Virtual Worlds - Video Games - World Building - what the heck do we call this!

[Melooon]

I'm gonna break this discussion out from a moderation topic raised by @Corrupted Unicorn - mainly the issue of vague names and the fact that there does not seem to be any good name for what this board is about 

I was wondering about the recent virtual worlds boards...

From what I see, the boards and their functions are the following:

❤︎ ∙ World Building  - for discussing the ins and outs of worldbuilding, in general.
⚽︎ ∙ Video Game Projects - for sharing worlds 
☑︎ ∙ World & Game Materials - for sharing resources that can help build worlds.

I know your definition of a virtual world is more specific than mine, but my question is: is a world necessarily a game? What if my "world" is a collection of web pages arranged like an encyclopedia, with info on how the world works and characters live? Should I post it on Video Game Projects (because it is, after all, a world), or on Art Projects? Do you need a finished game to put it on Video Game Projects?

Sooo, my definition is closer to your definition ~ and Im using Video Game's and Virtual Worlds semi-interchangeably here. Mainly because its been really hard to draw a line here ~ we don't actually have a functional word to describe the fusion of webpages-games-simulatedworlds-storyworlds etc

A virtual worlds can be any world that exists in an imagined space, it can be on a piece of paper imo. However a virtual world is also a formal definition of an online multiplayer space. A video game can be a vague aimless web page with limited interaction; but for many people it's a complex mechanic based program with goals and an end.

The forum itself is quite small, so we cant have boards splitting all these things apart (and I don't really think they should be split apart) - but the words to define them dont seem to exists.

It seems to me like we do need a new term here; in the same way that the "web revival" was a term invented to describe the neocities-melonland-yesterweb universe of sites on the web. Names are important, names are ideas and descriptions and identities.

What we are trying to describe here is the odd fusion of tools-and-ideas and how they combine into an alternative world. Its more than a game, and more than a tool or a literary process - its a misty merge space of all those things thats greater than its whole, both abstract but also well understood by most people here! It should be fun, but also serious, yet easy to grasp.

I've been trying to find words that have been historically used for this sort of thing and its made me relaise how overused most of these words are: meta, hyper, bubble, pond, game, palace, electric, web, ether, plant, city, land, sim, cloud, digital, cache, eden, world, multi, net, video, reality etc

I suppose one idea is to just mix them up until you pick and unused one "landweb" "multibubble" - but maybe its time to get away from these words and find something new?

So these are some words I could dig up from skimming books that I don't associate with technology and that also don't fall into the trap of indie-web people calling everything a garden ; bog, mazy, ripple, dust, colour, shadow, pandemonium, winch, broken, noon, shore, bulb, condensation, dance, folk, barrel, powder, patience, mildew, earth, century - mainly themes around time, fragility, trash and messiness are all things avoided in tech - and I feel like maybe thats what we need to lean into here; those are themes that are central to the web revival and will prob be central to a lot of the world people try and make here.

Then there's the question of what words would I personally use to describe many of my projects: space, game, world, zone, playground, themepark, dream, memory, land, artwork, junk, collection, archive, hub.

Im still drawing a blank when I try and put it all together though 

• Dust Palace
• Virtual Earth Junk
• Game Trash
• Folk Realitys
• World Bulbs
• Hyper Looms
• Clueless Wonders

  GIVE ME YOUR THOUGHTS 

[loren]

I LOVE THIS QUESTION & I HAVE THOUGHTS

first of all, i agree!! there have been times recently when i've felt awkward, in both web and games spaces(!), because i wasn't sure how to articulate the type of thing that i'm really interested in creating. having an easier way to refer to "webpages-games-simulatedworlds-storyworlds" would be empowering, and hopefully encourage others to get interested in it too. when i think of terms that resonate with me, i think of the web revival (like you mentioned), and also the terms digital folklore and vernacular web from olia lialina's work. i'm not sure i know of any terms like that from the games side of things... maybe glorious trainwrecks?

~ anyway here are some quick ideas of variable quality ~

terms from video games (still tech, but less web): level, stage, map, zone, dungeon, mission, course

-ware as a suffix like abandonware and shareware

post- as a prefix like music genres/scenes influenced by those that came before, or like postcard, or like POST

HTMLands and WWWorlds popped into my head but i don't think i like them! maybe they sound more like brands than movements/communities

there are so many games referred to as [something]-likes. a term that would be funny to me is worldlikes

dream address from animal crossing is pretty evocative, but it already exists so we can't use it

biology-flavored terms for spaces: ecosystem, biome, biosphere, habitat, vivarium/aquarium/terrarium

~ response to your lists ~

• digital is overused, but is "digi-"?
• feels kind of old school
• maybe could feel fresh combined with something unexpected
• i LOVE zone, of course (but i'm biased bc i have a .zone TLD)
• simplifying/combining playground and themepark to just park?
• a place you can go to play or to relax
• "Folk Realities" is really fun to say, but i'm not sure it clearly communicates the vision of webgamestoryworlds

i'm also struggling to put it all together, but i'm confident that we can come up with something we're excited about!

