You raise some good and interesting points, and it's far more interesting to discuss them than ignore them. Hopefully I won't come across as a reactionary douchebag
I completely agree. I think it's especially important with these experimental titles to figure out what worked and what didn't. I look forward to an intelligent discussion!
This is particularly interesting, because, obvious or not it certainly wasn't the way I made it. There was a fair amount of bouncing back and forth between gameplay and writing in an attempt to make the two fit together well, but the general order of creation was kind of opposite to the way you describe. For each scene I started with a (for the sake of a better word) thought that I wanted to put across, then came the mechanic I hoped would fit it, and then the text came last.
You know, it's interesting. Right after I wrote that I thought, "But... what if it was the other way around?" and I can see how both could be true. The most important thing here though is not whether or not I was right (of course
I would say that) but that I felt the need to make the distinction between the two. I'll try to talk a bit about why I felt such disconnect between the two a bit later on.
Writing the text was the hardest part of creating the game for me, as I needed it to be instructive, and yet honest, whilst fitting in fairly tight constraints on size. I can only let others judge how successful I was with it.
I'd be interested to hear more about your process in this. How much does the text reflect the thought you wanted to convey and how much does it reflect the gameplay? Did you write the text about the gameplay (in any way)?
I must admit I'd not thought of the potential disconnect in the final scene at all, and it's a fair point. I have to say, as an autobiographical work I've found it particularly difficult to distance myself sufficiently from the character to spot that sort of thing.
I think it's largely the text which causes this fracture. I think if I had gone through the game without it I would have been much more confused regarding the game's intent, but would have clearly seen myself as a third party. At no point do you directly control the character in a physical manner. You can push away dark blobs from the character, but without the text you might assume you were some type of god-character, keeping evil away from this man on the street.
The text, however, adds that extra layer which places the player in the mind of the walker. References to pushing back or holding things close have the duality of describing the character's mind and the player's actions. The final scene breaks this trend. The character merely observes the stars, whereas the gameplay seems to suggest the player is creating them.
*small correction to my last post while I'm at it, seems the night sky w/ stars is the 5th scene, not the 4th, I'm sure you knew what I meant anyway
Ok, so I'll try to speak here on what struck me as off.
I think each frame is made up of three basic elements: setting, gameplay, and text.
Frame 1: Obviously the setting here is real-world, or at least could be. There's nothing extraordinary or abstract to it. The text is similar, apart from using strong verbs as metaphors it is quite feasible and doesn't seem out of place for writing. The problem here is the gameplay, which consists of pushing back "worries". These are represented by an abstract symbol in a concrete world. Where the streets are real, the idea of home is real, and even worries are real, floating brown clouds are not. For me, it makes them feel out of place, or rather, it makes me feel their representation is out of place. The worries are easy for me to accept, the floating black clouds, however, are abstract where everything else is real.
Frame 2: This has basically the same problems as the last. None of these white clouds are, to the player, green tea, music, or Irina; they are just white clouds. But how does one show these things through plausible elements? It's easy to have white clouds float around, or maybe even specific objects like tea cups floating around, but both these solutions are surreal. To approach the subject of memory via gameplay in a project of this size so early on in the piece is hard, because the player doesn't share the character's memories yet. If the player and character had a shared past, it would be easier to look at a lightpole in the game and have it be representative of this-one-time-something-awesome-happened-near-a-lightpole.
Another thing I didn't like about #2, and this is more annoyance than anything, is that I had to gather
every cloud. I'm certainly not a completionist, especially not when my movement speed is limited.
I would go on with the analysis, but I'm out of time right now, and I think these two examples have highlighted pretty well what I think I didn't like about the game.
And I'm not trying to be so critical, really, I'd like to go over the other frames and some things I thought you did well when I can find the time.
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