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Dilation

Started by droqen, January 28, 2023, 06:23:06 PM

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droqen

I am willing to accept this not as a threshold but some other nearly mathematical trick.

droqen

#16
A decision "is" or defines its game equal to the decision's dilation.

An experience or subexperience "is" to a degree that equals its dilation.

droqen

The more specific problem is that of artwork rather than all experience.
I will focus there.

droqen

In Handmade Pixels Juul writes that certain theorists worry goals and optimization "shift the player's focus away" from other things and I argue this is explicitly a concern about dilation.

~ Handmade Pixels, "dual worries" about goals and optimization in games

droqen

If dilation defines experience then it plays that same defining role in art.

droqen

A work that shifts the player's focus towards goals and optimization is defining itself by those things.

droqen

#21
Finally I can arrive at the crux of my argument regarding dilation:

droqen

To design a game about anything,
that thing's experiencing must be
dilated in the player's experience.

droqen

#23
Satisfying mechanisms emerge from systems built upon metaphor or feeling; goals and optimization make them instead games about those "unintentional" mechanics.

droqen

#24
The infectious nature of fun in that described above does not belie a meaninglessness but originates from its compellingness and very disposition towards dilation rather than any meaningfulness or relevance.

droqen

In the hierarchy of dilation a subtler feeling can be overshadowed by other feelings more readily dilated.

droqen

Dilation defines experience and process determines dilatedness.

droqen

Dilation is neither virtuous nor sinful.

droqen

Just take care with dilation that the deep feeling is not lost to those experiences which have a greater predisposition towards dilatedness but are ultimately wrong.

droqen

The goal is not perfect dilation of that deep feeling.