Video Games About Magic

"Do you know how to read?" you ask. "A bit," she remarks. Her voice is naturally low -- alto tones -- but there's something wrong with the modulation, as though at any moment she might start to scream. "I still have to say the words aloud sometimes, in order to get the sense out of them.""

"You studied art history in school, of course, but most of it left you cold: paintings, as much barrier as window, inviting but inaccessible; sculpture, a little closer, but still nothing you could interact with. The play between design and story, shape and movement, the artist's conception and the viewer's desire -- that's what fascinates you. That, and the sheer magic of a good animate. And all she claims to know of art is a mural at the airport? Pity... It would not have been out of place, considering her supposed backstory, to give her a few remarks on sculpture, or perhaps some thoughts on the relationship of art and viewer."

"[On her creator] "He hated people -- though I think he was also quite lonely. It was a question of not having patience for anyone." Still that low voice. "If anyone tried to come up to the studio he'd get out his shotgun and fire into the air until they got the idea. The woman didn't even bring milk if she knew he was there. They had a system of leaving things for each other so that they didn't have to meet. And when he sold me, it was the same. He wrote letters, made arrangements; did not even stay with me, when they came to look me over.""

"What do you know about love?" (As long as you're catechizing her, you might as well be thorough.) "That it makes people behave like idiots," she replies harshly. "That it takes more than it gives."

"You speak the old reset code; she freezes, face and body motionless, and there's almost a palpable chill in the air as her internal motors turn off and she stops generating heat. "List Scenarios?" she asks in a frosty voice. YES OR NO? "Yes," you reply; and she lists them: First, that she kills herself. Second, that she kills you. Third, that she departs, seeking her artist. Fourth, that she departs, seeking other exhibits. Fifth, that you end as friends and confidants. Sixth, that you end as lovers. Seventh, that you take her place on the pedestal. Eighth, that you offer her a home with yourself. But whatever the ninth and further scenarios might be, it seems you are doomed not to hear of them: her vocal program stutters, and after a moment or two of waiting, you depart disappointed."

"You trace the curve of her cheek gently with the back of one finger-- and jerk your hand away. What you'd meant as an assessing gesture (realism in every particular, that's the goal; a good critic thinks about skin texture and warmth, dammit. You're doing your job) suddenly feels like something else. Perhaps because she's looking at you, her eyes unnaturally wide. Your eyes meet, and she lets go a slow breath. "Yes," you say softly. "That's what I thought." Whatever she is, she's no animate. She says nothing, but you suspect that she heard you clearly enough."

"So you believe in a swift absolute punishment for wrongdoing, someone who sits up there in the clouds judging and distributing instant retribution?" "Hardly," she says"I'm telling you what my artist told me, and he got it from stories, which he himself probably only half believed. And even in those stories, the divine retribution only works that way some of the time -- usually when you've personally offended the gods. If you've merely been naughty, your children may wind up cursed and you yourself get off... It's not a failproof system." "I do like the lightning bolts, though," you say. "Yes," she agrees. "A nice touch.""

"I didn't go to church, if that's what you mean [asking about religion]. He had no use for that. We could hear the ringing of the church bell, up at the studio, but he always said that was a sop for people who didn't dare take on the gods in their raw form. As pagan, and unkind. As you may have gathered, he wasn't exactly an optimist."

"What do you know about Athena?" "Not terribly much," she remarks. "He had no use for her. Said she was clever and soulless, and that the world needed no more cold women than it already contained."

"What do you know about sculpture?" you ask. "What, you think because I am a statue, I'm an expert? I've barely seen anything but myself; only the plaster model that he used to plan me out." Her voice doesn't sound like it's coming from a human throat at all. "I think he had some other pieces that he'd worked on, around the studio, but I never got to see them; by the time my sight was fully developed, they were gone.""

"So essentially he wanted people around in general but he was too picky to like any particular people?" "It's a little more complicated than that. There were other factors." She pauses thoughtfully. "Pride. Total absorption in what he was working on. This kind of focus that made it hard for him even to acknowledge that there was someone else in the room sometimes. If he was thinking about something, he was thinking, and he didn't want to be interrupted."

"Evidently she's gone on thinking about your remarks, because after a moment she says, "I've never even seen anything I wanted to eat. It seems a disgusting process, to be honest." You regard her with amusement. "Being human does involve certain disgusting processes, of which eating is probably the least offensive." "I still don't get it," she replies primly."

