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In more honest self-reflective moments, mainly ones that are not dedicated to aggrandizing my tastes and wondering why the rest of the world doesn’t think the way I do, I wonder why I love bigness so much. A bit of back-pedalling might be necessary for the sake of clarity. By “bigness” I have come to mean in my head “ambition.” Even when a work of art is dreadful, I will give no end of credit to its creator if they present something utterly personal and ambitious. Examples are too numerous to cite here, but doubtless many works spring immediately to mind. What I figured out is that I am a person obsessed with “value” as a false but attractive concept to judge a work of art on. How big is this painting? How many brush strokes, how big a canvass do I get for my money or time? How long is this song I’m paying for? Et cetera.

Another side of me just plain adores wildly experimental and eccentric work. The polite word for this is “insanity.” Once again, this is driven, at its most basic and emotional level, by a desire for “value.” Whatever that word entails. Experimentalism is grander in many ways that delivering something in a straightforward fashion. It puts up a wall, gives you more incentive to go back, to see just what the artist or designer was thinking when they delivered that deliberately crazy element. Or maybe you fixate on tiny details that are so minuscule the artist would scoff at any of your complicated readings of how they fit the theme and tone of the work. Pretentious things like that occupy more time, give more for my restless and wayward mind to focus on. Hence, a greater perceived “value.”

A blog being the perfect place to air my self-indulgent plans to an uncaring world, I have decided to make this page the platform for my mad genius experiments. Realize I use the word genius ironically, and yes, that makes me even more arrogant and “self-knowing” using it in that way. I don’t truly care too much.

After so much digression in the beginning, I’m sure that most of the readers have quit and my hard-won bond with them has been shattered into a million metaphorical pieces. Since pointing out digression is the most vile form of digression there is, I’ll start another paragraph presently.

My plan is to buy only downloadable games, small in scope, price, and length, for an entire year. For me this specifically means iPhone games, indie and other small games for my iMac and “downstairs” PC, and WiiWare and PSN games. I’ll hopefully make this experiment an anchor of my further blog posts, but don’t count on it. What really matters is that this project will give me a chance to play all kinds of games that have come from minds that aren’t bending to the will of the mass market, that may or may not be released by giant publishers but that all carry a stamp of “this game is a singular work.” Now, I am not in any way saying that there are fewer “big” games that are unique. Actually, I am. But I acknowledge that I will miss out on some wonders, some landmarks, perhaps even some “essential” games released in the next twelve months. This for me is a sacrifice I am more than willing to make.

One of the biggest bright sides is that I will be able to buy far more games than usual, and instead of playing single games for long periods of time, will be able to absorb more in a shorter space of time. This is not inherently “better” but it will be a change of pace after playing Final Fantasy XIII for thirty-five glorious hours in a row before I grew–not tired of it, for I think the game is a masterwork of streamlined game design (just dragged down by the story, but that’s another blog post)– but having the feeling of being satisfied before it was over. That has not been a problem with the zippy and brash Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, which I have had the great pleasure of playing through a few times lately.

This is just an opportunity to extend my tastes outward, rather than be stuck in an inward cycle of the same third-person action games and JRPGs that I normally play. It will open my eyes to what lies outside the norm, and will generate some entertaining reading for you out there. Thank you for reading, and good night to all, and merry very early Christmas.