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The Geometry of Islamic Art Becomes a Treasure of a Game (arstechnica.com)
Sam Machkovech from Ars Technica reviews the game Engare, describing it as a "clever, deceptively simple, and beautiful rumination on geometry and Islamic art-making traditions." The game consists of relatively simple puzzles and a freeform art toy that unlocks its puzzles' tools to allow you to make whatever patterns you please. From the report: The game, made almost entirely by 23-year-old Iranian developer Mahdi Bahrami, starts with a 2D scene of a circle repeatedly traveling along a line. Above this, an instructional card shows a curved-diagonal line. Drop a dot on the moving circle, the game says, and it will generate a bold line, like ink on a page. As the ball (and thus, your dot) rolls, the inked line unfurls; if you put the dot on a different part of the circle, then your inked line may have more curve or angle to it, based on the total motion of the moving, rotating circle. Your object is to recreate this exact curved-diagonal line. If your first ink-drop doesn't do the trick, try again. Each puzzle presents an increasingly complex array of moving and rotating shapes, lines, and dots. You have to watch the repeating patterns and rotations in a particular puzzle to understand where to drop an ink dot and draw the demanded line. At first, you'll have to recreate simple turns, curves, and zig-zags. By the end, you'll be making insane curlicues and rug-like super-patterns.
But even this jaded math wiz-kid couldn't help but drop his jaw, loose his tongue, and bulge his eyes at the first time Engare cracked open its math-rich heart. One early puzzle (shown above) ended with its seemingly simple pattern repeating over and over and over and over. Unlike other puzzles, this pattern kept drawing itself, even after I'd fulfilled a simple line-and-turn pattern. And with each pass of the drawing pattern, driven by a spinning, central circle, Engare drew and filled a new, bright color. This is what the game's creator is trying to shout, I thought. This is his unique, cultural perspective. This looks like the Persian rugs he saw his grandmother weave as a child.
But even this jaded math wiz-kid couldn't help but drop his jaw, loose his tongue, and bulge his eyes at the first time Engare cracked open its math-rich heart. One early puzzle (shown above) ended with its seemingly simple pattern repeating over and over and over and over. Unlike other puzzles, this pattern kept drawing itself, even after I'd fulfilled a simple line-and-turn pattern. And with each pass of the drawing pattern, driven by a spinning, central circle, Engare drew and filled a new, bright color. This is what the game's creator is trying to shout, I thought. This is his unique, cultural perspective. This looks like the Persian rugs he saw his grandmother weave as a child.
There was no destruction of cultures to speak of, just a change of religion
I don't know about the Middle East but in Europe, the "just a change of religion" was definitely a destruction of (pre-Christian) cultures. I'd be very surprised if Islam, spreading at the same time, were any different.
Ezekiel 23:20
Errmm...you are referring to Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, northern sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, India (still has a lot even after the division),...I'm sure there are more. And get this, they don't get squat from the Muslim oil producers, it seems the Muslim oil producers are very good at keeping their money close to home. Now they do fund a bit of proselytizing, but then so do the Christians. In the U.S., that seems to have spawned a Christianity devoid of Christ and the principles he espoused. Apparently, it is only for white people.
why did it take so long before someone thought to make a digital spirograph?
What exactly took so long?
Ezekiel 23:20
No, it doesn't. I just played through the whole thing. The menu screen looks like Alhambra, the music has lots of Mideast influence, and the instructions are in Arabic as well as English, but you wouldn't know that if the only context you had was the game itself, because it explains nothing about Islamic culture. The inspiration is there, but the indoctrination is not.