Quote11 — UNITY OF OPPOSITES

P123-125

. . . what assurance have we that the antagonists won't make a trust in middle and call it quits? . . . The real unity of opposites is one in which compromise is impossible.

. . . the play [Doll House] ended only by the "death" of some dominant quality in one of the characters-- Nora's docility, . . . Naturally, death in the theater need not apply to the death of a human being. . . .

     In nature nothing is ever "destroyed" or "dead". It is transformed into another shape, substance, or element. Nora's love for Helmer was transformed into liberation and thirst for more knowledge. His smugness was transformed into a search for the truth about himself and his relation to society. A lost equilibrium tries to find a new equilibrium for itself.

This unity Egri describes is like the seal on a pressure cooker. Enclosed within are our opposites: walls of motivation are built to keep them where they must interact, where they might fight and conflict. Very simple concept.

If opposites are allowed to reject one another, then they will, and perhaps not in an 'interesting' way. We must look for situations which force the conflict to take an 'interesting' shape; the conflicting characters cannot themselves be saddled with the responsibility of selecting for dramatically or narratively interesting conflicts... without losing something of their legitimacy as real characters inhabiting a real world. Hmm.

Then, if I extend this to my player, is it necessary that the player not be responsible for choosing an 'interesting' way to play? This is the first time, reading, where I think: characters and players are fundamentally different. A player is not a character to be pushed around... hmm...

Quote10 — ORCHESTRATION

P119

Orchestration demands well-defined and uncompromising characters in opposition, moving from one pole toward another through conflict.

Do I agree with this? This sentence, emphasis not mine (i.e. the author emphasized this entire sentence among the other unemphasized sentences in the chapter), is built upon a strong foundational belief that good dramatic writing demands conflict. I'm not in outright disagreement, by any means. But I will still hold gently on to my questioning nature, regarding this underlying claim.

I've selected a memory... and an adjective... and am looking at this grand list of variables and things to tweak and I feel so strangely good about it all. There's this sensation of that moment before a tear comes to my eye. I'm not afraid to say 'it almost made me cry,' but it's just not quite right. There is perhaps the faintest tightness of the throat.

In any case I'm enjoying the exercise. How can I use all these familiar tools, these abstract friends, to convey such a specific and difficult adjective? It feels almost perverse to wield every tiny facet of a jump for something so idiosyncratic, so emotional, to spend so much intentional effort thinking about how to do this, to invest so heavily in this expression.

Oh man I really want to do these exercises!

1. a memory of jumping . . . describe that moment . . .
ideas: something from childhood, a moment in a film, the way a favourite animal moves
details: phases, how far, what body parts, surfaces, how the surfaces feel, the shape of the movement, is anyone else involved, the jump's purpose
. . . list adjectives that you would use to describe the whole jump.

2. Choose one of the adjectives . . . build a jump . . . change many of the variables . . .
{32-33
the strength of gravity and the avatar's propulsive force . . . maximum fall speed and air friction . . . inconsistencies in [ascending and descending] arcs [..or..] during collisions . . . the slope of the jump arc, its type (linear or quadratic), and the sensitivity of the button during the first few frames of motion. . . . the time before a player can jump again after landing, and "coyote time" . . . how long the player waits for the avatar to move after pressing the button, or how much it can move while in the air. . . . maximum speed or the amount of momentum that carries over from the ground to the air . . .}
. . . a warm-up phase, a short hover at the top of the jump, or a jolt of forward movement. . . .
show it to some friends and ask them to describe the jump with one adjective. Keep adjusting it until your jump communicates the adjective you initially chose.

3. choose a second adjective from your initial list that is similar to your first . . . design a second jump for your avatar that uses a separate button. Leave the previous jump untouched, but tweak the new jump until the difference between the two adjectives is clear. . . . choose a third adjective that means the opposite of your original one.

Ask different friends to try out all three and have them describe the original jump again. . . . see how the addition of this mechanic changed the player experience.

Quote48

. . . jumping . . . tells us what the avatar wants, reveals the quality of its movement, and shows us its capcities. The themes of the genre tend toward an individual heroic avatar struggling against an anonymous and overbearing force.

Quote46, 47 (each line is a separate quote pulled from the book)

the player's identification with the avatar
the human body will always be found wanting in relation to the exaggrated motion of game avatars
Jumping in 2D platforming games. . . hovers at the edge of the possible as a dream of what our own body could be like if it were stronger, more precise, less weighty, less exhausting
When a palyer tries to translate the idea "I can jump . . . in order to" into the language of the game, any valorization of her own bodily capacity has no hope of surviving the transition.
a fantasy of shedding the weight and complexity of muscles and fat
games create a split internal to the player's sense of embodiment
(1/2) a rich sense of physicality with quirks of sensuous feeling and rich histories of meaning
(2/2) a generic antipathy to these same qualities when they are discovered in the player's own body

Quote43

Ferdinand de Saussure. . . remarks that mutton in English and mouton in French cannot be translated simply because the latter refers to live sheep as well as meat.
. . . conceive of translation as an art rather than an act of mere substitution, one that tries but necessarily fails to account for subtle shifts in meaning across languages. The same principle applies to the player's act of translating "jumping"

I am not sure about all this -- I do like the idea of approaching the act of jumping with some kind of reverence, instilling it with emotion and intent. But the specific wording... McDonald provides things which jumps signify, making no attempt to suggest subjectivity or locality. Are these interesting signs? Sure. They are. Which is why I am going to quote them here. But these are all optional readings... Maybe i don't understand sign theory well enough, and all signs are always in fact optional.

