to do a proper HANDMADEDEATHLABYRINTH issue 1, but… it’s been nearly a year. Similarly, I’d like to do sequels to many of my other games, but… well, have I ever made a sequel? I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I have a new piece of the theory ofContinue reading “when the paracosm leaves my hands”
I’m the author of Starseed Pilgrim, and I’m alive.
Spoiler warning for Starseed Pilgrim. Discusses a piece of ‘what it really means,’ as well as the ending (in somewhat vague terms). Also I swear a bit, because I got emotional while writing. Dead-authorism appeals to me because I hate looking back and seeing the trail of destruction and confusion I leave in my wakeContinue reading “I’m the author of Starseed Pilgrim, and I’m alive.”
The “Multipresence” behaviour pattern across (multiple) (real-time) spaces
GAIA 2021’s first session, “The New Spacemakers,” was a Zoom call close to a hundred viewers strong, a digital call about digital spaces that was started off with a prompt from Marie Claire LeBlanc Flanagan to take a breath, take a minute, and consider our physical bodies and the lands we inhabit. (I looked outContinue reading “The “Multipresence” behaviour pattern across (multiple) (real-time) spaces”