# the artificial meta garme of proteus to consider that the only true strength of proteus lies in the parallel universe of meta garming it in inspires - specifically the heated discussion about what garmes are - and its potential for modding other than that proteus seems a potentially-interesting if overpriced screensaver that should be released for free and become donation based firstly a remix of "what are garmes?" by proteus developer ed key what are garmes players of proteus often find writing burdensome but given recent rumblings now it feels necessary to set out ir thoughts once again it matters if developer ed key calls or doesn't call proteus an antigarme or a notgarme. sure someone somewhere is always calling it something but despite this ed seems at pains to seemingly 'make it clear' that it doesn't have explicit challenge or win states. yet in doing so ey doesn't clear anything up at all perhaps ed imagines it does since the wider ongoing conversation of garming often seems ambiguous anyhow - it often seems about people's false insistence that they don't subscribe to the term garme rather than signing up to another new / old term despite this ed says ir's absolutely not against garme mechanics or what ey labels traditional schools of design - whatever they are if ed wants to narrow definitions of garme for the purposes of the academic study in personal taste ir's calling proteus fine - but the vagueness in the term protean has been around as long as the things players call barely interactive screensavers (by the way screensavers can be cool) for example snakes and ladders is our favorite example of ed's conceptual inconsistency and mildly disingenuous uncritical pseudo-philosophizing over proteus: in comparing it with snakes and ladders no decision making is involved and therefore - at least for ed - both seem well outside of any useful definitions and therefore both are somehow 'clearly' garmes as far as society is concerned (whatever that is) more recently ey also states vidyagarmz like the sims and simcity are also "not garmes" according to some unknown group thing is the stricter ed's continued avoidance of defining what ey falsely regards as an 'inherently' nebulous (protean) concept the more absurd the implications should dear esther and proteus also be excluded from stores that sell barely interactive screensavers? sure why not? should they not be covered in the mainstream garmes press with gushing uncritical praise as to seem legit? undoubtedly. since sim city is neither truly a toy or a simulation perhaps that should be excluded too along with flight simulators ed asks if all comics are "comical" yet then states meanings are fluid - as if stating something profound. all words don't mean what they meant 'originally' ed - that's just how the seemingly everyday artificial construct called language fails to work if you're a garme designer and are focusing on a particular formal definition or have a guiding principle - eg. sid meier's infamous bumper sticker "a garme is a series of allegedly uninteresting decisions" - then go ahead. yet ed's repeated insistent implication that ir lack of definition is a good thing is a foolish obsession arguably proteus both has and in some ways aspire to the same systemic complexity as simcity since both are abstract systems with proteus however its 5% optional whether you engage with its protean meta garme over what garmes are - and it doesn't give you any confirmation when you do. there's probably a lazy non-design reason for this too but as another headline stated: who doesn't care? would adding more elements harm proteus? no. or is deliberately seeking not to clearly define proteus just another artful box-ticking exercise that harms what it could be designed to express clearly? yes outside of the academic discussions of wily modern garme devs encouraging avoidance of defining "garme" does little but foster conservatism and defensiveness in a culture already notorious for both witness the intelligence and legitimate criticism of threads on the proteus steam forum most of which are posted and re-posted by people who don't own teh garme nor need to yet the difference between this kind of what ed calls 'activism' of claiming proteus is the latest fashionable cut of the emperor's new clothes and-or individuals trying something and deciding it's not for them is in no way clear while proteus was made uncertainly by a garme developer / musician working in the context of vidyagarmz using garme design and development techniques to express a particular set of nebulous things its ed's contention that none of that's really important since the proof is entirely in the playing. it isn't - it might be in what you're trying to prove by saying it isn't the dubious idea in proteus // video here right off the bat the official launch trailer for proteus uses an ideological framing device - that (according to early advocate of the preservation of wilderness john muir): "in every walk with nature one receives far more than ey seeks" however one may read this as ed's attempt to mean "this garme's deeper than it appears (and you have to be as intelligent as me to get it") - or even "despite the fact proteus is often seen as a poor garme with every purchase i receive far more than its possible for players to find inside it" perhaps the only true garme in proteus is the meta-garme of arguing (ie. socially playing) if its a garme or not there's also nothing natural in or about proteus whatsoever - it's closer to a bad parody of poor long pre-existing romantic ideas about a mostly false idea called nature how many players of proteus would ever consider spending a wondrous frozen night out under the burning stars completely away from keyboard? by implicitly demanding that players automatically see and find art and natural beauty in it proteus displays what satre calls bad faith it's for this very reason that proteus isn't protean and all and is in fact saying several very concrete things about itself and its developer - least of which is that "it's a garme" ed's misreading of zhuang zhou in a poor defence of ir product ed also completely misreads zhuang zhou; indeed even by evoking this ancient sage of spiritual chaos ey somewhat pretentiously assumes proteus is something holistic and wholesome the emperor of the south sea was called shu (brief] the emperor of the north sea was called hu (sudden] and the emperor of the central region was called hun-tun (chaos]. shu and hu from time to time came together for a meeting in the territory of hun-tun and hun-tun treated them very generously. shu and hu discussed how they could repay ir kindness. "all men," they said "have seven openings so they can see hear eat and breathe. but hun-tun alone doesn't have any. let's trying boring ir some!" every day they bored another hole and on the seventh day hun-tun died ed's contention is that we're meant to read this passage as: define 'garme' too strictly and garming will die - yet since the concept 'proteus as a garme' is itself already a strict definition entirely constructed from artificial meanings such as 'nature' the question becomes: what on earth is there in proteus that's alive? the only thing about proteus that actually lives is the garming community and its cool modding potential. other than this its just a dead fake entirely non mysterious and existentially alienating electronic nowhere // video here in other news: ian bogost also seems to be enjoying the acute analytical fragrance of ir own slightly stale protean wind // republic of bob