The Horizon I Couldn't Reach: A History of My Political Game Design – FOOL ZERO GAMES ERA (2019-2021), First Half

1. System Shatters 《系統破滅》(v1 2020, v2 2021, 翻譯 transl. 2023)
2. Five Blue Dragons 《五龍分魂》(2020, 無翻譯 no transl.)
3. Phantom Island 《幽靈島》(v1 2020, v2 2021, 翻譯 transl. 2022)
4. Smelltracks 《味道》(v1 2021, v2 2021, v3 2022)

《系統破滅》是我最早的無治遊，雖然創的時候沒有故意要做成那樣。第一版本其實叫《System Matters》（中文：系統有關），是在笑話英語獨立 TRPG 圈子話語中常出現的句子。「System matters」這句話的意思就是說：玩家選的遊戲系統會影響遊玩的經驗，因此玩家該選設計最能創造想要的經驗的系統（相反的立場就是系統無關，因為玩家可以隨便選哪些規則要用，也可以創特定規，所以任何系統都能用來創造想要的經驗）。

System Shatters was my earliest anarchist game, even though when I created it I didn't intentionally make it that way. The first version was actually called System Matters, poking fun at a phrase that commonly appeared in discourse within the anglosphere indie TTRPG scene. The phrase “system matters” meant that the system chosen by the players would influence the experience of their game, and so players should choose the system with a design that can best create the experience they desire (the opposing stance was that system didn't matter, because players could freely choose whatever rules they wanted to use, as well as make house rules, so any system could be used to create a desired experience).

我的《系統有關》是個自雜（英文：zine），邀請玩家來利用「唱反系統」的「反規」（英文：antirules）來攻擊存在系統中不利於實現自由的規則；目的是在唱反系統遊玩的過程中把遊戲系統的辜負聯繫到現實系統的辜負，把遊玩中反規追求自由態度帶回日常生活。在第二版，我把遊戲的政治要旨寫得更明確，把「反規」改成「破壞」，把遊戲名稱的圈內笑話擱在一邊，改成現在的《系統破滅》。雖然據我所知這個作品沒有影響任何人的政治思想或日常生活—而且我現在該說，我幾乎所有的作品都是這樣—我在《系統破滅》的發展之中發現了自己寫含政治要旨的作品的時候總是有個要旨肯定會被聽到的態度，無論聽眾或同志到底有沒有出現。溫柔地說，這現象我稱「想像的同寅」（跟班納迪克·安德森想像的共同體概念類似）；狠心地說，這叫魔法思維。

My System Matters was a zine that invited players to use the “antirules” of an “antisystem” to attack rules that failed to facilitate liberation in a system that currently existed; the goal was, through the course of antisystemic play, to connect the failures of the game system to the failures of real systems, to bring the pursuit of freedom against rules from play back to everyday life. In the second version, I made the game's political message more explicit, changing “antirule” to “sabotage,” setting aside the inside joke of the game title to turn it into the System Shatters of today. Even though to my knowledge this work never influenced anybody's political thinking or everyday life—and I should say now that almost all of my works are like this—in my development of System Shatters I discovered that whenever I write things with a political message, I always seem to have the attitude that my message would be heard, regardless of whether or not listeners or comrades would appear. Generously speaking, this phenomenon I call “imagined affinity” (like Benedict Anderson's concept of imagined community); callously speaking, I call it magical thinking.

列表中第二個遊戲，《五龍分魂》，才是我第一次故意試圖設計政治遊戲的努力。我恨這個遊戲恨到死，恨到連放在 itch.io 網頁都沒再放，也從來不想做翻譯。已經過了四年了，但連想到就感到厭惡，甚至連在這個貼文中寫都不想寫。可是我必須要誠實。我容許認可當時的自己有了足夠的自明，在現已刪除的 itch.io 上 po 了一個譴責遊戲的開發日誌；我在這裡複製：

The second game on the list, Five Blue Dragons, was my actual first attempt at intentionally designing a political game. I hate this game to death, to the point where I stopped including it on my itch.io page early on and have never even bothered to translate it. It's been 4 years, but even thinking about the game makes me disgusted, to the point where I didn't even want to include it in this post. But I must be honest. I'm willing to give myself at that time credit for having enough self-awareness to post a devlog on my now-deleted itch.io denouncing the game; I now reproduce it here:

I started feeling uncomfortable about having created this game after I realized that its most vocal lovers were all white.

