The Horizon I Couldn't Reach: A History of My Political Game Design – Conclusion

我沒興趣把解性遊跟破壞遊作為有用的屍體。我也沒興趣創造另外大統一的更有解放性遊戲設計理論。為何？遊戲是遊戲，不是革命的表演。那是我過去試圖做的事。也沒有必要繼續鑽自己的空子。

I have no interested in turning agonist play and sabotourism into useful corpses. I also have no interested in creating another grand unifying theory of more liberatory game design. What for? Games are games, not the spectacular representation of revolution. That's what I tried to do in the past. And there is no need to keep gaming myself.

做完了最後這四年的評論之後，我覺得更了解自己遊戲設計和政治思想的軌道，認為花費了那麼多力氣寫那麼長的文章有值得的結果。本來沒有故意要談到獨立圈子中那麼多的個人衝突故事，可是發覺那些事深深影響了遊戲和政治的發展。我永遠不會忘記圈子的教訓，希望從來不會再陷入同樣的陷阱。

After finishing this critical review of the last four years, I feel like I better understand my own trajectory of game design and political thinking, feeling like spending so much energy to write such a long essay had worthwhile results. Originally I didn't intend to get into so much detail about my personal conflicts in the indie scene, but I realized that those things deeply influenced the development of my games and politics. I will never forget the lessons I learned from the scene, and hope to never again fall into similar traps.

我會分享一篇磨利了我的文章來結束。這個文章就是 ziq 的〈鬥爭的無用〉，是我讀的第一個針對鬥爭的批評。在文章之中，ziq 說自己唯一能確定的就是自己面前能控制的事。對於遊戲設計的政治效果，我也是有同樣的態度。我們不須要追求遊戲實現某種崇高事業，不需要強迫自己當事業的烈士救星—需要的是誠實地面對自己的自己手段的限度，搞懂在限度中擁有的發展前途，帶著遊玩的臨時創造態度繼續走下去。

I want to end by sharing an essay that sharpened me. This essay is ziq's “The Futility of Struggle,” and it's the first critique about struggle that I ever read. In the essay, ziq says that the only thing they're sure of is what they can control in front of themself. With regards to the political effects of game design, I have the same attitude. We don't need our games to pursue the realization of some great cause, we don't need to make ourselves be the cause's martyring messiahs—what we need is to honestly face the limits of ourselves and our own methods, understand what paths for development are within our limits, and bring the improvisation of play with us as we keep moving down those paths.