There’s an old Lohman and Barkley radio sketch about a guy at a McDonald’s drive-thru whose brakes have failed. He’s persistent, though. He circles the joint, racing along, getting his order out in bursts. One…Burger…
It’s a lovely joke, and a joke with a certain kind of shape to it. Something of the Doppler effect. You listen and you hear the arc, the sound of something coming very close and then swinging away again. You get to hear the sensation of a curve, a loop. Maybe he was just hungry.
Anyway. This week I asked a couple of people who are making Rollerdrome at Roll7 what an ideal Rollerdrome map should look like. I thought they might talk about arcs or loops, and they did, in a way. But only because of what arcs and loops do to players. The ideal Rollerdrome map is a churn, I was told. No corners, as such. Everything brings you back to the centre and once you’re at the centre, you never stop. Out again, but never too far. Always coming back. Always returning. One…Burger…