my game design philosophy: I, THE DEV, AM YOUR OPPONENT
i have a very adversarial design philosophy, where instead of mechanics faciliating ease of use for player and catering to the playerbase, the fundamental philosophy of my games is not "to understand and prioritize player mindset and needs" but for THEM, the players, to understand MY mindset and needs.
the whole "name of the game" in my games is a cry for help trying to get other people to understand me, my mind, my trauma, my history, and my most beloveds. in order to understand a history of such extreme and unimaginable dehumanization entrapped and encoded in symbolic semi-fictions, you CANNOT approach them from a player-centered mindset.
isn't the point of an autobiographical game to understand a human experience outside yourself?
the thing is, even when my games "seem like" they're about other characters/people, they are Still About Me.
i was talking with my friend from tangerine town who was playing the new lord of nothing is taking prayers and fae was talking about how fae thought of the game and approached it as "this game is designed to have hints because the dev WANTS the player to get every outcome"
but the actual design philosophy of that game is like a puzzle box which you need to keep cracking until you dismantle the code, and then realize that the fundamental "key" to the cipher was not actually immensely difficult, but required interrogation of your preconceptions of "a game" and seeking out an internal logic that may not be "normative" nor "intuitive" to an ordinary soul outside of the dev's (my) brain.
there's two things to keep in mind with the new lord of nothing is taking prayers and that is.
- certain inputs, BUT NOT ALL! are case sensitive, the same way a password is (HOPE/MERCY/DON'T)
- the inputs are in << >> brackets in flaming hot magenta hyperlinks
- the default input (RUN, GIRL, RUN) is an else-case due to being default / baseline, and so is the character's name (YOSHINO JUNPEI) due to being the only unchanging factor / actor in the story
- there is one other else-case (in the title, the new lord of nothing) that is all lowercase to symbolize a sense of inferiority
- there are a few irrelevant easter eggs for long term fans
in the end, there are not a lot of inputs, but there are very many people who, without trying to understand the literally schizophrenic internal logic of the game, will never proceed past the simplest logic gates
the internal logic "is inconsistent" and "doesn't make sense" if you're referring to a NORMATIVE baseline for those citizens of consensus reality, BUT there IS absofuckinglutely a crystal clear thoroughline of internal logic that makes this game very intuitive for me.
there is no cipher that is not designed to be cracked. every cipher hides something, but there is always a key to every cipher, and every cipher is trying to communicate something. this game, too, is a cipher and a puzzle box that is designed to be opened.
but in order to understand the "key" to the cipher, you have to immerse yourself in the mind of the one who invented the cipher. but every cipher is meant to be understood. it's meant to communicate something. it's NOT meant to be easy.
my games are all, each and every one, designed for me to communicate and transmit the worst horrors and deepest loyalties of my existence in a way that makes love true and beautiful. but it doesn't, EVER, make it "easy" or "palatable" or "acceptable" and it's never FOR!!!!!!! you.
my games are for me. they are not 'for' the players. but i share them for a reason.
i share them, these symbolic ciphers, because i want the people i love to try their damn fucking hardest to crack open the puzzle box of my heart. to solve the mystery, the riddle, of my heart, which is 'just a mechanism for the soul' (jjk)
every game i make is for my own sake. but that doesn't mean i don't want to be cherished, loved, and understood by others. i just don't make it easy. (but if it were easy, it wouldn't be true.)