9.03m and the not-game

9.03m is a strange game. By which I mean, it's not a game - and good for it. I'll be looking over a few more not-games in the near future and tagging them for easy reference. But first, what is a not-game? Well... It's lacking something inherently game-ish. For me, this definition has mostly to do with mechanics. These not-games all have in common a lack of mechanics. They will never be fun in the same way that, say, Peggle or Mini Metro might be. They'll never have that "just another round" feel of Civ or Stone Soup. In short, the mechanics are sparse and not engaging by themselves. A not-game uses its sparse mechanics to bolster the experience of the game.

Observations, People

Her voice always quavers, like she lives on the edge of tears.

Mini Metro

Strangely enough, the best game I've played all year might just be an abstract puzzle game based on metro system organization. I've always had a fascination for metro maps; they're beautiful, abstract overlays ontop of the messy complications of a real city.

My favorite metro; Stockholm's. It's practically already a minimalist board game...

So... I'm sort of surprised that an idea for game-ifying this hadn't occurred to me. Or anyone, apparently. Which is why I find myself playing just another round of Mini Metro to get screenshots for this article. Yep. Just for the screenshots.

Boston & I

"NO
AND I MEAN!
NO PARKINg"

So you put hard quarters in a meter,
its top shaped like a nut,
and I am bolted awake
in a city where we have no electricity
and I am no Edison.

hurting small animals

Note: Poem initially formatted as a triptych, available here.

===============================================

hurting small animals

===============================================

You were always

pathetically happy

if I showed any interest

or affection, like

the minimum I owed you

was nothing.

Business

Lays against an airport seat's curves,
his lips threatening to dribble down his chin
onto a tie a bit too thin for him.
Business watches over his phone
at the woman passing by
while, next, his mother reads a romance.
Business is ready to go.

Of the Painted Mouth

When they came home early:

There was no barking from the house.
Inside, the old dog was lying down,
the weight of missing on his snout.

The vanity mirror would not shut up:
it told them that her skirt muttered
little circles on the floor when she fell,
and that she sat there for several minutes,
bemused, dots warring against gridded tile.

And the living room was full of envelopes,
inflated, ballooning at the joints and seams,
courtesy of the housesitter's daughter
who had kissed them all alive.

On Maslow's Hierarchy

A poem written for me...?

My pyramid is two stories high
An excellent coffin
Don't care about nothin'
Just give it a try.

cat doll

first, they said it was his teeth
so we stitched his mouth shut
and cut him a new one and
the white stuffing fell out in clumps
like

when they said it was his heart
that it ticked too much
was broken by itself, for once, not
someone else, and i envied him,
as i stuffed his ears with foam
and it dribbled down his acute cheeks
and he shed hair for days
but

they were wrong both times,
the problem with the cat doll was that
it was bad from the inside, rotten,
we'd always called him rotten,
because of mischief, and never known
it was the right diagnosis.

Strange Moods

Are detouring because of wreck
and ordering a cookie
and buying only it and champagne yeast.

Are opening a box of Halo
mandarins and falling in love
with the crate and spilling the mandarins
on the floor in the hurry to box up your skull.
Clementines are better anyways, ask Blendo.

Strange moods are cooking listless in friends’ kitchens,
ignoring them. Are writing, and not editing.

Strange moods are drinking bad beer in dry
retaining ponds under citylight, thinking fuck you,
Muscovy geese, and feeling needy, and wondering
how you know they’re called retention ponds,
and why each one is built with a concrete shrine.

Strange moods are praying at those concrete shrines.

.

I feel so small when the people I spend time with look down on me.

Two Microphones and a Bully

Apple
stands quivering, one hand lost
to tremors, the other to concentration.
She slouches, flails, stomps
with everything she has
knowing it’s not enough
and that after the outburst
she will still be called frail.
She reminds me of


Redel
stands motionless, hands curled
around the podium. Her painted
red nails featured in
a friend’s poem, and,
when forced to disclosure,
Redel laughed it off,
“my fingers are stubby,
look,” but that didn’t prevent her
from showing up in a second
poem, as the sea,
and a third, as a bridge.

President

He has coffee on the veranda,
looking out at the skärgård,
or Mälaren, he isn't sure,
but he appreciates the two boats
nagivating the craggy maze
waving at him with their sails.

After coffee, he takes a walk
with today's new lies;
yes, he likes to fish; and
he buys both kinds of butter,
because sometimes he cooks,
and sometimes he bakes.
He thinks it sounds profound.