Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Games: Philosophical Musings on the Meaning of Tetris?

Okay... I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry or take this seriously. No Truth In Game Design: An Argument For Idolatry by Jason Johnson is either a brilliant satire of how to be a post-modern deconstructionist or... or... I should start to get worried about how seriously scholarly attempts are at "reading" the world around us. To which I have only two things to point out.

First - The first comment to the article is actually quite profound. Tim Carter points out that "Symbolism isn't idolatry. Idolatry is when you forget a symbolic object is a symbol".

And second - the comments reminded me of one of my favourite stories and tutorials on how to understand and perform a post-modern deconstruction of almost anything. How to Deconstruct Almost Anything -- My Postmodern Adventure by Chip Morningstar is well worth a read. Whether or not Jason Johnson meant to be funny or satirical, or even whether he meant to be deconstructionist, he certainly fell into that mode easily.

I'm going back to just blowing up pixels for a while. Or maybe I'll just enjoy a video or two or three about Tetris.

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