當我發現這遊戲的熱愛者都是白人，我開始對這遊戲的創造感到不自在。

打斷一下—我想更加說明熱愛的程度。《五龍分魂》是個《Wretched & Alone》（中文：孤單受苦）系統的改版，也是為了《Wretched & Alone》系統的設計師們舉行的遊戲製作營才創了這個遊戲（設計師為了自己新設計的系統舉系統行遊戲製作營是在圈子中很常見的社交宣傳策略；設計師們常利用製作營的平台推銷參加者利用他們系統做的作品，在產生知名度的方面互相支持）。在寫這開發日誌之前，其中一位 W&A 的設計師，Chris Bissette，有在推特上送我私訊問我要不要上他的 podcast 談一談《五龍分魂》的設計。我因為在這開發日誌中描述的原因而拒絕。那次是唯一有人對我的遊戲興趣足夠到想邀請我來做採訪的一次。我認為這也不是偶然，是反映當時圈子的政治觀。

Interrupting for a moment—I want to elaborate on the extent of this vocal love. Five Blue Dragons was a Wretched & Alone hack, and was also made only because of the Wretched & Alone jam hosted by the system's designers (designers hosting game jams for new systems they made was a common social-promotional tactic in the scene; designers often used the jam's platform to promote works that the participants made using their system, creating a mutual reputation boost). Before writing this devlog, one of the W&A designers, Chris Bissette, DM'd me on Twitter to ask if I wanted to go on his podcast to talk about the design of Five Blue Dragons. Because of the reasons illustrated in this devlog, I said no. That was the only time anyone was interested enough in my games to ask me to do an interview. I believe this isn't a coincidence, but a reflection of the scene's politics at the time.

To be clear—I'm not writing this devlog to subtweet white people who have enjoyed Five Blue Dragons. I'm writing this as a self-reflection and self-criticism, especially after a period of intensive political self-education that made me reevaluate the kinds of narratives my game was promoting.

該說清楚—寫這個開發日誌的目的不是為了要不點名推文喜歡《五龍分魂》的白人。寫的目的是為了自我反省和自我批評，特別是因為我經過一段密集的自我教育，讓我重新評估遊戲促進的敘事。

In Five Blue Dragons, you play as a colonizer who goes on a spiritual journey to sever their spiritual attachments to colonialism as a system. The game requires you to respond, using the format of writing down journal entries, to prompts that interrogate you about the “how” and “why” behind your colonialist mentalities and practices. Some of these prompts ask you to imagine scenarios where you confront spiritual representations of people you have been complicit in oppressing, or other colonizers who want to manipulate you into abandoning your renunciation of colonialism. These are prompts that, on the surface level of content, do not grant you a clean and easy break from a position of violent dominance—but I believe that beyond the surface, they actually achieve the opposite.

在《五龍分魂》之中，你扮演的是一個為了要斷自己對殖民系統的執受而開始心靈旅程的殖民者。遊戲規定你必須利用寫日記項目的方式來回答審問你「如何」和「為什麼」有殖民性想法和行為的寫題。有些寫題要你想像心靈代表情形，面對被你串通壓迫的人，或著是其他想操縱你放棄脫離殖民主義的殖民者。在內容的表面上，這些寫題並不讓你從暴力性支配地位得到完全和簡單的絕裂—可是在表面下，我認為其實效果是相反。

Five Blue Dragons is a solo game—which means that it is a game that privileges a solo imaginary. In this case, it is a game that privileges the solo imaginary of the colonizer. It is a game where the colonizer can play at staging confrontations against those they've attempted to colonize, and those who want them to continue colonizing, all in the safety of their own head, progressing at the quiet leisure of their journaling pace, with no one to speak back to them except for the game's text as written. This is a game that allows white people to threaten their own whiteness safely, which is to say that this game is not threatening at all.

