So, a while ago, I posted some thoughts about what a game designer does for a living. And while I like the efficiency-oriented interpretation of what a game designer is, it’s missing something. I think in the context of a game-developer-as-creator-of-product, it’s a fine definition. And being so mired in creating *product* over the last 10 months, the definition really stuck with me.

But there’s definitely another side to it. The side that creates things that are *new*. The efficiency model isn’t contradicted by this, or superceded by it – I think the two parts are completely compatible, because the design is about coming up with a concept (the creation), and the implementation of that in an efficient, accessible manner (the implementation).

In many respects, as a designer, I am an implementor. There are parts of me that, I think, succeed at the “creator” aspect of game design, but most of the novel ideas I have are because I am good at implementation. As a result, most of my ideas are relatively pragmatic, and relatively rational.

Thing is, I would, at least in part, like to see games that step away from rationality, and embrace something totally new. I’d like to see, for instance, a game that’s entirely about the emotion of pain, or suffering, or loss, or ambivalence, or ambiguity, or something – ANYTHING – *other* than fun.

Though I haven’t played through it entirely, the game that most successfully embodies that for me so far is Shadow of the Colossus (please, no spoilers in the comments). I can’t remember who it was (I believe a co-worker of KV’s), that said that they were having trouble playing it because it wasn’t very fun. I understood that immediately. It’s epic, but it’s also very morally ambiguous. There’s sort of a point where you have to question the righteousness of what you’re doing, and one of the reasons that I stepped away from the game was actually that I couldn’t answer that question for myself in a satisfactory way.

In some sense, not playing the game became part of playing the game, and I think, though I’m not sure, that to some degree, that was the intent of the designers. I don’t know. Maybe too meta.

But again, this is a relatively rational approach to a game. It takes a lot of existing game concepts/mechanics/cliches/formats and tries to make some sort of new statement about something based on the foundation of what is already “videogames.” The question that *I* have to face, as a designer, is whether I’m satisfied with that.

Sometimes, I want to see whether there’s a way to create something that’s compeletely different. In the way that say, I don’t know – Matisse is different than Da Vinci. There’s a measure of … I don’t know – insanity? that it takes to look at the world, then represent it in a hyperreal way like Van Gogh does, or in something that’s only marginally intelligible as real, but still conveys some essence or emotion of the thing, as some of Picasso’s art.

I feel like games have the potential to do this in a way that no other medium can, but I’m not confident in my ability to actually *see* how that fits together. I feel like I know enough to recognize genius, and as always, see that it is not within *me*.

Who knows, though.

Just as an aside, I dreamt one idea that I thought would be sort of interesting. Imagine a world of completely unremarkable people. At the start of the game, everyone’s essentially the same. They look the same, and there are subtle differences, such as gender and hair color, some of the first things that one notices about a person.

The “game” is all about interacting with these people – talking to them, looking at them, touching them, etc. As you become more familiar, and more intimate with them, they take on distinguishing features. You might, for instance, notice that one person’s nose is really big. If you focus on that through conversation, or where you’ve directed your line of sight, their nose may actually become comically large, because it’s such a defining characteristic.

You might have a line of conversation that shows how confident a person is – their visual representation may take on a glowing aura. Or someone’s short, and have a Napoleon Complex, so their representation becomes comically short, and they don a Napoleon hat. How you see them is a visual metaphor for your interactions with them, and your avatar’s understanding of who they are.

I think this happens to a large degree in the real world. People you like become more attractive, and people who are superficially attractive may become repulsive simply through the force of their personality. Certain people are defined, visually, but a relatively small number of facial features, or a particular expression. We all develop some shorthand for understanding who we’re looking at, and their appearance triggers in us a shorthand representation of *who they are*, which is a cumulation of all you know about their personality.

Yeah. Sometimes, a post doesn’t come to a satisfying end. This is one of those times.