Sid Meier said a game is an interesting series of choices or decisions. I can't remember which it was, but it's a, a pretty sharp distillation of what games mean to him. Um, and I always thought, if you just added onto the end, "in an emotionally-evocative situation," uh, it, it would be more meaningful for me personally. Um, you know, obviously he's like one of the great game designers. And games like Civilization are so powerful. And, you know, you learn so much from playing Civilization, uh, just about the way things like making clay pottery was a technological innovation at some point, and it had the following knock-on effects. Um, but you also learn about game design, you know, like building up your strength early before you branch out, you know, versus trying to spread cities to every land mass. Uh, when to negotiate, when to bully, when to back down, you know, all of those things are part of Civilization. It's very powerful. Um, but at some level it's a fantasy, right? It's a -- you know, I'm a ruler against other rulers is very different than, uh, the, the more intimate subject matter I think people are starting to play with now. I think they're just getting started. Uh, you know, like my dad hit me, and I was very vulnerable. I mean, if you back up in time and, and like look at yourself at nine or ten, you're, you're a little elf. You know, you're frail. You're delicate. An adult is very powerful. A -- and adult is like many times, you know, your, your mass, uh - well, not technically many times your mass. But adult -- an adult is like more massive and more powerful and just terrifying. And the amount of knowledge they have, they have many, many times more knowledge -- uh, bits of knowledge than, than you do. And, and all of that can be terrifying if you're -- if you're around adults that aren't nurturing and, and kind. And, um, you know, so some of those settings like that, some of those situations are the low-hanging fruit for future games, uh, for games that are being made now, um, that, uh, let the player make a series of interesting decisions but in an environment where the stakes feel very intimate and, and not so distant and abstract and fantastical but rather, uh, much more -- much more immediate and maybe much more personal.