《五龍分魂》是個單人遊—也就是個優待單人想像力的遊戲。在這個情況之下，這就是個優待殖民者單人想像力的遊戲。這就是個殖民者能玩玩跟被他試圖作為殖民目標的人，以及希望他繼續進行殖民任務的人，創造對抗場面的遊戲，一切都在自己腦海的安全之中，按照平靜休閒的日記節奏進展，除了遊戲上寫的字沒人能跟他提出反對。這是個能讓白人安全地危害自己白狀的遊戲，也就是說這遊戲一點都不危害。

Why should this game have been more threatening? As I wrote in my Designer Notes, “I created this game to explore the concept of a colonizer abandoning hope for moral redemption in pursuit of moral accountability.” Moral accountability, of course, to those they attempted to colonize. As Paulo Freire writes in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, “To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce” (50). And this game, in focusing entirely on the colonizer's psychological patterns of failure to reach that affirmation, fails to acknowledge, let alone challenge the farce. And so I hesitate, now, to even call this a game about the colonizer's pursuit of moral accountability. I believe this is a game about the colonizer's pursuit of escape from their fear of having to face moral accountability, which is a very different thing.

為什麼這遊戲該更加危害？就跟我在〈設計思想〉中寫說的一樣：「我創造這遊戲是為了要探索殖民者放棄道德上救贖的希望，改追求道德上問責的概念。」當然，道德上的問責是指被他試圖作為殖民目標的人。就跟保羅·弗萊雷在《被壓迫者教育學》中寫說的一樣：「要肯定男人和女人都是人，而作為人就應該是自由的，但卻不做任何實質性的事情來使這一肯定成為現實，這實在是滑稽之舉。」而這個遊戲，因為完全都在關注殖民者失敗得到那肯定的心理模式，連要承認那滑稽之舉都失敗了，更不用說去挑戰的解果。所以現在，我連說這個遊戲在描述殖民者道德上問責的追求都不想說。我認為這是個描述殖民者要逃避面對道德上問責的恐懼的遊戲，是個完全不同的東西。

Given that I consider this game complicit with upholding a political farce that protects the very system of oppression it intends to criticize, I no longer feel comfortable giving or receiving endorsement for this game. I will be demonetizing it immediately after the posting of this devlog, and linking back to this devlog in future instances if people bring this game up in praise again.

鑒於我認為這遊戲串通支持了一個政治滑稽之舉，反而保護了本來要批評的壓迫制度，我不再願意為這個遊戲要求或接受認可。我將會在 po 完這開發日誌後馬上禁止接受此遊戲的付款，而且以後如果再有人稱讚這遊戲的話，我會連回這開發日誌。

這個開發日誌很受歡迎；據我所知 po 了之後也沒有人再提出《五龍分魂》這個遊戲的話了。

This devlog was well received, and to my knowledge, after posting it, no one brought up Five Blue Dragons ever again.

《幽靈島》是我第二有意設計的政治遊。這個遊戲進化了很多次—本來計畫是想做個普世革命的遊戲（真傻），而且是想做個動作遊戲（ㄘㄟˊ），利用地下城的探索來代表政治性鬥爭的感覺。本來是想用別人的系統來做，即 Chris McDowall 的《Into the Odd》（中文：進入異常）和 Ajey Pandey 的《BOLT》（中文：閃電））。不確定是不是因為想支持 Ajey 所以從 ItO 換到《BOLT》，可是我記得不再用《BOLT》的原因是因為 Swordsfall 在推特上說 Ajey 送他的 email 有種族歧視；我在 Discord 發私訊問 Ajey 他要怎麼辦，他說因為怕那時候《BOLT》的 Kickstarter 會少錢，什麼話都不想說，所以我就跟他斷絕。然後因為想不出系統該是什麼，我去參考了一大堆政治媒體（書、文章、TRPG）來幫忙找出答案。在這段研究期之中，我第一次接觸到後來會影響我很大的情境思想。

