something i'm fond of is designing levels first by
composition (i.e. using a tile editor to draw a bunch of tiles that look good) and then to find a way to make it enjoyable to play. i came to think about this process more clearly after reading bennett foddy's piece on mkapolk's process of designing "[fr0g] clan official server 24/7 zk map (for stranger) (https://thatsnot.fun/zk-map-for-stranger/)":
QuoteMy process for making the levels was to scatter geometry more or less randomly and then try to traverse it. Sometimes when I was going down a map if I thought that an area shouldn't be a dead end I'd add some more stuff to it, but that's about as far as it went.
but maybe i should have realized it earlier when i heard sylvie's description of how she designed JIGGLY ZONE (https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/11060)
-- actually i don't know where i heard this. was it from sylvie herself? (researching)
the first example that comes to mind is this card, Scorched Earth (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01099), from the card game Netrunner.(https://netrunnerdb.com/card_image/large/01099.jpg)
both its thematic/narrative conceit and its role as a function piece of the game excite me, and they coincide wonderfully in one card. that is to say, i cannot really separate the two aspects: it is clearly one element. i can imagine different theming for the mechanics, of course, and different mechanics for the theming... this isn't saying that this card couldn't have been anything else. but they do feel like one piece, well-matched.
each of those sides of the design are exciting to me in a way that creates a positive feedback loop inside my relationship to the card, Scorched Earth.
- it does 4 meat damage, which is
a lot of damage. this card could win you the game, as corp. it makes me want to build an entire deck around it.
- the flavour text not-so-subtly implies that the corp is brutal and willing to
detonate buildings in order to get to the runner.
----
perhaps a better name for these elements is 'reversible double entendre'. see, the thing that makes them valuable is that while you may come across one aspect first, their relationship is... reversible. sometimes one feels obvious and the other is just backing it up.
it's so powerful that i want to build a deck around it! 4 meat damage is
a lot. for those unfamiliar, the other player, the
runner, has to discard that many cards or they lose instantly. their max hand size is 5. so this is... a huge amount of damage. ... this relationship to the
gameplay aspect is backed up by the fact that the flavour of the card describes and shows the action as being a highly potent action. it's brutal and destructive.
on the other hand, the narrative/theme of the card is really telling me something about the corps and what they're capable of. this is an
immediately, obviously unacceptable abuse of power that the corp is trying to get away with. the flavour text appears to be a quote from someone attempting to paint Weyland Consortium as innocent. the sudden brutality of the action is backed up by the fact that the card does a lot of damage.
these two aspects, the double meaning or double entendre, has a 'reversible' quality that causes me to oscillate between them in a way that's very rewarding. (maybe this is just
ludonarrative assonance at work but i like this metaphor more - it's not just the marriage of gameplay and narrative that creates a magical whole object, but a specific relationship between two 'sides' of a design element -- the double entendre that cannot be resolved, but keeps flipping over and over, keeping it fresh and worth consideration for a much longer period of time.)
the second example is Favour in Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile(https://i.ibb.co/TKRFjvX/image.png)
(writing...)