game making vs chair making

[droqen]

recently i was chatting with a friend about my relationship to making games.

if i imagine making a chair, i know the features that i expect out of a chair. you could say, also, that my first relationship to chairs is that i sit in them. when i imagine chaircraft i imagine eventually sitting on the seat. maybe the way it supports my lazy lower back, or whether i could sit in it cross-legged.

i have had to come to the conclusion that i don't make games this way.

the hypothetical chair-artist

often when i am making a game if i show it to someone with a good eye for design, they will make very reasonable and good suggestions -- the types of very reasonable and good suggestions which i in turn would find myself making if someone asked me to help them with their game design.

it can often seem impossible to reject such suggestions in good faith. sometimes there really is no 'good' reason to turn down these insights. i imagine sitting on the most uncomfortable chair in the world: what would i tell the chair-maker, the chair-artist? do i suggest removing the spikes that dig into my bum? do i suggest adding a few more legs so that i don't have to do all the balancing myself? do i suggest making it a little shorter so that i don't need to use the stepladder to sit on it?

at some point i might have to question whether i have really understood what a chair is.

on the other hand, i know what a chair is. maybe the chair-artist is wrong.

being the chair-artist

maybe i would like to be so wrong. to understand myself through the lens of this absurd character. why does the un-chair have one singular long leg? why is its seat so spiky? these are the right questions, inasmuch as questioning is the right response.

which is to say, questioning is not the right response.

i think that i most enjoy making games in this way: unquestioningly.

i comprehend the logic of the game designer but i have no love for it. how could i ever, when the accomplishments of the designer are so hollow to me? when and if i play videogames, it is with brutal hostility towards its design, even if it is with openness towards its creative vision.

that is to say, i know the features that i expect out of a game.

but i do not care to regard them with more than a passing neutral gaze.

"ah!

"so that, too is something you could do.

"how interesting," said the chair-artist,

whittling a seat into sharper spikes for no-one.