Welcome to the latest installment from the Bahnsen Knights News Channel on writing Pixel Pulps...
There is something about the idea of 'accumulation' in writing that has always appealed to me. It's not just about the day-to-day stubbornness of the craft—writing two or three pages a day—where, in a short time, you have a novel. Rather, it's the notion that accumulation can be used to justify anything.
I've never been attracted to the elegance of simplicity. Given a choice between minimalist industrial designs and complicated Goldberg machines, I don't hesitate for a second. Exacerbated complexity, redundancy, and gratuitousness are pillars of the kind of art I like the most.
In computer systems development, there is this concept of "refactoring," a procedure by which a developer optimizes code so that it does the same thing but in a more efficient way.
Faced with the idea of refactoring—which etymologically is nothing more than re-considering the elements of the code—I propose the idea of "accumulating." The code is not optimized; more code is written to keep the system doing the same thing.
This same principle guides the writing of our Pixel Pulps. When I was quite a bit younger, I read about the Finite Rules Paradox. Basically, this paradox tells us that the next element of a series cannot be predicted because new rules can always be added to justify any becoming. 1-2-4-8-16... 32? But why not 999? There is a rule—more complex surely—that can justify 999 or any other element.
This same principle guides the writing of our Pixel Pulps. When I was quite a bit younger, I read about the Finite Rules Paradox. Basically, this paradox posits that predicting the next element in a series is impossible because new rules can continually be added to justify any progression. For instance, 1-2-4-8-16... 32? But why not 999? There exists a rule—undoubtedly more complex—that can rationalize 999 or any other subsequent element.
Writing, then, is nothing more than adding rules to be able to narrate anything.
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Bahnsen Knights is out now... You can even try out the demo if you would like a little taste before delving fully into the world of Pixel Pulps!
Mothmen 1966 and Varney Lake are also currently in the Steam Winter Sale.