Column: 'A Journalistic Bent: Gaming 3006'

'A Journalistic Bent' is a regular column in which UK-based veteran journalist Jim Rossignol explores the issues of gaming, game development, and the games themselves - this week's column takes a creative angle to reflect on the current pressures on game content. The following extract puts a spin on modern day gaming as viewed in the distant future: "All this emotive activity is pretty exhausting and so I regularly break off to soothe my vitamin-drenched neurones with some ambient gaming. This abstract descendent of the puzzle gaming of the 21st century is designed to be complimentary to the brain's functionality. Neuroscience has long been aware that the brain is little more than a pattern completion engine, so like all 31st century denizens I carry a personalised ludic pattern box, a handy device which produces generative gameworks—patterns that are suitable for my brain to complete on a subconscious level. I play the games without conscious reasoning—a vital exercise for the more strenuous activities I will later undertake. The ludic patterns are generative loops which depend as much on my brainwave activity as they do on any programming code on the machine side. The loops will continue to alter (though never growing too complex) for as long as I elect to play in them. You can now read the column in its entirety to step into Jim Rossignol's projective creative reflections (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).