edit, added june 19:

i'm back with ~ more ideas ~

• Poem Dimensions
• Idea Parks
• Scrap Museums
• Home-cooked Universes
• Leaf Litterware (mulchware?) (litterzones?)
• New Net Worlds, like New Net Art

P.S.

that also don't fall into the trap of indie-web people calling everything a garden

this made me laugh (out loud)

[Melooon]

Do people use the term "video game" or "computer game" more, and do you perceive a difference between these two names? I think in the past I would have used video game to refer to a console (because its on a video screen/TV) while a computer game was a game on a computer ~ although I feel like they are a lot more vague for me now because TVs and computers are basically the same things now 

[Monoki]

I’ve likened websites to a planet or moon. That’s because a friend of mine from a discord game me a little space to post my creations and called it, “Monoki’s Moon.” Needless to say I took that and titled my site the same.

Maybe there’s an idea there.

[loren]

Do people use the term "video game" or "computer game" more, and do you perceive a difference between these two names?

in casual conversations, i'll usually just say "game". (probably because most of the gaming i do is on the computer, so i don't feel the need to be more specific. i expect this would be different if i also played tabletop games)

i have similar feelings about the two terms as you. growing up, the games i played on the computer (point & click adventures, the sims & zoo tycoon, mmorpgs) felt very different from the games i played on consoles (mostly action platformers and turn based RPGs, sometimes FPSs and racing games) so i would have called the former "computer games" and the latter "video games", with less overlap. the line between the two is definitely blurrier now, with a lot of commercial games releasing on multiple platforms. i can think of several "playstation exclusives" that i was able to buy on steam just a year later. nintendo games stay exclusive to their hardware forever(?), but with emulation, even those can become computer games

though i do still feel like there's a little bit of a difference between "video games" and "computer games". i would call text-based adventures like zork and twine games computer games for sure, but calling them video games feels a little inaccurate to me. or a website like neopets! another game i play on the computer that i wouldn't call a video game. while writing this response, i think i've convinced myself that all video games are computer games, but not all computer games are video games. now i want to go rename the "video games" section of my links page to "computer games" because i feel like it's open to more kinds of games.

I’ve likened websites to a planet or moon.

i like this! following the space theme, it might also be fun to call a web project a star or a comet ✧˖°

[Melooon]

I've had a dew discussions with people about this subject and I'm gonna dump my notes here:

Actualities - This was a term used to refer to small non-staged sequences of film, often filmed by novices in the late 19th century (wikipedia compares it to b-roll footage but its more than that). The word also refers to things actually existing or being true and real.

Its counterpart would be Virtuality meaning a thing that exists inside a computer - so Virtualities would be small non-narrative virtual spaces if you're using the words the same way it was used for film. You could consider Virtualities to refer to b-roll virtual spaces, or break scenes (the spaces between intentional events). That has an interesting flip reference to break beats in music (where the term break dancing comes from).

I think Virtuality is an interesting discussion; but as a word I find it a bit too academic and long sounding.

Incidentally, Virtual is a really weird word because it refers to Virtue, meaning good, noble and reliable. While Virtual means the potential for something (to be good or noble - e.g. "its virtually complete") - and I think the connection to digital virtual spaces essentially means "it appears to be something, although it is not literally something".

You could say Digitality - or the b-roll of digital based media ~ I find this term less interesting though.

I do quite like "Break Worlds" - it implies freeform break dancing, in between spaces in break beats, relaxation and escapes with the possibility for play, broken or imperfect spaces. Though it also sounds too much like "Break Room" which is too officey and puts me off.

[MediocreMetastasis]

I thought maybe since games where you explore a world fall under the adventure genre you could use the term "Virtual Adventure."
Metaverse was a perfect term for virtual worlds you can explore but the failed facebook vr game ruined using it by it's original definition.
Maybe we could use the term space like mySpace.
"Museum of anything goes" was a good name for a game that had a complete random jumble of art. Website of anything goes? World where anything goes?

[Melooon]

"Electric Dream Worlds" I think this might be the one! It is direct, but broad, it includes the realm of digital spaces but also ideas and still holds the Worlds term which grounds it into a practical thing - plus its just suites the overall vibe!

[grubbyfox]

I LOVE THIS QUESTION & I HAVE THOUGHTS

first of all, i agree!! there have been times recently when i've felt awkward, in both web and games spaces(!), because i wasn't sure how to articulate the type of thing that i'm really interested in creating. having an easier way to refer to "webpages-games-simulatedworlds-storyworlds" would be empowering, and hopefully encourage others to get interested in it too. when i think of terms that resonate with me, i think of the web revival (like you mentioned), and also the terms digital folklore and vernacular web from olia lialina's work. i'm not sure i know of any terms like that from the games side of things... maybe glorious trainwrecks?

