This page preserves my original AdvisoryHour/Substack post inside the John’s World research section. The original remains available at advisoryhour.substack.com.
John’s World is the terribly generic name I’m giving to a virtual world project that makes use of image and video tools to simulate realities. These are all pulled together in interesting ways and over time there are little tricks figured out that allow me to more coherently tell stories or share scenes. In the experience of Vivienne’s 1925 silent film era I learned it possible to layer levels of simulation, in 1986 I showed how Sabrina, creature of the night that she is, could drive a beat-up car around a town. The next test involved trying a character playing a video game and seeing what worked and didn’t work in the setup.
The 90s were an era of flannel, music and malls. Leaning in on this we have the everyman character “Danny” who lives in his basement. He has a single game console, a Super Nintendo (SNES) and these bits all translated very well. I’ve brought over a clip of this so you could see for yourself what is working and what I’m still working thru.
The game on the display looks rather interesting-it’s not a real game. I did that to avoid all the copyright censors that turn creative expression into a corporate white-room. Still, you can get an idea of which one it is. And really? It looks rather fun. A pixel-based version of Mechwarrior. I’m surprised that never really was made.
The controller also loses coherence in this shot, amongst some other problems. Those I believe are fixable with a little guidance-but the “push button, see screen pixels change” is quite the question.
Future experiments are laser focused on “can I solve button presses” and given today’s technology, perhaps not. However, it’s still a puzzle that I have just enough confidence in there existing a solution that you’ll see a future article on either the success (or failure) of it.
I’m self-studying writing because of the leveraged impact of words with prompts. In today’s article I’m going to intentionally switch perspectives, so I can make sense of it. For this piece: I’m choosing what’s called third-person limited. This is telling you what’s going on while only using pronouns like he/she/they and you, the reader, are only allowed one character’s experience at a time. This is going to be strange to write because I have two choices: I either conjure a story about the character in that movie, or I opt for the harder option and rewrite what I shared with you in the third person limited view. Since I clearly need the practice, I could do both.
Danny’s Story
He didn’t remember getting back into the basement. The shift at Sam Goody ended right when it did every night, and this night was like any other night of his life. The familiar feel of cool plastic feel like the vinyl packaging the albums came in at the mall. People weren’t buying as many of those these days, he just now realized.
The game flipped on as his game system readied for another endless night of experiences that he could afford. There was a time working at a store in the mall was enough to raise a family on. It seemed unlikely that was the case now, but where else did the world need another musician? Danny felt like he was trapped between two moments in time, and unable to benefit from either one of them.
“The buttons work, but nothing is happening,” he thought. “Another cut scene. When’s the game start?” Danny pushed the buttons-each press like the store’s register. A plastic press, only when he pushed the buttons at work Goody made money. At home, Danny pushed buttons and nothing happened-”Just like my life,” he realized.
Danny’s story is an experiment in third person limited. I do rather like that, and you know, I like being able to sneak over secret notes with these callouts. This is just between me and you. Let’s see how I do with another writing in this third-person limited writing about myself.
Another Experiment
Eric watched the results come in.
The system was partially intelligent and mostly on-rails. He had written other articles about the custom software that pulled together how a system seemed to “click” into place when it had intelligence at the core, and then solutions around it. “Maybe this is crazy enough to work. It really should,” he thought as the poll operator flashed a series of cryptic status messages on the screen.
“The waiting is the hard part,” he thought to himself. Intelligent based projects were the ultimately dopamine hack to him. When the projects worked, there was a surge of amazement. “The model did another amazing thing!” each time he’d be excited by the same moment of realization: his crazier ideas kept working.
The video system pushed out the clip. The mouse cursor moved swiftly over. “This should be so interesting-what happens when a character makes use of their space, sits down, and plays a video game. Does it work?”
Eric watched the video first just on a wide setting. Did the concept as a whole work, as he couldn’t explain to himself the feeling of being transported somewhere but he knew it when it happened. “The character feels real, almost too real in a strange way. The scene is fine, but the buttons…” He scratched his head. The buttons needed work.
So concludes today’s experiment in writing in third person limited. There are parts I like. There’s a color and context that can be shared with a reader that isn’t quite present in my other posts. I do like that. And true to form: the best way to learn is by doing.
More experiments will be had.