Who is the “I” behind “ntrd”? The passive construction (ntrd by clumsiness) removes agency. Clumsiness acts upon the speaker. This is crucial. In a culture that worships intentionality, the phrase submits to accident. The artist is not a genius but a vessel for awkwardness, a relay in a chain of mishaps that produce the work despite (or because of) the artist’s lack of control.
This resonates with the surrealist practice of automatic writing, the Oulipian constraint, and the modern habit of releasing unfinished games as “early access.” The audience becomes complicit in the clumsiness, reporting bugs, suggesting fixes, adding their own clumsy contributions. “Version 100” is thus a social number, built from the aggregate fumbling of many hands.
No analog artwork can be version 100 in the same sense as a digital file. A painting is either finished or not; you cannot increment it weekly. But a text file, a game build, an AI model, a wiki—these exist in perpetual beta. “Ongoing” is the default state of digital being. To declare a digital work “finished” is to kill it, to freeze it outside the flow of updates, patches, user feedback, and hardware evolution. ntrd by clumsiness ongoing version 100
Thus “ntrd by clumsiness ongoing version 100” is a confession of immortality through imperfection. The work will never be perfect because perfection would require an end to clumsiness, and clumsiness is the engine of its creation. This echoes Samuel Beckett’s “Fail again. Fail better.” But here, the failures are not refined; they are accumulated, version-stamped, and displayed in their raw, typo-ridden glory.
In the independent adult game/visual novel community, version numbers tell a story of their own: Who is the “I” behind “ntrd”
There is no "fix" for NTRD by clumsiness. Earlier versions promised patches: "Mindfulness Module Beta," "Proprioception Calibration Tool," "Anti-Gravity Grip Gloves." All failed. Version 100 embraces the failure.
To be on Version 100 is to accept that every object in your vicinity is merely a temporary resident of its current position. Gravity is not a law; it is a suggestion. Fine motor skills are a myth sold by people who have never tried to put a USB plug in on the first try. Why version 100
Version 100 is ongoing because clumsiness is not a bug to be fixed. It is a feature of being embodied. Hands shake. Feet misjudge curbs. Elbows find the one breakable thing on a crowded counter. The "ongoing" is a promise—not of improvement, but of persistence. You will drop things again. You will trip again. You will send an entire bowl of soup into your own lap in a restaurant so quiet you can hear the chef cry.
And then you will get up. Wipe the soup from your shirt. Order another bowl. And reach for it with the same trembling, hopeful, utterly doomed hand.
Why version 100? One hundred suggests ritual completeness—a centennial, a perfect decade of tens. Yet in iterative practice, 100 is arbitrary. Version 99 could have been the last; version 101 will follow. The choice to pause at 100 and call it “ongoing” is a performative contradiction. It says: This is a milestone, but milestones are illusions. The only true markers are the clumsy moments that force a version increment: a crashing script, a misaligned sprite, an accidental deletion that became a feature.
In this light, “version 100” mocks the tyranny of round numbers. It is not a celebration of achievement but a weary acknowledgment that you have fumbled your way to a hundred checkpoints, and you will fumble to two hundred.