Tuesday 26 March 2013

The Funeral


The announcement that Glitch was ending came with a very well-written FAQ that focused almost entirely on answering the question, "Isn't there some way we can stop this?" with various forms of "No."  We couldn't stop it and we couldn't save Glitch.  Now that the site has gone into archive mode the forums and groups have left our lives as well.

I've never experienced the death of a game before.  Games are mostly ideas, and the ideas are still out there.  Even when the hardware that ran games is long gone, computing power allows us to easily replace that hardware with software.  It's weird that I can't go play Glitch right now, the way I can go play Space Invaders or Zork 2.  So instead I am remembering the good times I had with Glitch and imagining how much fun we might have had together if Glitch were still here with me.  It's like imagining how happy my mother would have been to see her granddaughters.

Glitch was a game that was known as non-violent and quirky, but that was just a simple view of its public face.  It was a game where you could find holes in the world that led you to places you shouldn't stand or that let you stand in the air.  It was a game where you could access parts of the code and guess at new locations and badges through URL manipulation.  It was a game you could play with a sleeping baby on one arm and with virtually no sleep yourself.  And it was especially a game where you could find support and caring from other players.

Glitch may have closed but it is not really gone.  Its remarkable art is still available in the creative commons.  Communities of glitchen still interact on the web.  Glitch has inspired several successful projects in the real world since its death, and it may inspire more.  Having played Glitch has inspired me to create, and to learn to create.

Glitch.com helpfully has a photobook from the life of glitch, and memorials to the many, many glitchen who lived in Ur.

It's hard to write a blog about the math behind Glitch when Glitch doesn't exist, but I've decided to do it.  I'm sure there will be purists who observe that the things I post will not be about Glitch at all, and will also perhaps not be about math, but I think I will continue to blog about the math behind Glitch, even if I objectively do not do so.

Please leave a note in the guest book for the family,
Humbabella

3 comments:

  1. Blog on, 'bella! ~ Pascale

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  2. I'm still here, and thanks for such a thoughtful and sweet post. You're exactly right about how Glitch still exists as ideas, and I'm looking forward to whatever you've got to say! (Lilith)

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