"It was a terrible disappointment," she remarks thoughtfully, "when I first learned that the ocean is only water, slipping back and forth under the command of the moon. He used to tell me things like that, even before I asked: I think he could perceive where I was looking, what I wanted to know."

"She turns so that she is looking at you straight on -- level gaze, smoky eyes, brows pale and washed out in the light. Not her most beautiful angle, which might be why she avoids it."

"Her eyes shine a smoky green -- a color almost alien, until she meets your look, and smiles."

"fine architecture of chin and cheekbone, brow and nose. If there is vulnerability, or the hint of a flaw, it lingers in her mouth and at the edges of her eyes. She looks a bit blank, as though caught up in some internal thought; her focus doesn't seem to be on you."

"You say Dionysus takes away inhibitions and constraints. But that sounds a bit dangerous to me." She laughs. "Dangerous? All the gods are dangerous! But the idea is to get outside the boundaries of yourself, not to be trapped by your fears and your habits." "So in order to gain freedom, you first surrender your will," you say. "That doesn't sound like an entirely wise exchange. What is freedom if you have no control over where it leads you?" "There is a price to everything," she replies enigmatically."

"[Input “tell about sex”] Oh, really. There are some things that fall outside your job description."

"[Input “think about sex”] Indulging your one-track mind isn't going to get this job done any more quickly."

"Do it all, everything!"

"Where there is not light, there can spider!"

"There's <<a cat on ,my keyboard!~ [sic]"

"Innovating innovation!"

"So. You read splash text."

"Potatoes gonna potate!"

"Not on steam!"

"Ceci n'est pas une title screen!"

"Played by cowboys!"

"I like this player. It played well. It did not give up."

"Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen."

"Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point, as though you were separate things. As though we were separate things."

"Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father sun, mother moon. Ancestral spirits, animal spirits. Jinn. Ghosts. The green man. Then gods, demons. Angels. Poltergeists. Aliens, extraterrestrials. Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change."

"We are the universe. We are everything you think isn’t you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the universe touch your skin, and throw light on you? To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story."

"Once upon a time, there was a player. The player was you, [player name]. Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a spinning globe of molten rock. The ball of molten rock circled a ball of blazing gas that was three hundred and thirty thousand times more massive than it. They were so far apart that light took eight minutes to cross the gap. The light was information from a star, and it could burn your skin from a hundred and fifty million kilometres away. Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite. The sun was a square of white. The days were short; there was much to do; and death was a temporary inconvenience. Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story. Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes very beautiful indeed. Sometimes the player woke from one dream into another, then woke from that into a third. Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen."

"Let’s go back. The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A woman gathered the atoms; she drank and ate and inhaled; and the woman assembled the player, in her body. And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother’s body, into the long dream. And the player was a new story, never told before, written in letters of DNA. And the player was a new program, never run before, generated by a sourcecode a billion years old. And the player was a new human, never alive before, made from nothing but milk and love. You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love. Let’s go further back. The seven billion billion billion atoms of the player’s body were created, long before this game, in the heart of a star. So the player, too, is information from a star. And the player moves through a story, which is a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus, that exists inside a small, private world created by the player, who inhabits a universe created by… Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world that was soft and warm and simple. Sometimes hard, and cold, and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the universe in its head; flecks of energy, moving through vast empty spaces. Sometimes it called those flecks “electrons” and “protons”. Sometimes it called them “planets” and “stars”. Sometimes it believed it was in a universe that was made of energy that was made of offs and ons; zeros and ones; lines of code. Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was reading words on a screen. You are the player, reading words… Shush… Sometimes the player read lines of code on a screen. Decoded them into words; decoded words into meaning; decoded meaning into feelings, emotions, theories, ideas, and the player started to breath faster and deeper and realised it was alive, it was alive, those thousand deaths had not been real, the player was alive You. You. You are alive."

"and the universe said I love you and the universe said you have played the game well and the universe said everything you need is within you and the universe said you are stronger than you know and the universe said you are the daylight and the universe said you are the night and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you and the universe said the light you seek is within you and the universe said you are not alone and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code and the universe said I love you because you are love."

"Jens “Jeb” Bergensten at Minecraft Live 2020"

"Any computer is a laptop if you're brave enough!"