~ anyway here are some quick ideas of variable quality ~

terms from video games (still tech, but less web): level, stage, map, zone, dungeon, mission, course

-ware as a suffix like abandonware and shareware

post- as a prefix like music genres/scenes influenced by those that came before, or like postcard, or like POST

HTMLands and WWWorlds popped into my head but i don't think i like them! maybe they sound more like brands than movements/communities

there are so many games referred to as [something]-likes. a term that would be funny to me is worldlikes

dream address from animal crossing is pretty evocative, but it already exists so we can't use it

biology-flavored terms for spaces: ecosystem, biome, biosphere, habitat, vivarium/aquarium/terrarium

~ response to your lists ~

• digital is overused, but is "digi-"?
• feels kind of old school
• maybe could feel fresh combined with something unexpected
• i LOVE zone, of course (but i'm biased bc i have a .zone TLD)
• simplifying/combining playground and themepark to just park?
• a place you can go to play or to relax
• "Folk Realities" is really fun to say, but i'm not sure it clearly communicates the vision of webgamestoryworlds

i'm also struggling to put it all together, but i'm confident that we can come up with something we're excited about!

edit, added june 19:

i'm back with ~ more ideas ~

• Poem Dimensions
• Idea Parks
• Scrap Museums
• Home-cooked Universes
• Leaf Litterware (mulchware?) (litterzones?)
• New Net Worlds, like New Net Art

P.S.
this made me laugh (out loud)

i have absolutely no idea what this thread is about, lmao, but i saw this post in particular, and i started spit balling the idea of "dream address", which I agree was very creative.

but one idea is to mix languages when trying to find new words for something.

like, if not address, but a path/road, why not
- rue
- route
- via

and if not dream, maybe something akin? like
- fantasy
- vision
- mirage
- desire
- illusion
- hope
- wish

cheers to you guys anyway, i hope you'll figure it out! i cant offer anything really lol i just like spitballing ideas.

[loren]

i have absolutely no idea what this thread is about,

it's about coming up with a new term to unite the different kinds of worldbuilding people are talking about on the forum. some projects are more about creating original characters, others more about 3D environments, some with interactive elements, some (most?) using the web as a medium... each topic has different focuses, but what they all have in common is that they're ultimately about creating worlds. so the goal here was to find a nice way to refer to all of these things together, and especially the worlds that are a mixture of all these ideas. then, for example, instead of someone getting caught up trying to describe their project as being "kind of like a website, but kind of like a game, but also kind of like a story" (too wordy!), they'll have an easy term to use that embraces the ambiguity of their art!

"Electric Dream Worlds"

  YES!!!
i love this! i agree with all the reasons in your post; i think the term balances a lot of the ideas we've been talking about here. i want to visit electric dream worlds and create my own!

[Limette]

If the goal is to find a word that encompasses all these types of world-building/storytelling, then I think focusing on terms that highlight the digital nature of most of these might exclude more "traditional" projects like writing a novel or filming a short film.

My suggestion would be "Crafted Worlds" - it's broad and easy to grasp. But, perhaps it's too broad? I'm only just getting the gist of what this board is about after all, and I did get the impression that it was focused mainly on digital worlds, like the kind you'd get in a video game.

"Crafts" is how I refer to the assortment of artistic hobbies and mediums I've practiced over the years. From computer crafts like digital art and programming, to physical crafts like knitting, sewing and painting. Creating a world is also always a craft, regardless of which medium you do it in.

[loren]

If the goal is to find a word that encompasses all these types of world-building/storytelling, then I think focusing on terms that highlight the digital nature of most of these might exclude more "traditional" projects like writing a novel or filming a short film.

in my previous post, i said that the goal was to encompass the "different kinds of worldbuilding people are talking about on the forum", not every possible way that people can tell a story. i think it's okay to focus on the digital here! that's what MelonLand is all about! from the MelonLand entrance page:

This project has three goals:
      To make the web; genuine, chaotic, timeless, individual and joyful
      To provide knowledge and support to humans creating digital worlds
      To promote websites and digital worlds as mediums of visual art

it wouldn't make sense to describe a novel that exists only on paper as an electric dream world, but i think an interesting question is "how could it be turned into one?"
maybe it means someone will decide to share their story in HTML instead of a PDF; maybe each chapter could have custom CSS to reflect the tone/setting of that chapter. will the reader progress through the story more with clicking or scrolling? the paper book format encourages stories to be linear, but with hypertext it's easy to create branching stories and explorable worlds. what else becomes possible when sharing a novel digitally? there's a rich history of interactive fiction (projects that are sort of like a fusion of novels and games) that is worth exploring!

another example that suits my personal craft interests: if i sculpted a little scene from modeling clay, it wouldn't be an electric dream world as is, but it would become electric when i turn it into digital images to be shared online. there are lots of creative choices to be made in the digitization: should they be static images, or moving gifs? videos? how much of the scene should be visible on the page at once, and how will the visitor navigate between different parts of the scene? maybe it shouldn't be images at all, but instead a 3D scan of the whole thing where the visitor can walk around in first person? how could i add ways for the visitor to interact with what i've created? with "electric dream world" as a goal, these are the ideas that come to mind!

the term isn't meant to exclude people making any specific kind of art, but instead to inspire creative play with digital mediums!