i made it to a credits tonight, and then decided to break for the night. i started thinking (i imagine partly because you mentioned her) about the tweet sylvie made earlier this year
"Game designers in the 80's.... they didn't really know what they were doing. Now everyone has become smart. And that's why games are worse"
i made a pretty meaningless rant on here months ago because of how much this spoke to me but it really is like, we've learned SO much about communication through game design over the past 40+ years. and even when those ideas aren't outright weaponized, i tend to feel like they've been overly refined and reified in the industry and even plenty of indie efforts. the results are games that feel like they're primarily about Being Good At Games or ensuring that players are confident they'll see everything that's "worth seeing"
it's refreshing to play something where the creators have considered a lot of these ideas deeply and have decided to use them to express things in a way that feels elegant, and almost effortless. even though if you think about it for one second it clearly isn't simple to do at all! and to so fearlessly use the other side of that too, because i do truly feel they're related ideas, of not offering the player the comfort of knowing...well, anything they haven't encountered for themselves.
i'm excited to continue on, and terrified at the same time. it's exhilarating. i really appreciate that you wrote this piece.