Keep Center
"Glassblowing killed my fear of failure."
Try to keep center, fail. Blow glass, fail again. Find your way.
437 words. Written for Neo-Twiny Jam 24.
Best played in fullscreen mode.
All illustrations and animations were hand-drawn by me. You can check out some of my (unbroken) glasswork here.
Updated | 10 days ago |
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5 |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (13 total ratings) |
Author | illuminesce |
Genre | Interactive Fiction |
Made with | Twine |
Tags | Animation, glassblowing, Hand-drawn, neo-twiny, Twine |
Development log
- Fixed Images Not Loading10 days ago
- Keep Center PostmortemJul 01, 2024
Comments
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I made all four designs (the flared vase last) and failed three times!
I knew about most of the steps, surprisingly… except for newspaper. Newspaper! You can use newspaper??? Wild. I cannot imagine it.
Amazingly, you can use eight sheets of newspaper stacked on top of each other to shape glass. I didn’t know this before I started glassblowing, but they recommend the New York Times/Wall Street Journal/any paper that does not have color ink, because color ink can make noxious fumes when burned.
Glass is awesome, so I had to check this out even though I've never tried glassblowing and don't have the first clue how it works. I love the illustrations and the calm repetition of figuring out how to do glassblowing, getting into the rhythm of it, learning when to hit vs. tap with your different tools and so on. It captures the arc of learning to do something, struggling with your failures but moving on anyway. Even after I figured out how to do things I still got a spike of worry whenever I clicked the link to proceed on the off chance that it wouldn't work anyway, and then it would go through alright, and I would breathe a little sigh of relief.
Overall, the game reminds me of a pottery-making app I was briefly obsessed with as a kid, where they simulated a potter's wheel and you could use your fingers to shape the digital clay pot and afterwards glaze and color it and everything. I spent hours on that app making all kinds of nonexistent clay pots. I would play this if it was a 15 hour game where you just make different kinds of glassware over and over again
TLDR: Glass is awesome. It's shiny and smooth and so cool to touch and when the light goes through it gets EVEN SHINIER. Once I visited a glass museum and they did a glassblowing demonstration and it was epic.
I’m so happy to read your comment. What you’re describing is exactly the feeling I was trying to replicate.
Playing this is very calming and it has a good underlying message. I made a round vase!
Thank you! Congratulations on sticking with it! <3
Both rewarding and educational! Despite seeing how many times I failed, I was encouraged to play again and make all the designs. Because the MC didn't want to give up, the repetition became enjoyable as there was always something at the end whether it be failure (and another opportunity) or a finished piece :D
💚 Yes!
This was great! The repetition worked itself perfectly into the theme (took me 4 tries!). Plus your art looks wonderful!
Thank you so much! What did you make? :)
I made a flared vase! ^^
Congratulations! 🙌
Great design, loved this
Thank you! <3
That was so neat and pretty!
Thank you for playing!!
Got to learn a bit about glass blowing. Honestly, this is why I picked up knitting and gardening. Needed to get more comfortable failing and making mistakes.
I so relate to this. I took failure way too personally when failure is a natural part of learning and growing.
Wow! Cool art!
Thank you!