Nathalie Lawhead

Interesting observation is that “solo-dev” seems to be the new indie.

...In this case, I think it’s great when things get brought back to the basics… Work by just one person counts as something. It brings value to the table in ways that work by large teams never will because it’s the unique voice, perspective, and intention of just one person that you are experiencing when you are playing their game. Experimentation can thrive here.

...It is particularly interesting when you look at the tool space. Tools outside of the mainstream, made by just one person, a group of friends, or a small team… all asking “what if”, and then exploring how their tool can empower creation in an idealistically creative way.

This sort of thing [parody software] functions as turning your actual desktop into a playground or space for a game.

I think that’s a fascinating tangent to explore with software. It can be a conduit to a fantasy reality, blurring the line between where the fiction starts and the software stops...I think it goes to show that people love looking at computers in a different light, one that breaks free from the mainstream ideals.

...There’s a novelty to re-discovering that software can be something else. It does not have to serve a purpose like photoshop, or how a video game serves a purpose, it can just exist to make your digital space weird. They are digital toys.

There is a power to that: when developers reject the idea that everything made needs to be part of a monetary feedback loop, and can just make things that break that established pattern of use, monetization, productivity, corporate branding that exists in every part of the desktop…

Being part of a long history like this, software is meant to be weird. Computers are silly. Hobbyists are at the heart of this.

This is about the horror of liminal spaces, and the intrinsic surrealism of our digital world… That beautiful awful loneliness of existing in the electric void of shared virtual fantasies that video games are.

There is a very valid ethics concern with such games that let players create in them. I do believe they benefit from that and it can easily become exploitative. In its most extreme form this is basically the worst of abusive storefronts, packaged in a playful creation context as a way to justify making things (for free) for the platform.

...I say all this to put into context that I am encouraged by projects like Mini Maker: Make a Thing, that exercise constraint in how the creative relationship between player and game is handled. I don’t feel like my goofy artistic efforts in it are monetized. I don’t even feel like the stakes are high, or that a community will judge what I create and expect a certain level of quality, or like I even need to share what I am making. I feel like I exist creatively in it because creating things is silly, and fun, and it progresses this silly little story all of it is part of. It’s back to that beautiful relationship a player has when creatively engaging with a fantasy space.

Tool development, as an umbrella term that is used to describe software that is both utilitarian and a toy, has become deeply important to me. I think there is something interesting to observe from that space, especially when it is centered around making interesting visual experiments functional to artists. It invites abundance and generocity