Emergent Gameplay, Emergent Essaying

Abstract

Within our current post-internet landscape of Web 2.0, in which we exist as intermedial beings, I propose Emergent Essaying as a connective term, merging the milieu of game design with hybrid creative writing approaches. Emergent Gameplay is ‘a game design term that refers to video game mechanics that change according to the player’s actions’. Emergent Essaying utilises gameplay techniques to invite more open, playful, and changeable modes of thinking, encouraging multiplicity and fluidity over fixed thought. Expanding upon creative theorists Lisa Robertson and Anne Carson’s approach to the verb ‘essaying’ as an act of trying, in this digital context I conceive of Emergent Essaying as an act of playful reimagining from both writer/designer and reader/player, in which the essay is more narrative based. I combine game design techniques with the approaches to digital work adopted by indie writers to inform my own practice as a cross-form, cross-genre writer, as reflected both in this paper, and via a link to a digital-born, creative iteration of this work, enacting Emergent Essaying. In this updated version of the paper from 2021, I address the benefits of understanding Emergent Essaying through the lens of performance, and interrogate how this feeds into pedagogical approaches for creative practitioners.