Phantom Island was my second intentionally political game. This game had many evolutions—originally my plan was to make a game about universal revolution (how ridiculous), and I wanted to make it an action game (of course), using dungeon crawls to represent the feeling of political struggle. Originally I wanted to use other people's systems, namely Chris McDowall's Into the Odd and Ajey Pandey's BOLT. I'm not sure if I switched from ItO to BOLT because I wanted to support Ajey, but I remember the reason I stopped using BOLT was because Swordsfall said on Twitter that Ajey had sent him a racist email; I had PM'd Ajey on Discord asking him what he was going to do, and he said because he was afraid of losing money on the BOLT Kickstarter at the time, he wasn't going to say anything, so I cut contact with him. And then because I couldn't figure out what system to use, I went to consult a bunch of political media (books, articles, tabletop games) to help me find the answer. In this research period I first encountered situationist ideas that would later become a greater influence on me.

我開始把 TRPG 想成創造情境的辦法，雖然回頭看我覺得這樣理解太簡單化（那時候我不知道「情境」其實是個術語，以為意思跟普遍的用處一樣，也還沒讀過范內格姆在《日常生活的革命》之中對扮演角色的批評）。反正我的目標變了—我受到 Alejandro de Acosta 在〈進出情境迷宮〉寫的這幾句話的影響：「要來建造自由，就來建造情境：微界、暫行微社，同時轉化障礙和受阻物。」這就是我理想的遊戲經驗—如果遊戲是障礙而玩家是遊戲的受阻物，那我希望遊玩能同時轉化遊戲和玩家自己。

I started thinking of tabletop games as ways to create situations, although in retrospect I feel this was an oversimplified understanding (at that time I didn't know “situation” referred to a specific term, and thought that it was being used in a general way, and I hadn't read Vaneigem's critique against playing roles in The Revolution of Everyday Life). In any case my goal had changed—I was influenced by what Alejandro de Acosta had written in “Ways In and Ways Out of the Situationist Labyrinth”: “To construct freedom, construct situations: micro-worlds, provisional micro-societies, in which the obstacle and what it blocks are simultaneously transformed.” This was my dream game experience—if the game was an obstacle and the player was what it blocked, then I hoped that play would simultaneously transform the game and its players.

因此，《幽靈島》變成了一個抒情似的遊戲，設計是故意模糊玩家跟玩家角色的界線。玩家扮演的是被國家試圖清除記憶的囚犯，同時也扮演清不掉記憶的「幽影眾」。在遊戲過程中，玩家們會互相分享自己真正體驗過社會安排的無義的記憶，但不能在分享中說出對別人記憶的感想—只能在分享完之後才能說，而且限制只能說一個字。遊戲再規定這些感想必須組成一張單字表；蹊蹺是遊戲也規定必須要隔一段時間才能把感想記錄下來，強迫玩家接受忘記感想的體驗。遊戲的單字表規定必須要記錄每個人的感想字，如果記不得的話必須用遊戲預先設定的單字表來補。

And so, Phantom Island became a lyric-like game, with the design purposely blurring the lines between player and player character. You played as a prisoner whose memories the state attempted to erase, while simultaneously playing “The Phantom Collective” of inerasable memories. During the course of the game, players would go around sharing real memories of experiences injustice due to the world's social organization, though nobody could express reactions while anybody else shared their memories—only after all memories were shared, and only restricted to one word of reaction. The game then required that these reactions must be compiled into a table of words, the catch was that the game also required that the players must wait a period of time before recording their reactions, forcing them to accept the experience of forgetting. The game's table required that everyone's reaction word must be recorded, and if you couldn't remember the word, you had to use the game's predefined table of words to fill in the blank.

