Comments on: Game Idea: Case Study

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 04:37:22 +0000

These comments are great – I so often get caught up thinking about how to communicate a specific idea that I have a feeling about, instead of focusing on the feeling and maybe using the idea as an example in the presentation of the feeling. The feeling is what is REAL. I will let this idea simmer for a bit…

By: Mer Grazzini

Mer Grazzini — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:45:29 +0000

In reply to Jack. This is interesting! The power of haikus resides in that they are poetry, and poetry doesn't need explanaition. They leave the space for you to fill it with your own worldview and understanding. But this is not the case, it's a cientific thing! You are explaining a concept! Unless you use the cycle as a metaphor of something. Jorge Drexler is a musician+doctor that makes songs about cientific theories but using them to tell a thing about human nature, like feelings or such. The thing droqen pointed out down here is a good starting point to think about that. If that's what you want the player to feel, then the haiku is actually about the inevitability of things, or the power of nature to thrive no matter what?

By: Droqen

Droqen — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:33:06 +0000

Is part of the haiku that this result is inevitable? It’s interesting to give the player agency to set such a huge system in motion, but expect it to always turn out in one particular way — i.e. the player “creates matter” – all the matter that ever exists in this world? every mountain and ocean? – and yet it always turns out the same water cycle.

Is that what you want the player to feel? The beauty of this thing that results regardless of their intent or lack thereof.

By: Jack

Jack — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 16:47:33 +0000

Another thought related to that last question: ultimately this gravity->water cycle is not a poetic space to play in. it is a very specific idea that is trying to be communicated, and that is probably where the complexity sneaks in.