Most people combine the wild fantasies of cognitive brain with some rational filtering, separating out lust, romance, friendship and support.
But #ADHD robbed me of most rational thought. I was all cognitive, all the time!
And here's the kicker: this didn't invalidate my love.
Sep 27, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Living in heterosexual cisgender land, I always wondered why queer narrative is always so much more sexualised.
It took me far too long to realise this is not just social conservatism in the mainstream. It's because patriarchal sexual narratives are predatory and uncomfortable.
Anything produced with "male gaze" is going to recreate the sensation of women as prizes/prey and men as hunters - even if the women are portrayed as strong.
Even if games allow you to superficially gender-swap your characters, they still subscribe to the hetero notion of "wins"
Sep 24, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I had a bitter self-loathing and frustration that wouldn't quit. I was trying everything to change but nothing would stick. Everyone kept telling me it just took willpower. I felt weak.
I was also not fun to live with. Always angry. Always annoyed. Often unreasonable.
Long story short my wife told me she was leaving if I didn't change. She loved me, she didn't hold a grudge, but it wasn't working.
At first I felt gaslit. I got angry, only proving the point more. Eventually, semi-reluctantly, I agreed to look at ADHD and Autism tests.
Sep 23, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
People often say to me "you do a lot!" and I wonder if they're confused when I talk about executive disfunction and the inability to operate that comes with my #ADHD.
To clarify: I learned to work fast & hard in years before I was diagnosed, because some days I did NOTHING.
Before diagnosis and medication it was about 2-3 days out of 7 I would either look busy but achieve nothing, or hide in a corner so I could stare, frozen, at a blank screen for 8 hours. I'd go home anxious about deadlines and hate myself for my "weakness" and "lack of willpower".
Sep 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Let's talk about this for a moment.
What do you see in this video?
It's easy to say "a bunch of thugs" or "idiots", but they came from somewhere. Something made them into this.
And it isn't as simple as being spoiled or selfish.
What I see here is emotion. The en masse, adult equivalent of a child's meltdown- not out if anger, but because they're filled with feelings and they don't know where to put them.
This is why we need to talk about mindfulness and mental health the same way we do physical health.
Aug 26, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Now we're all waking up to the idea that the justice system needs reformed, it'll be interesting to see how people respond to The Batman.
I mean Nolan's Batman was basically a cop who gets to use toys to beat people up with anonymity. The police have their own masks and toys now
The trailer does seem to suggest he'll be fighting police corruption, but then it's suggesting we replace the police with ... more, tougher police, as long as they are coded to our perspective on justice (for now)?
Aug 23, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
To give a more explanatory answer ...
QTEs are designed to *maintain* the solid connection between character behaviours and player input.
Consistency is an important factor in immersion - more so than agency!
So if ^ is "hammer attack", placing this here is good.
Challenge is something necessary to produce a "game" in the most academic of senses.
What most videogames are is not a game in the most academic of senses, but an interactive synaesthetic experience, towards the purpose of which a designer might utilise many tools.
Aug 5, 2020 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Having lived with unmedicated and now medicated #ADHD one of the most peculiar things is how it leads to you living in a mess.
Sure, for some this is because you can't organise your processes to get the cleaning done, but for me it was an inability to even *see* the mess!
1/6
Think about it like this: your eyes are not a camera. They're taking in light information, and your brain is painting a picture: this bit is yellow, this bit is dark, etc.
It is not perfect. If you can't make out a detail, your brain is adept at filling in the gaps.
2/6
Jun 29, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
One "accidental benefit" of WFH for teaching game dev has been using itch.io as a platform with our students - resulting in tons of links we can share with the public.
So here's the entire year's output from @BuasGames in one thread!
One of the hardest things to deal with in #ADHD is that most of us carry the same ableism in us that we hate in others.
I'm terrified of speaking out sometimes, because part of me still feels like it's a just an excuse for being weak-willed or weak-minded.
Logic does not help.
A lot what people with #ADHD go through sounds similar to things other people experience in small pockets, things that are easily controlled.