在《幽靈島》的第一版本，遊戲的預先設定的單字表是從我另一個遊戲《死貓兒頭》來的。《死貓兒頭》是個佛教遊（我信佛，但是信得很荒誕），遊戲利用冒險家不知道為什麼被怪物殺死的情形來要求玩家想像如何脫離導致這解果的遊戲系統。在第二版本，單字表是個人性，是從我在遊戲中新加的詩來的，玩家會在這時刻集體地朗讀。這首詩其實是為了一位獨立 TRPG 設計師同事寫的—我不想說出這個人的名字，因為接下來的故事被傳出去之後我知道只會被用來傷害他的聲明，不會有問責；關於我在這故事中犯的錯，我當時有試圖問這設計師問責是什麼，可是他不想回答。另外一方面是，這是好幾年發生過的故事，先後順序肯定有參差不齊—但是我盡力說出真實。

In the first version of Phantom Island, the predefined table came from another one of games, Head of a Dead Cat. Head of a Dead Cat was a Buddhist game (I am Buddhist, but in an absurd way) that used a monster's senseless murder of an adventurer to ask the player how to escape the game system that produced this result. In the second version, the table was personal, derived from a new poem I added for players to read aloud at this point in the game. This poem was actually written for a fellow indie TTRPG designer—I don't want to say this person's name, because I know the following story, if circulated, will only be used to damage their reputation, and not create accountability; as for the wrongs I've done in this story, I asked the designer at the time what accountability would look like, but they refused to give me an answer. The other side is, this is a story that happened several years ago, and there are definitely discrepancies in the timeline—but I'm strived to express the truth.

故事是這樣：我在推特上看到這設計師在批評圈子的殖民主義時候，認為他批評中有說了一些種組歧視的意見。我很不該的在私訊臭罵他如果要為了得到一種正義而支持另外一種壓迫，那他就沒資格談正義—說完後我就封鎖了他的帳戶。我那時候很蠢地認為這樣為了指出不公正提嗓罵人是該做的事；我現在知道不對，而且不注意的話還有可能越過界線變成言語虐待。

The story went something like this: I saw this designer say something I believed was racist in a criticism against colonialism in the scene on Twitter. I shouldn't but did send them a private message fiercely yelling at them, saying that if they sought one kind of justice at the expense of upholding another kind of oppression, then they had no right to speak of justice—and then I blocked their account. At the time I foolishly believed that raising your voice like this to yell at someone for the sake of pointing out injustice was something you ought to do; now I know that's not right, and also if you're not careful it's possible to cross the line and end up causing verbal abuse.

後來我看到了互相跟髓者明顯在不點名推文批評我對那設計師私下說的話，批評我這樣在這殖民主義的批評之中亂罵人家種組歧視才是在支持壓迫，而且如果我相信那殖民主義的批評之中真的有種組歧視的話，請不要在跟他們圈子那部分的人交往。同時，我也發現我在推特的跟隨者突然失去了很多。有這麼生氣的反應，因為我認為真實的程度與說話者的憤怒程度是正比（這也不對），那時候的我馬上認為自己才是錯的，開始做更多政治研究去改善我的想法。研究完之後，我解除那設計師的封鎖，試圖在私訊中道歉，說我原本的種組歧視的批評不太對。他完全不回，反而在不點名推文中罵我說我的行為像施虐者一樣，說我這樣不算是真正的道歉。所以我再次送個私訊問他說真正的道歉倒底是什麼，他也不回。我是在這沒救的時刻寫了那首詩，放在我推特封面圖上，希望這樣能重新開始對話：

Later I saw a mutual in an obvious subtweet criticizing what I had said to that designer in private, criticizing that me falsely accusing people of racism in this context of criticizing colonialism was the real upholding of oppression, and that if I believed that their criticism of colonialism had racist opinions in it, to please stop associating with their part of the scene. At the same time, I also noticed I had suddenly lost a lot of followers. With such an angry response, because I was convinced that the degree of truth is proportional to the anger with which it is spoken (this was also incorrect), the me at the time immediately became convinced I was in the wrong, and started to do more political research to reform my mind. After the research, I unblocked that designer and attempted to apologize in PMs, saying that my initial criticism of racism was not entirely correct. They refused to respond, and instead subtweeted me for acting like an abuser, saying that this was not a real apology. So I sent them another PM asking them what a proper apology would be, to which they also didn't respond. It was in this moment of hopelessness that I wrote the poem, putting it in my Twitter header, hoping this would reopen conversation:

and I am interested in cruelty / but probably not / in the way that you're thinking of. / I'm interested in what we do / under the shadows of the lines we draw / called necessity, those shadows / under which choice goes to die / and there are some of us / who can draw their lines without shadows / who can kill choice in broad daylight / and I am not one of them / not because I am afraid of the killing / but because I am ashamed / there are so many of us / who draw no lines / who still cross our lines / and call that keeping choice alive

