The Search for a Medium

Before I found games, I wrote stories. Writing always felt like an open conversation between imagination and interpretation. A single word could shift the mood of an entire scene or alter the scale of a world. There was freedom in that ambiguity, but also a sense of distance. The world stayed in the mind, waiting for someone else to fill in the spaces. I wanted something that could move, breath and respond.

My partner once suggested that I look at games as a medium. At first, I hesitated. Games were something I admired from afar but rarely touched. Growing up poor, they were simply not an option. Consoles, computers, even access to the internet were things other kids had. So I built what I could with what I had — my imagination. I filled the quiet with stories and images, inventing worlds to stand in for the ones I could not explore. Imagination was how I experienced freedom before I could afford it.

When I finally began exploring what games could be, I saw how narration and interactivity created a space for something I had always been searching for: a dialogue between creator and participant. Games did not simply show a world; they invited people to enter it and shape it through choice.

Unlike a story or a painting, a game defines its own parameters. The viewpoint, the scope, and even the smallest object must be placed with intention. There is less room for interpretation, but paradoxically, there is more room for possibility. By defining the edges of a world, you also define the space where freedom exists. The more structure you give it, the more opportunity it has to surprise you.

✦ Where Worlds Begin

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"by defining the edges of a world, you also define the space where freedom exists"

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The first time I realized games could express something beyond entertainment was at a friend’s house. We played titles like StarCraft, Age of Empires, and Age of Mythology. I was drawn not to competition, but to the quiet act of building and managing. Those worlds rewarded patience and planning, and within them I found something that reflected my own inner landscape. Growing up with little, I often felt a constant awareness of lack- of scarcity, of instability, of needing to create safety from nothing. In those games, I could build the very things that reality withheld: endless resources, steady growth, and defenses that held firm no matter what came. They became a reflection of both need and desire, a world where control replaced uncertainty. Each decision felt like an affirmation that effort could lead to balance.

Those games became a form of therapy long before I understood the word. They offered comfort in control, order in chaos, and the quiet satisfaction of watching something grow under your care.

✦ Building from Scarcity

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Choice has always fascinated me. As a child, I loved the Goosebumps books that let readers choose their own endings. The idea that a single decision could branch into multiple paths made me wonder about life itself- how many versions of ourselves exist in the choices we never made. That concept of alternate outcomes and quiet redemption still lingers in my creative work. I like to believe that in any world I build, there should always be another chance, another path forward.

Silence also has a place in creation. I have always been drawn to works that allow the viewer or player to pause and simply be within the world. Studio Ghibli films do this beautifully, with moments where nothing needs to happen and yet everything still feels alive. Those quiet spaces allow the moment of peace to linger a little longer- long enough for you to feel that you exist, that your presence has weight, even if everything outside that silence is chaos. In those small pauses, time slows just enough to remind you that you are here, and that existing in that stillness is enough. It is not about escaping life but about expanding it, about creating a space where peace can be seen, felt, and remembered. That sense of breathing within stillness is what I want to recreate in my own work- moments where the world breathes with you, where art, sound, and space intertwine into the quiet awareness that you belong somewhere, even if only for a moment.

✦The Quiet Architecture of Choice

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"Imagination was how I experienced freedom before I could afford it."

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"Those quiet spaces allow the moment of peace to linger a little longer- long enough for you to feel that you exist."

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Ideas, once shared, no longer belong to a single person. They change shape when others interact with them. I have always believed that nothing is truly original; every creation is a reflection of the world filtered through the mind consciousness. What we perceive passes through the senses and becomes rearranged by experience, forming a user-biased reflection of reality. Creation, then, is like the reflection of the moon on a still lake: it is the moon, yet it is not. The image depends on the water’s surface, the light, and the observer’s position. In the same way, every creative act is both truth and illusion- a mirror of something real that becomes personal in the act of seeing. Every creation is a reflection of countless experiences layered together. When someone participates in an idea, it becomes richer, more complex, and more alive. Collaboration adds dimension, even when it challenges the original vision.

If I could describe my ideal medium as a sensation, it would feel like memory itself- the faint warmth of nostalgia that awakens all the senses at once. A scent that recalls an image, a sound that carries emotion, a texture that feels familiar yet new. Nostalgia is not about living in the past; it is about rediscovering fragments of meaning that connect us to something timeless. That is what I hope this medium can become: a place where memory and imagination meet, and something quietly human emerges between them.

✦The Memory of Creation

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~ Sohlvian

The Worldbuilder Who Forgot to Save

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