Agender cyborg commie who loves art and hacking and doesn't afraid of anything.
this is why we need the equivalent of 19th-20th century art movements in games, so that we can have a coherent faction of designers who say: "it is imperative that we confuse the player" and then the rest of the field reacts to how that feels like it alters the fabric of the medium.
its imperative that the motivations of the player and the player-character are in conflict
honestly it really helped unblock my game dev brain this month to play a game that was just remorselessly indifferent to explaining itself
Rain World - if you’re unfamiliar it’s a survival-platformer with a fairly intricate ecosystem, and the game is willing to explain some of the platforming mechanics and none of the motivations, capabilities, or weaknesses of the many other critters you encounter
So it’s a lot of meeting a new thing and going “which of us is food? how can you help me? how can I get past you?” And every time I’ve caved and looked up info about a creature the possibility space is always much, much bigger than I would have imagined.
Ah I bounced off of Rain World early, maybe I should try it again
I don’t blame you, it’s feverishly difficult
It’s definitely rearranging the insides of my brain in ways I hope are good but it’s also not an easy thing to recommend
I was very confused due to glittermitten grove's conversation mechanics and I think figuring it out was what made it so memorable
Glittermitten Grove was a surprise and delight because it was basically sold as "Frog Fractions 2's camouflage dust jacket" and it turned out to be a DAMN SOLID GAME on its own merits
...GODDAMMIT, I NEED TO FINISH FROG FRACTIONS 2 SOMETIME
A solid 1/5 of the time playing games I'm stoned anyway and not fully paying attention so yeah this tracks.
Huh. I guess that's kinda what a good game jam does right, or like that monthly game dev collective thing that was short lived. What if we all focused on this weird idea for a bit.
I think about the arcane kids manifesto a lot
I think that there are plenty of proponents for this throughout indie games, and even sometimes in triple-A! I feel more than ever emboldened to expresses this idea, and request for games to be designed with it in mind, because I feel like it may actually be received and understood by a great few. It's cool!
kojima is really what it looks like when we embrace this AAA-side (ds is basically a blockbuster walking sim.. whoa) but truly there is also a dark side to this as with any leftist exploratory genre we also get reactionary taxonomy- tread carefully!
curious, could you expand on what you mean by reactionary taxonomy? any examples? (i've explored player/player-character conflict/alienation a lot in my own work but dont think im familiar with what you're describing)
reactionaries love to believe in a Right Way to do stuff especially when it comes to the Classics. the whole "art sucks now! why can't they make it like [gestures to a lyendecker painting not realizing he was gay]"
yeah for sure! i love it. theres been designers exploring it for decades, especially in interactive fiction. but like a lot of niche/experimental work, the history gets lost
I think having the motivations of the player and their character conflict creates an interesting game dynamic. I used to think/write a lot about player-character motivations back when I was studying games, as that was something I found interesting.