而我的興趣是殘忍 / 但因該不是 / 跟你想像中㇐樣。 / 我的興趣是我們 / 在畫分線之下的陰影 / 當作是必要的事，那些陰影 / 之下是選擇去死 / 而我們之間某些人 / 能畫出無影的分線 / 能在大白天之下把選擇殺死 / 而我屬不虞他們 / 不是因為我怕殺 / 是因為我感到慚愧 / 我們有那麼多人 / 連線都不畫 / 連分都還過 / 還當作是選擇在求生

沒用。我最後只能遵守那互相跟髓者的命令，禁止自己跟那圈子的部分交往（除了一個知道這件是跟我說可以繼續交往的人）。你問現在的我對這件事的評估怎樣，我會說我有可能真的有言語虐待這個設計師—我沒有私訊所以不能核實。無論如何，為了這個原因那設計師跟他圈子的部分完全有理對我有這樣的反應。可是在政治方面，現在的我認為那設計師的反殖民主義批評是陣營主義性的，我不同意。可是不管那設計師、那圈子部份的人和圈子全體對我的負面看法，自己因為虐待有 PTSD 的我認為我的行為觸發了那設計師，他這樣為了一個私訊召集了一大堆人反對我以及一直用不點名推文來跟我溝通都是受過精神創傷的行為，該慈悲地對待。________，如果你正在讀這些話，對不起，我不該那樣罵你，而且一開始就是該道這個歉—但是我也該誠實地說我不能為自己有你反對的政治意見而道歉。

It didn't. In the end I could only obey that mutual's command, banning myself from further interactions with that part of the scene (with the exception of one person who knew what happened and let me continue relations). If you asked me what I think about the incident today, I would say that there was a possibility I actually was verbally abusive towards that designer—I don't have the PMs anymore so I can't check. Regardless, I believe that designer and their part of the scene had perfect sense in reacting to me like this for that reason. But on a political level, the present me believes that that designer's anticolonial criticism was campist, and I don't agree. But regardless of how that designer, that part of the scene, or the scene in general views me negatively, as someone who has PTSD due to abuse, I believe that my behaviors triggered that designer, and that them rallying so many people to act against me in response to one private message and them refusing to communicate with anything but subtweets was all traumatized behavior, and should be treated with compassion. ________, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, and that's what I should have apologized for at the start—however I must also say with honesty that I cannot apologize for having political opinions that you oppose.

我花那麼多時間談《幽靈島》中的詩的故事背景是因為跟從詩組成的單字表設計功能有關。功能是阻止玩家的表達。填完單字表之後，玩家們會再次分享之前的記憶，但這次只能用單字表的字來說話；這次大家能隨意說出感想，但分享記憶的人還是只能用單字表回答。分享完後，隔一段規定的時間，單字表再重組—但是這次忘記的單字留個空行。然後，玩家們又再次朗讀那首詩，但這次詩的結尾有改變：

My reason for spending so much time to talk about the backstory behind the poem in Phantom Island is because it's related to the function of the table of words derived from it. That function is to block players from expressing themselves. After completing the table of words, players would again share the same memories from before, but this time only using words from the table to speak; this time everyone could freely express reactions, but the person sharing the memory still could only use words from the table to respond. After sharing and waiting for a mandated period of time, players would compose the table again—but this time forgotten words would be left as blank lines. And then, the players would collectively read aloud that poem again, but with a changed ending:

and there are some of us / who can draw their lines without shadows / who can kill choice in broad daylight / and I am not one of them / not because I am afraid of our silences / but because I wonder / why so many of us / are afraid of what happens / when we speak, and find our choices / still, and painfully / alive

而我們之間某些人 / 能畫出無影的分線 / 能在大白天之下把選擇殺死 / 而我屬不虞他們 / 不是因為怕我們之間的安靜 / 是因為我覺得奇怪 / 為什麼有那麼多人 / 害怕在話之中 / 發現我們的選擇 / 痛苦地還是 / 在求生

大家再最後一次分享同樣的記憶，這次暢所欲言地說出自己的故事和感想。分享完後，大家再最後一次說出一個感想字，這次不放回單字表，反而一起呼應彼此的字，再集體決定如何處理創造的回聲。

Finally everyone would share the same memories one last time, speaking freely in both storytelling and reactions. After sharing, everyone would say a reaction word one last time, but this time instead of putting it back into a table, they would echo each other's words, then collectively decide what to do with their echoes.

