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Well I just had a tremendous flash of insight. I’m making a super bare bones hosted interactive fiction engine that destroys the content of the game the more people play it. When I finish, you will be able to play the game only… and with any luck all of the content will have been completely erased by the time the 3 weeks of voting is over. The engine, and the game I guess, is called Mandala and the idea came to me last night shortly after I decided to enter LD48.

Until just now I had no idea what the actual IF was going to be about. I had some ideas, but basically really uninspired. Just now I realized that Mandala perfectly conveys my feelings about tourism. I lived in Kyoto for about 6 months a few years back. I would just spend my days wandering the streets from tiny temple to shrine, and I never ran out of places to visit or secrets to discover. I tended to stay aware from the major temples: they made me feel weird. Whenever I went to, say, kiyomizu temple (up the street from my apartment), I would be overcome by the feeling that I was participating not in appreciation for ancient and beautiful things, but in a very canned and necessary pass-time. It was crowded, people were laughing and children were running in circles. Families were lining up to have their pictures taken, and high-school students were just being “on a field trip”. It felt very different from my regular personal exploration (though I realize this is a matter of degrees). I took a friend there and commented that some day I’d like to make a beautiful MMORPG that captured every inch of the temple… but which did not permit entry. In a sense this is very “shinto”. There is a room at the back of each shrine where the holy of holies is kept, and no one is allowed to enter.

I’m certainly not making a beautiful MMO, but I am going to make it about exploring — and by so doing, destroying — a sacred place.

Will this be a game in which the only moral choice will be not to play? Well, my intention was to add a ‘victory’ condition or a room where you could do some good. Maybe I will add that, but I think not. On the other hand, just because I don’t like the densely packed crowds at kiyomizu temple doesn’t mean that I don’t recommend going there at some point in your life: on the contrary I highly recommend it. The reason so many people are flocking there is, to a certain extent, because it is something that aught to be experienced.

Yup, so that’s how I’m feeling right now. Inspired! Here:

I just popped out to get some fresh air and some coffee before they close (it is 8pm here in Vancouver, BC).

Also, I’d like to take a moment to thank @Kafkascoffeetea. I walked in there today out of the blue and asked him to sell me all his cold brew coffee. He did, and at a discounted rate! Fine man that Kafka, fine man.

z.

PS feel really stupid calling this an “engine” it is like… 4 lines of code tops.