{"id":5330,"date":"2022-04-11T17:11:59","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T00:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/?p=5330"},"modified":"2022-04-11T17:11:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T00:11:59","slug":"use-participation-visibility-and-anti-artificial-scarcity-how-small-independent-tools-help-us-construct-a-reality-that-empowers-us-something-of-a-manifesto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nathalielawhead.com\/candybox\/use-participation-visibility-and-anti-artificial-scarcity-how-small-independent-tools-help-us-construct-a-reality-that-empowers-us-something-of-a-manifesto","title":{"rendered":"Use, participation, visibility, and anti-artificial scarcity… How small independent tools help us construct a reality that empowers us (something of a manifesto)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tool development, as an umbrella term that is used to describe software that is both utilitarian and a toy, has become deeply important to me. I think there is something interesting to observe from that space, especially when it is centered around making interesting visual experiments functional to artists. It invites abundance and generocity.
\nFor example, J.Kirchartz’s Glitchy3bitDither<\/a> has become invalualbe to me. It’s a browser based glitching tool that lets you import an image, and then choose from a series of glitch effects. Yes, I can make my own. Yes, there are so many of these. No, for me, nothing really compares to it because it’s just so specifically perfect. It’s simple but effective. This describes the spirit of many of the tools you end up coming acros on the internet. Those that you just can’t imagine functioning without anymore.
\nThese are the gifts of small individual developers, not monopolies, quietly driving how we are empowered to create our digital art.<\/p>\n

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\n– Image from “A marinated guide to game-making to help those in need.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

When Bandcamp was acquired by Epic Games, developers quickly came up with tools that let musicians create their own Bandcamp style media players for selling albums on itch.io. Such as Scritch Editor<\/a> and Blamscamp Editor<\/a> being two good ones.
\nExamples like these illustrate people’s sense of urgency to maintain spaces not owned or controlled by monopolies. To maintain something individualistic on an internet that is increasingly becoming less so.
\nAs pessimistic as one’s outlook can become after seeing capitalism swallow so much good in the online world, programmers continue to offer alternatives. No mater how small, it’s never insignificant.<\/p>\n

As a side note, it’s also inspiring how tool developers extend existing platforms. There are a number of itch.io specific tools or resources worth mentioning… Better Creator Pages<\/a> (a free collection of guides to help you create a better creator page), The Itch Game Page Image Guide & Templates<\/a> (a free project that helps you create great pages to promote your work on itch), itch.io’s HTML basement<\/a> (A demo of extra HTML features for some of itch’s WYSIWYG that aren’t included in the WYSIWYG UI), Content Warning Generator<\/a> (generates a content warning prompt to show up before your game’s page loads), Easy Releasy<\/a> (a series of hassle-free itch graphic templates for your game pages), and also my own where I share all of my CSS themes<\/a>… There, I finally offloaded these links. I feel much lighter now!
\nIt goes without saying that tool developers make the platforms you use better. This is democratic. It’s the foundation of a positive community working toward maintaining what is important to them.<\/p>\n

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\n– Message from RPG In A Box<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Not too recently I wrote \u201cRPG In A Box\u201d is a cool tool! (an alternative game development curation)<\/a>, in which I highlighted the indie game development tool RPG In A Box<\/a>. Not long after that, the developer posted about how development will have to be put on hold if the situation doesn’t change. Justin is working hard on drumming up more support and attention for it, and I hope it ends in success. RPG In A Box is a wonderful tool. It’s also meant to teach kids how to code, which is hard to find in game development environments. Its ease and accessibility blew my mind. It’s a wonderful example of the quality, flexibility, approachability… of alternative game development tools.
\nIt should be an easy sell, unfortunately such tools do not have the marketing that things like Unity have, and struggle to be known.
\nThere are so many… ranging from specialized examples like LDK (Level Designer Toolkit)<\/a> which is a 2D level editor specifically designed for making level design easy for indie developers… to something like Ct.js<\/a>, a flexible and open source 2D game engine for web and desktop games.<\/p>\n

Indie developers, who are building their indie game engines, struggle to generate support for their otherwise noteworthy alternatives. If you’ve given RPG In A Box a try, it’s hard to understand how this isn’t more known, yet it’s difficult to rally support with how mainstream tools dominate the discussion. This is a meaningful yet challenging uphill battle.
\nMy hope is that someday independent tool makers be given the attention they deserve. For such projects to continue to live, and even sustain their creators, they need much more support.
\nIn the shadow of the social media attention economy, it is unfortunate that monopolies are able to suck the air out of the room so often.
\nEven so, if small creators are to prevent capitalism from eating the (virtual) world, The End User needs to also make it a point to educate themselves and constantly seek alternatives.<\/p>\n

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\n– Mess with DNS!<\/a> is a site where you can do experiments with DNS. Learning from examples.<\/em><\/p>\n

“First: Mess With DNS gives you a real subdomain, and it\u2019s running a real DNS server (the address is mess-with-dns1.wizardzines.com). The interesting thing about DNS is that it\u2019s a global system with many different computers interacting, and so I wanted people to be able to actually see that system in action.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Julia Evans, New tool: Mess with DNS!<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel like a lot of the internet has become this monolith where a handful of entities perfected the art of channeling and monetizing attention. People’s interest slowly funneled through just a handful of sites. If you grew up on Web 1.0, especially knowing how it was like to build for the internet through all these changes, then these shifts are nothing short of alarming.
\nThe idealistic dream of an online utopia shifted from being democratic (involving everyone), to one that serves capitalist functions.
\nWith the rise of what many are calling “Web 3.0” (more of a marketing term for a new philosophy of viewing our online world, rather than describing actual technical progress), we see concepts surrounding the foundation of the internet that once promised to be inclusive, accessible, democratic, and especially dictated by principles of abundance (all knowledge is freely available!), to one where scarcity is the prevalent theme. Artificial scarcity is even marketed as desirable… The privileged control access. Trends are born on social media, spaces dictated largely by corporations, rather than people.
\nIt’s an interesting observation then, how we recreated so much of the imbalance, sense of poverty, disempowerment, and harm toward vulnerable people, that we see in the “real world” in our online spaces. Systemic issues of inequality were baked into the virtual “dream”. It’s not only about who builds our online systems, but who our online systems prefer. Participation should then be a conscious educated choice.
\nJust the concept of how artificial scarcity is built into the “Web 3.0” model as a feature is a big reason why I don’t like the idea of NFT’s.<\/p>\n

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\n– GRID <\/a>is an experimental text editor built around the concept of treating text as an image. It enables interesting type design, stylizing, or text-based art. GRID <\/a>is a good example of a tool that exists on its own terms, inventing its own use.<\/em><\/p>\n

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My new experimental text editor is live:
Adjust the grid size and text direction to create weird and expressive layouts.https:\/\/t.co\/quq1mGYKbA<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/MSutg4BJ65<\/a><\/p>\n

— grant (@GrantCuster) March 29, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n