如果我能利用一個感想字來形容《幽靈島》，那就是「收回」。這是個關於收回自己的記憶、自己的話、自己跟別人的關係、自己跟世界的關係的遊戲。是個關於克服系統性異化的遊戲，但克服的方法不是靠冷酷的理論，而是分享被壓抑的感情—有令人不快地人道和自由主義—也不是在說冷酷理論是革命性政治的標記。反正我不再為這個遊戲設定革命性政治的目標，但最後的政治目標也沒想得很清楚—可是這思想模糊的狀況反映了我當時個人的糊塗，尤其是我跟圈子中其他設計師政治性衝突造成的糊塗。我想找出擺脫糊塗的逃路。呼應 Wendy Trevino 的話，這遊戲是來處理我自己的問題，但我也知道問題不能完全被遊戲處理。

If I could use one reaction word to describe Phantom Island, it would be “reclaim.” This is a game about reclaiming your memories, your words, your connections to other people, and your connection to the world. It's a game about overcoming systematic alienation, not through cold hard theory, but sharing repressed emotions—which makes it painfully humanitarian and liberal—not that cold hard theory is the mark of revolutionary politics either. In any case, I had given up on the original goal of making the game about revolutionary politics, but I didn't think through the final political goal of the game very well either—but this condition of muddled thinking reflected my own confusion at the time, especially the confusion caused by my political conflicts with other designers in the scene. I wanted a way out of the confusion. To echo Wendy Trevino, this game was to sort out my own issues, but I knew that the issues couldn't be completely sorted out by the game.

列表第四個遊戲，《味道》，我本來不確定該不該列入，因為回頭看它的政治目標很低。《味道》原本是為了亞裔創作者的電馭叛客製作營寫的—因此，我開頭的設計目標不是要反映某種政治思想，而是要雙面反映賽博龐克類型跟亞裔身分。寫完這句話，發覺現在的自己好像是把太接近自由主義的思想歸於「不算是政治思想」的類別，因為我把革命性思想作為「真正的政治思想」的標準（這樣有點精英）。革命價值放在一邊，《味道》還是個政治遊戲，只是現在的我看不起。

The fourth game on the list, Smelltracks, I initially wasn't sure whether to include, because in retrospect its political goals were very low. Smelltracks was originally written for the Cyberpunk by Asian Creators Game Jam—accordingly, my starting design goal for it wasn't to reflect some type of political thinking, but to reflect both sides of the cyberpunk genre and Asian identity. After writing this sentence, I realize that the present me seems to think that any thinking that's too close to liberalism should be put into the “doesn't count as political thinking” category, because I've set revolutionary thinking as the standard for “real political thinking” (which is kind of elitist). Setting revolutionary merits aside, Smelltracks was still a political game, albeit one that the present me looks down upon.

不管版本，《味道》的基本前提是把遊戲作為散發宣言的媒介。所謂的宣言是描述身為台美人的我當「種族賽博格」有個「隱喻的私生子」的感覺，認為關注的不該是了解種族身份，而是了解做種族分配的壓迫性起源。這宣言非常被 Wendy Trevino 的《Cruel Fiction》（中文：殘忍的幻想）影響，特別是〈Brazilian Is Not a Race〉（中文：巴西人不是人種）的部分。廣廣來說，Trevino 的詩和推文（沒錯，我說推文）大量影響了我 2020 到 2021 年的政治思想發展；我也覺得很榮幸在刪除推特帳號之前能跟她是互相跟隨者。她從來沒理過我關於遊戲在 po 的事，可是這我不計較。