It's hard to believe, even for myself, that there could be a condition (other than just weakness) that makes it impossible for me.
Jun 5, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The current issue with the USA starts with a deep current of racism.
As a white man, I'd rather let black/PoC voices speak on that.
But I'm also a game designer, I understand broken systems of reward and how corruption seeps into them, and I can look at that!
1/
Basic Game Theory dictates: over time, people will find the path of LEAST resistance to the MOST REWARDING goal.
The "stated" goal does not matter, only the goal that is rewarded most, and anything extraneous to that goal - however heartfelt and emotional - gets dropped.
2/
@Anodyne4k @lovanwink@biden_leg@lilbakedbean_@LouisatheLast Not a single false point. You can say I misrepresent data all you want,it's subjectivity, and we both brought our subjective opinions out today because that's how politics work.
"You're arguing poorly" is the argument of the disingenuous. It isn't an Oxford debating competition.
@Anodyne4k @lovanwink@biden_leg@lilbakedbean_@LouisatheLast Clearly you've no intention of thinking about the points I'm bringing. I thought about yours and considered how I might understand the ways we differ in opinion. I feel sorry for you that you won't do the same. I hope some day you reflect on this and realise your mistakes.
If you're looking out at the world and saying you don't believe systemic racism exists I don't know why I'd bother trying to argue with you, so go ahead and discredit these links, I won't bother arguing that.
@Anodyne4k @biden_leg@lilbakedbean_@LouisatheLast All I'll say is that 3, 20 or 100 successful black men do not disprove systemic racism unless you're saying there's another reason why there's racial disparity in the nation (and the world). Are you saying there's something special about these success story people?
May 31, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I know my students follow me on here, and so I want to send a personal message to all of you, off the professional record:
The USA right now is a reminder that racism exists around the world.
We have rules and policies to keep racism out, but rules do not dictate culture.
I want the students I teach to feel comfortable, but I know not all of you will. I know our environment isn't perfectly diverse.
If you are comfortable, please take a moment to consider that others aren't. Maybe not threatened, maybe not scared, but not entirely comfortable.
May 30, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I'm experiencing some cognitive dissonance here and I need a bit of help.
I can get that the author's assessment that some people can/can't appreciate Flow is politicised bias, but I don't see how that means we need to rethink the theory itself?
Surely if the argument is "saying people can or can't appreciate Flow comes from a biased background" then we're acknowledging that Flow as a concept does exist and can be experienced by all - but that it's cultural accessibility, not genetics, that affects it?i
May 30, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Hey fellow suburbanites.
Rioting SUCKS. But our combined condemnation means nothing.
Rioters are people. The same logic you're applying to condemn them, they share. The difference is that their life has driven them to a place you don't understand.
The people in power want you to call them violent thugs, but they're not. They're everyday people.
They have tried peaceful protest for 100 years now. They tried everything. Kneeling. Protesting. They thought maybe they'd made their point. Racism didn't die. There was no choice.
May 25, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The two most taboo game design truths: 1. Everyone loves playing dress-up 2. Players are their own worst enemy, and they actually enjoy games more when content is gated over time as well as progress
I think this definitely falls into the "don't give the player/user/client what they ask for, but what they NEED" school of design.
A designers job is not to deliver what they're asked for, but to solve the problem that their client/user cannot solve themselves.
May 11, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Working on a lecture about my being diagnosed with #ADHD, and the one message I'm getting consistently in feedback from other teachers is "I would never share this much".
It's becoming clear to me that the idea of the teacher as infallible leader is a big issue in education.
For one thing, it completely crumbles the moment you alter traditional teaching. We've been teaching in teams for years now and it's impossible to maintain the sort of more-human-than-human stance. We have differing attitudes and opinions. We make mistakes. We are human.
May 1, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Today in "why have we been buying this from stores this whole time?", Restaurant Style Salsa ...
Also, guac. The two took less than half an hour to make, cost a fraction of store price, and I get to make them to my taste ... Why did I buy this from stores for 20 years?
