still(being)born

Another game jam done! This was made for the Twine Poetry Jam,  made in less than 48 hours (closer to 8) because I'm more of a sprinter than a marathoner. 

Honestly, this jam was one of the hardest ones for me to finish. It's a month long and it took me til the 23nd to be able to do something. I spent the better half of this month staring at a blank document. This is my first interactive piece that's directly derived (in its entirety, at least) from a pre-written poem. Inspiration just hasn't been coming these days.

Doing this – transferring an already written poem to a digital format – has felt dirty to me in the past. Desperate times I suppose; but if we don't challenge our underlying assumptions, we won't grow. 

The original poem: 

stillbirth

to be human. to be mediated.
to be transitive, as in bodhisattva’s seven wings.

you arrive unanchored, unassumed
beneath the earth’s mantle, seeking questions

for the answers that followed you here.
you do not remember how to remember 

but you know how to fix a surfboard:
how to resin, how to sand.

as a child you sought the dark
loved the word cataclysm, the certain stretch

of syllables that made the ocean beg,
and you learned that the world works in offerings

petals from the poppies growing in the yard
rice syphoned into shirt sleeves before dinner

you told it secrets that were whispered without words
but with arrangements: a book from the shelf

falling, a bee landing on a photographed face. 
until one day you brought it a plastic butterfly

shattered by your own arm and the mallet it carried.
the waves lapped it up. you left with kelp in your hair

knowing the ocean: celibate, virginal
as a child’s hand clasped around your pinky

merciless
serventile

got truncated as well as slightly altered. I don't think I altered it enough – the digital version makes too many leaps, weakening its punch. It's valuable knowledge, having this – can't make too many leaps in a form that literally leaps. The tension between the couplets is lost in this form as well, maybe that's what was stitching the whole thing together.

Anyway – here's the deep structure: 

Short and sweet, as the Jam called for. Let's get to it then –

What worked:

• I think it came together pretty well. There is room for improvement (honestly a lot could be done by the actual jam deadline if only I weren't so goddamn lazy), but overall it's passable. it's fine. 
• I'm proud of myself for doing something I thought I'd never do (use a pre-written poem). 
• I learned that you can't make too many leaps in a digital form, like how you can in a printed one. The loss of the couplet structure and the disappearance of previous lines from sight probably play a role in this. Cool bit of information I wouldn't have otherwise!
• I'm getting better at toggling twine commands, using CSS, and editing photos and sounds in Illustrator and Audacity.
• This was done in a very short amount of time! Probably like eight hours tops? I put initially under 48 because it's for sure under 48, but I wasn't really keeping track, I just know I started yesterday and finished today.
• I tried using the heartbeat and breaking up words to control pacing. Cool idea, could have been executed better, if only I took like  a second to breathe. 

What needs work:

• I rushed. Even now I'm currently rushing. There's no real deadline (it's a long  ways out) and yet I just wanted it to be done and over with. There were clear and definitely doable things that I just didn't bother to do or fix because fuck it, good enough is good enough. This mindset feels a tad bit undesirable and limiting in the longrun. The game could have been better, but I couldn't be bothered.
• Not sure how I feel about using a pre-written poem. It feels like I'm not respecting the medium. 
• Why am I rushing like this? it's so unnecessary goddamn. I can't even think
• Frantic energy
• Woah
• I know this could be better if only I were willing to give it more time. let it simmer, let it bake. I'm putting out a half-conceived baby into the world and calling it grown, calling it ready. What gives? It feels irresponsible. It feels like really bad form.
• It's like a work in progress. Am I really this lazy?
• The answer is (apparently) yes

Yeesh.