Regardless of version, the basic premise of Smelltracks was to make the game into a vehicle for spreading a manifesto. The manifesto in question described how, as a Taiwanese American “ethnic cyborg,” I felt like a “metaphorical bastard” who was convinced that the focus shouldn't be on understanding ethnic identity, but on understanding the oppressive origins of ethnic divisions. This manifesto was heavily influenced by Wendy Trevino's Cruel Fiction, especially the section of “Brazilian Is Not A Race.” Broadly speaking, Trevino's poems and tweets (yes, I said tweets) were huge influences on the development of my political thinking from 2020 to 2021; I also felt very honored that before deleting my Twitter account we had been mutuals. She never bothered to interact with anything I posted on games, but that I'm not bothered with.

《味道》的故事內容在不同版本之間也沒有太多變化。玩家扮演的是 24 小時全年無休電話服務中心的服務人員，為了準時睡覺和上班被公司規定要吃特別的安眠藥，吃了會體驗公司設計的夢。大逆轉是一個華裔賽博格龐克侵入公司的夢，利用夢的空間來散發宣言，就跟我利用遊戲做一樣。後來的變體目標也就是想出如何增強宣言的散發。最有創意的是第二版的《#SMELLTRACKS》：遊戲的結局邀請玩家到我改成部分機器人的推特帳號，把每幾小時自動 po 出 280 字長度的隨機宣言段按照順序排好。很多人對這些宣言段推文很有興趣，可是興趣的不是宣言段的政治要旨，而是宣言段描述的私人心情，像我跟我父親的關係的內容。這失敗的經驗使我放棄第二版的推特模式，在第三版本的設計者評論之中我冒著犬儒態度地說自己只是在「鑽景觀制度的空子」。

The story of Smelltracks also didn't really change much between versions. You played as a customer service agent at a 24/7 call enter, required by your company to take sleeping pills for the sake of making sure you sleep and clock in on time; these sleeping pills would also make you experience company-programmed dreams. The plot twist was that a Sino cyborg punk would hack into the company dream, using the space of the dream to distribute the manifesto, like me using the game to do the same. Later versions of Smelltracks aimed to figure out how to enhance this distribution. The most creative version was the second version #SMELLTRACKS: the end of the game invited players to visit my partially-converted-to-bot twitter account and put the random 280-character-long manifesto fragments posted every couple hours in order. Many people were interested in these manifesto fragment tweets, but instead of being interested in the political message of the fragments, they were more interested in the personal feelings, like content about the relationship between me and my father. The experience of this failure led me to abandon the Twitter format of v2, which I cynically described in the designer commentary of v3 as nothing but “gaming the spectacle.”

那第三版又有什麼問題？在第三版，我第一次試圖合併亞裔音樂家的配音和遊戲的文字；這配音我在第一版時候就編輯好了，只是到第三版為止都只放在一邊當外加內容。配音中精選的歌詞的確是增強了宣言和遊戲故事的要旨，可是這不是我唯一的改變。在視覺方面，我還有利用文字對齊方式來代表故事中的情緒發展。我對這些改變的批評就是：為了要增強要旨的效果，我同時增強了玩家的被動觀眾角色。這批評其實可以廣廣說《味道》這整個遊戲的發展，也就是為什麼我在政治方面上很討厭這個遊戲。遊戲的設計該在遊戲中讓玩家呈現更主動的角色，不是要玩家乖乖當宣傳鼓動的接受者。

And what were the problems with the third version? In the third version, I attempted for the first time to integrate a soundtrack of Asian musicians with the text of the game; this soundtrack I had already finished compiling in v1, but up until v3 it had just been sitting to the side as extra content. The featured soundtrack lyrics absolutely enhanced the messages of the manifesto and the story of the game, but this wasn't the only change I made. On a visual level, I also used text alignment to represent emotional developments in the story. My criticism of all these changes is: for the sake of enhancing the effect of my messages, I simultaneously enhanced the role of the player as a passive spectator. This criticism actually extends to the entire development of Smelltracks as a game, which is why I really hate it on a political level. The design of a game should let the player take on a more active role during the game, not demand that the player obediently serve as an agitprop receiver.