Alright. Here it is, kid. Four things:
So here we are with this idea of Snakes We Live By in reference to Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By. Probably a bit of a loose reference, but the idea of Snake as a metaphor for certain perspectives of life, let’s say? Do Snakes have metaphorical entailments? Get… it?
I wonder if there’s more mileage there than jokes about tails. We can explore it.
For now, I’m just going to make this game that amounts to having a build of Snake and then assigning multiple menu items that convey different ideas that the same version of Snake then conveys as a metaphor.
This feels… weird, maybe lazy, but also interesting and in tune with a thing I keep telling myself about just making stuff and not fucking around too long with asking myself whether it’s worthy.
So. Onward.
So I made an early start on running through the list of isms from Merriam-Webster. I’m some of the way through the As at the moment and feeling some feelings, so here we are at the journal.
Partly I feel weird about the way I’m going about it. I’m reading the definitions and making incredibly knee-jerk reactions to whether or not I could consider them as Snake-legible, whether or not they’re interestingly so. For instance I included “abranchialism”, I word I certainly have never heard before which mean “without gills”. Well, snakes don’t have gills so there ya go!
But I think the game will need to be at least a little more than that to function in a worthwhile way. Which is to say I’m asking myself the question of how it is actually suppose to function, because my instincts are clearly that just a bunch of words that could be argued to apply to Snake isn’t all that interesting.
You know what, let me quickly ask Vadim’s SchönGPT even though I really don’t like talking to those things. It can double as a test of the newer version and maybe it’ll say or ask something profound:
Start of transcript
You said:
Help me clarify my design intentions
ChatGPT said:
Let’s begin by grounding ourselves in the context of your work.
Could you describe your design challenge and the key factors influencing your initial approach?
You said:
I’m working on a game of variations on the classic game Snake. It has a menu listing all the variations. All the variations are words ending in “ism”. All the variations link you to exactly the same version of traditional Snake. With the idea being that that underlying game can be described meaningful in multiple ways.
ChatGPT said:
That’s a compelling premise—using the unchanging form of Snake to surface how different interpretive frames shape our understanding.
What led you to choose “-ism” words as the organizing structure for the menu, and how do you see these labels shaping or challenging the player’s perception of the game?
You said:
I chose “isms” because it’s a sequel to a previous game I made that used “ism” words to create actual variations on Snake. I don’t know how I see the labels changing the perception, I think that’s kind of the point - how do I want those words to shape, or how do I think they can interestingly shape, perceptiojn.
ChatGPT said:
That connection to your earlier game suggests a kind of continuity or dialogue between the two—now shifting from variation in form to variation in framing.
When you reflect on your earlier game where each “ism” altered the gameplay itself, how did those changes reflect or embody the meanings of the labels—and how does that contrast with what you’re exploring now, where the gameplay remains fixed?
You said:
I don’t think it’s all that interesting to directly compare these two games.
ChatGPT said:
Understood—let’s stay with the current project, then.
What kinds of reactions or reflections do you hope players will have as they choose an “ism” and encounter the unchanged game?
You said:
Well after a couple presumably they’ll recognize what’s happening (at which point maybe they won’t play further), and that will lead them to think about the applicability of the words. There could be some degree of “puzzle” involved here (how does the word apply) or some level of commentary potentially (asserting that the word applies); that is, I think there are and should be variances in terms of the ways the words apply.
ChatGPT said:
That sense of delayed realization followed by interpretive questioning seems central—inviting players into a moment of reflection rather than straightforward gameplay variation.
How are you selecting the specific “ism” words, and what criteria (if any) are guiding your sense of which ones invite interesting or diverse interpretations when paired with the unchanged Snake game?
You said:
Thanks.
ChatGPT said:
You’re welcome. If you’d like to continue unpacking your intentions or explore how players might engage with different “isms,” feel free to pick it back up any time.
End of transcript
Well, sort of useful but I could have articulated this on my own being honest. In talking to the thing I framed up the key thing:
Anyway, I need to think more about how the isms apply. Where? Here? Traditionally here. But do I want to be Mr. Documents and have a document about that specific element of the design? Which is, to be honest, basically the entirety of the design?