I am thinking about The Jump as a Tarot Card. It signifies things... when the jump signifies something we may use that sign to inspire a meaningful interpretation, or we may dismiss it when it gets in the way. If this is what it means to signify, then I do not mind saying that the jump and its parts 'signify' these things.

Quote39-42
First, the upward motion of jumping signifies energy, power, escape from the law, rebellion, and freedom. . . .
Second, and reciprocally, falling after an initial ascent signifies vulnerability to enemies, helplessness to prevent the fall, and the crushing revenge of the rules. . . .
Third, jumping signifies craftiness, turning a bad situation to good account and manipulating fate. . . .
Fourth, the whole jump signifies glee, spontaneity, rhythm, and creativity. . . .
Fifth, jumping signifies exploration and progress. . . .

These five themes are the basic elements that have been repeated and reinforced since the inception of the genre. . . . At the same time, these themes are not inevitable. Each one arises from a collection of design decisions and habits that have become common through repeated use. . . . Nevertheless, the weight of the tradition has a powerful force that colors and shapes every jump.

Ok, this was a pretty great read. Additional detail from upward and falling motions:

Quote39-40

While jumping piggybacks on a widespread metaphorical association between upward motion, progress, happiness, and strength, its positive valence in the game world should not be naturalized. Rather, these associations are actively cued by the challenges that the player surmounts. It is entirely possible, if rare, for games to valorize falling instead and have levels progress downward. . . . there is nothing natural of inevitable about [the association of falling with vulnerability, helplessness, revenge]. It is established by the regular use of pits to kill the player and similar design choices. It is no more difficult to put deadly spikes on the roof than holes in the floor, but games rarely challenge the player to shorten her jump height, and when they do, it is for claustrophobic effect.

One more further detail quote about falling, which I love.

Quote39

As the player reaches the peak of her jump, gravity reasserts itself. Each subsequent frame narrows the scope of possible actions as the player's increasing speed makes the consequences of any decision harder to judge.

This is such a great, powerful dynamic. It is of course very intuitive and simple, but I don't think I've seen anyone call it out so straightforwardly, so explicitly. This is one facet which a jump may (or may not) have, and having (or not having) (or otherwise modulating) it has a significant, but also very specific and specifiable, impact on the miniature emotional universe accessed by the whole jump.

Quote36

In some sense, the purpose of flying is to highlight the half-measures of jumping, as if to say, "The designer could have allowed you this freedom but chose to withhold it." As a result, jumping signifies something between constraint and freedom.

Quote32

Designers often discuss game feel as either good or bad. . . From a semiotic perspective, however, game feel is better understood as creating nuances within the meaning of an act. . . . a designer can imbue a jump with dozens of different physical and emotional qualities: Alucard feels heavy, Mario feels slippery, Mega Man feels sharp, Sonic feels acrobatic.

There are a few variables further described. What I'm interested in is not the specific variables, but... what is the range of such variables? What can be expressed by a jump, and what can't?

heft, consistency, grace, spryness, soft, bubbly, nimble, willowy, majestic, crystalline, frantic...

Quote26

. . . jumping is a method for traversing space.

27

. . . platforming games use jumping to transform time into a resource. . . [Yes!!!]

Quote25

. . . the signified choice can only be understood within the full pragmatic context of play. Bojin lists several contextual factors that might change the meaning of a jump, but only to the extent that they affect strategic considerations.

Nooo! Wrong!!!

Quote26

When a player jumps on an enemy, she may feel rage or regret without either emotion registering in the jump, but her action does express a decision to attack. . . . Jumping has as many meanings as the choices it affords, and it slots the player's impulses into a systematized set of available moves.

Noooo!!! McDonald, I believed in you!!!
I don't like this. My understanding is that it is a straightforward statement that a jump may only take on multiple meanings to the extent that the player is able to make different jumps.
Do I think that's the case? I suppose earlier he does write that "each of the . . . jumps a player makes over the course of a game is singular and unique." Hmm.

Quote22

each of the . . . jumps a player makes over the course of a game is singular and unique.

Quote24

A player jumps in order to accomplish something specific in the game world, and the meaning of each jump is directly tied to that goal. . . . It is common to use verbs like jumping to capture this language of action, . . . However, verbs are also ambiguous. They group together several acts that each might mean something significantly different to the player.

VERY TRUE.

Quote25

Nis Bojin argues that we should instead think in terms of situated actions. . .
   . . . A ludeme . . . moves from the technical interaction to a "choice-experience," . . .
. . . a ludeme is essentially a sign that conjoins the act (as signifier) to a strategy (as signified)

I very much like the idea of rooting the verb in the player's goal, their experience of action. You do the thing, of course, but why do you do it? This is of the utmost importance. The exact same action may have a different, unique, meaning depending on why you undertake it.

Quote21

This chapter is about the meaning of jumping . . . Jumping holds nostalgic childhood memories, conjures up scenes of game designers talking about their craft, draws in moral panic about addiction, and tethers academic accounts of procedural rhetoric.

I'm struggling with this. But I like the next bit.

Quote21

Most important, the player attaches a meaning to jumping as she plays. That experience of acting in a game world is an underexplored dimension within the study and design of games.¹

Hmm. Where does this '1' go?

Quote142

1. I am indebted to Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark for presenting a clear and expansive version of the idea that games are languages. Anna Anthropy and Naomi Clark, A Game Design Vocabulary

ah, this old thing! hmm. I don't understand how this connects to the player's... ohh, acting. I thought McDonald mean acting like in a play, not acting like 'taking an action.'