I reposted Paolo’s Games Without Players piece yesterday because every time I think about how best to situate Thicket, I feel like it would be as a zero player mode simulation, constantly reseeding itself. I don’t think of Thicket as being a particularly healthy space to inhabit, it’s purposely about themes that bother me- predation, hierarchy, violence, manipulation.

So if grotto is a parallel game that has many players rather than zero, what is it about? My first impulses would be group creativity and combatting entropy… so maybe a sort of dungeon gardening game. a game where you clear out weeds and sludge and encourage growth. Engaging with a system that may seem horrifying and tending it as a community.

I am imagining maybe building and tending shrines of some sort…