Want to spend a sec just going through the current set and justifying them to myself as well as trying to outline the “way” they work, with that whole idea of using the game to profile/point out different ways a title could relate to a work and thus inflect or change the experience of it. So.
The idea of kind of a negative view of what the Snake does. It’s like a bioweapon going around eating all the apples/crops belonging to some assaulted party. The player becomes a bioweapon, kind of a “bad guy” situation. Changes the inflection of Snake where you’re just doing what you do, to something where you’re voracious and a problem.
Of all of them perhaps a little too close to something genuinely sad? The idea of Snake as a metaphor for an addiction, the inability to say no to one more apple, seeking it out, contorting yourself to get it, risking death to get another drink. Importantly the recasting of the apple as a kind of negative-positive.
Could apply to the player but I’m thinking more of the occasional use of “auteur” in the context of videogames, the sole producer idea, and suggesting myself as an auteur in a kind of winky way. In a funny way me taking credit away from the Snake in this case?
A classic downer view of videogames, that it’s just a stimulus response situation without much going on in the way of complex emotion or thought. Snake is a fairly great distillation of that, a bit of a Pavlov’s dog situation around the appearance of the apple. Human and animal cited in the definition, so there’s a kind of nice symbiosis of human and snake there.
A relatively simple assertion that the thing I call an apple or a fruit is now actually chunks of snake flesh and that the snake is eating them.
Another “videogames are sad” one I guess, the idea of pursuing a quantifiable achievement/goal at the expense of the more complex/deeper beauties of life. One that operates at the level of the snake in the narrative of the game (only wants to eat apples) and the player of the game (wants to live essentially just to receive as many points as possible).
A stab at the designer (kind of the opposite or contrast or tension with auterism maybe). I have literally just copied a game, making no substantive changes to it, and then said it’s “mine” by giving it a new label.
Another one at the level of players and videogame culture, the idea of games as an escape from the inconveniences of life. These are often a bit mean!?
I’ve oscillated on this one but I think it works in the end. The idea here is that the title asserts that the game of Snake you’re playing is euphemistic for some other activity or idea. It doesn’t tell you what it is, so you’re left to imagine what it might actually be a euphemism for. It’s like a challenge to imagine something like snake that incredibly embarrassing or gross or inappropriate in some way, thus defeating the euphemistic intent?
Funny it’s right after euphemism. The snake maybe fetishes the apple in this scenario, so that the act of eating becomes sexualized. But the player may be fetishizing the snake at the same time, or being accused of that.
Well I’m a formalist and this game is a formalism?
The idea that playing games is basically futile, that the snake’s life can appear futile at some basic level - it’s going to die in the end, there’s not enough room for it at a bare minimum.
This one I don’t totally adore except that I quite like how practical it is. The snake keeps getting bigger uncontrollably. The end.
A positive (kind of) casting of the activity of play as a pleasure (and thus justifiable) and likewise the activity of the snake eating apples as luxurious and worth it for the experience.
The ideal being pursued here being a high score I guess? Ultimately it’s “unattainable”? I don’t know, maybe this is weaker than I’d actually like, but I enjoy the contrasts here with hedonism and futilitarianism? The idea that we can think about our play in such radically different and even directly contradictory perspectives is quite nice.
The assertion that the snake and the game itself is beautiful. The beautiful game.
Another framing of play. The player is a masochist, deriving sexual pleasure from their inevitably failure. What a pervert.
An obsession with material wealth in the form of point, in the form of apples.
The idea of the game (and the program, and the computer, and the player) as a mechanism smoothly functioning to create an experience.
An assertion at some level that the snake is religious and believes in a god. The god might be the player, the god might be me.
Having written all that: there’s maybe a small wobble on “idealism” but even that one I think I ultimately like. I think there’s a kind of nice spread and this does feel more philosophical than I’d entirely realized, so I think it’s a positive OUTCOME.