July 1, 2021 - Buzzard Sync (Proposals for Getting to Work) - Meta Reflections
by: Buzzard
Another meta forum discussion post! Drop your thoughts and summary of info + discussion here
Kristen (07/04/21 - 7pm)
- Coming in hot a few days post-sync, Dave and I have been talking a bit about this game and what a proposal "looks" like, was happy to see CJ kicking us off with some thoughts in the Discord proposal channel
- I think proposals will look different for each of us, which is kind of a fractal of what we're building - everyone's got their own approach. The twist is that for each of these this-is-the-first-time-we're-doing-this activities, we have a meta-analysis... NOT to see what's different but instead to see what's the same between all of our approaches
- This seems to be a trend:
- game design = design a sandbox with constraints and rules for play
- game play = everyone does their thing in the sandbox.
- there's (always?) some amount of anxiety that seems to get triggered because we're not sure if we're playing in the sandbox "correctly" - honestly, the further we get into this project, the more and more I realize that we're just building a way to PLAY together, and building in reminders that play is fun and there's no right way to do it
- meta-game, or post-game = what did we just do? not as individuals in our own unique way, we can see that output easily, but what did we do that we can distill into a protocol or approach others could take to play in this same way, to give the game enoguh structure for repeatability?
- There's so many layers to building software, including HOW to build software together - and that's the game we're playing now (game 05)
- In some ways, it feels like we're belaboring a point, like why don't we just build the thing?! But if I've learned anything from our collab to-date, it's taking the slow route is a healthy and appropriate for our style of play at this phase
- CJ hit the nail on the head with his proposal question: "what is our code collab style?" - which is a fractal of the question: "how do we work (play) best, together?"
- It takes time to figure these things out, and this up front work should help us in the long run - we're figuring out HOW to collaborate so we can repeat what works well in the future, iterate on what doesn't
- Last thing I'll mention - it feels like we're in an in-between state (which we are), but the move to Discord exacerbated this feeling for me. We still have this buzzard.life site and throwing Discord into the mix is another plate to spin, another space to manage
- A nice reminder for me that there's a cognitive overhead in using software and each piece of software has its own vibe. Discord is nice enough but it's WAY different than buzzard.life and what we're building. So there's an interesting cognitive dissonance to manage when using both simultaneously
- I wonder if this will lessen over time, as I become used to switching gears between the two and figure out how I'm using both, how each space is different.