Not Not-noise

[droqen]

RE: takunomi's
"Not Not-noise"

dear takunomi,

first i'll note that a clearer definition of noise, for me, is "things that are not related to artistic intent." there is another definition that i think you are using in some cases, which is more like "the appearance of not being related to artistic intent." it's been pointed out to me in the past that i'm interested in "the aesthetic of intentionality." ultimately, i don't think that that's true (i.e. it's not the aesthetic that i'm interested in -- rather, it is the truth of it), but such an aesthetic is a good entry-level way to indicate that such intent exists.

i believe that you might still be conflating the two. in your first proposed path, you suggest that making the game "prettier" with "more interesting" and "more clever" mechanics and narrative might be a way to remove "noise". for the first definition ("unintentional elements"), this is not at all a viable solution. but for the second ("lacking the aesthetic of intentionality"), it might appear to be. as already mentioned, i personally think the second definition is ultimately not important, although it may be a useful stepping stone towards removing "unintentional elements", whether or not they appear intentional.

your idea of "otherplay" is interesting; to me what is important is not designing with it in mind. this may seem kind of counterintuitive, and it might not even be truthful. it's hard for me to say. this is very much at the heart of kill gameplay for me. especially when you say "not delightfully surprising the designer with the toys they gave you," i feel a strong resonance. but then, my proposed solution is: don't give the player toys at all. computers and people are capable of a great many things. what if we lean on all those things, and think about how to allow these pre-existing abilities to shine through our interactive works?

i'm not sure if that makes sense. i'm still figuring it out.

rough notes below. you may find those more interesting than this summary/letter, but read whatever piques your interest.

love, droqen.

[droqen]

i talked with my partner about what i said here, in this quote, and figured out that i am essentially saying that in games there is a lot of stuff going on that is unrelated to artistic intent, artistic vision. and i'm frustrated by that both as a maker and as a player. all this stuff makes 'playing games' a poor choice of activity if what i'm interested in is conveying or receiving artistic intent/vision.

[droqen]

The Girl Who Kicked a Rabbit . . . is finished, yet has issues. Such is the nature of computer programs.

When I consider what kind of sequence I could make, I see two paths . . .

1.

I could . . . give [players] an even better experience of what they enjoyed before, and really convey what I wanted the first time. Less noise, a clearer vision.

2.

. . . I could switch it all up. . . . a completely different kind of game. . . . The original noise was special and interesting, so . . . I can't repeat that. It would be stale and pointless.

Something I find interesting is the way that takunomi has interpreted noise and its solution; takunomi's vision of removing noise is a "prettier, snappier" game, "with fewer moments of frustration," one that's "smoother", "more interesting", "more clever", and "easier to understand".

almost none of this is what i would regard as "noise" which i'll here clarify to mean "unrelated to artistic intent or vision." rather, takunomi's first 'path' mostly describes a work which has more appeal, rather than one which removes things unrelated to artistic intent or vision.

adding generic appeal
- prettier
- snappier
- smoother interaction
- more interesting
- more clever story
- easier to understand UI

removing things unrelated to vision
- fewer moments of frustration

~~~

at least, this is how i see it. takunomi may not be happy with the style that The Girl Who Kicked a Rabbit was able to execute on, but here the details don't seem to me to indicate an actual sense that the game has that much "noise" to remove.

then, the second path essentially involves pursuing a completely different artistic vision.

[droqen]

ma. emptiness. noise.
alright, we're getting deeper into the territory of takunomi's read on noise and emptiness.

It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally.

[droqen]

yes, i think a clearer definition of what i was talking about would have been clearer - i use words pretty loosely and terribly, haha.

Consider a game like Death Stranding. . . . It has so much noise, but I dare say the noise is there by design.

this seems to be the opposite of what i want to say about "noise"... i should compare it to my literal text, though. i wonder what i was even saying, back then.

. . . in a session of a videogame i am able to experience so many moments other than the one i am after. how much of [this is] intentional? desirable? . . .

. . . it is not only moments other than what i am after, i also receive moments other than what the designer was after . . . this noise is troubling to me, as someone who wants to think about the work. . . .

. . . the presence of noise, i understand. even wading through noise is not the worst. but it is the volume of noise over signal that makes me question . . . who am i hearing speak?

no!!! i think i was actually pretty clear. i think takunomi is going in a somewhat different direction than what i am talking about, actually.

[droqen]

alright, let me interpret this differently: perhaps takunomi is suggesting that i may be misreading signal as noise. when takunomi writes  "It has so much noise, but I dare say the noise is there by design"  perhaps this means that there is stuff in Death Stranding which i and others may perceive as noise (i.e. unintentional), but which is in fact intentional.

this is possible. moving forward i'll refer to this sort of noise as "the appearance of unintentionality" and this will refer to both:
- actual unintentionality which also appears, truthfully, unintentional
- intentional choices which may or may not be made to appear unintentional, but which are in the end incorrectly 'read' as unintentional

[droqen]

what is the "noise" in Death Stranding, according to takunomi?

. . . the slightly cumbersome controls
. . . the clumsy way your character behaves
. . . the off-putting dialogue and acting
. . . the wild juxtapositions between serious moments and childish silliness

takunomi also refers to this as "negative space"?
in any case, if i am judging correctly, then takunomi may be pointing out that these four items have the appearance of unintentionality, which is quite surprising to me, but i think aligns very well with takunomi's first path - it involves removing the appearance of unintentionality from The Girl Who Kicked a Rabbit, 'fixing' surface level issues.

ah ha, i get it now.

at this point i don't understand the Miyazaki quote's relationship to this, however.

[droqen]

I definitely see the idea of play being deeper if certain aspects are only hinted at. In paintings, this idea might be presence of a landscape where you only paint the clouds behind a mountain. In play, having controls that are hard to grasp, work against the player, or are only accessible through experimentation might relate to this.

hmm. this is very crucial; what takunomi describe is the absolute opposite of what i would take "suggestion" to mean. see my "a HAIKU games manifesto," especially "a haiku game's complex parts are all fake."

controls that are hard to grasp are not the equivalent of the presence of "a landscape where you only paint the clouds behind a mountain"; the difference is that the landscape invokes the imagination and nothing else. you may imagine a landscape behind those clouds, and that is where it ends.

by comparison, if the controls are hard to grasp, or especially if they are "only accessible through experimentation", it demands some imagination but it also demands something else -- experimentation is some part imagination, and another part killing imagination to replace it with reality.

i am interested in parts of play that are only accessible through imagination. this is huge. i want to talk to takunomi about this.

[droqen]

film production is hard to control and what ends up on the screen is what the creators managed to do and were allowed to do, but not necessarily what they wanted to do.

reasonable, but, it is ultimately still something that they accepted. in the case of what appears on screen in a game, and what is part of a player's experience, the creators do not get to pass final judgement on that. it's very different.

Second, the ma that Miyazaki describes, is (I think) . . . also the many moments that a director can't account for and the moments that build the world, but not the story. This is noise too. . . . And it's the "suggestion" aspect of wabi aesthetics. If I may prod Droqen, this is where gameplay exists in sequential media like books and cinema.

hmmmm. i'm having some trouble following at this point. there are a lot of different bits going on.

- the moments that a director can't account for

- the moments that build the world, but not the story

- ma

- the "suggestion" aspect of wabi aesthetics

- gameplay

i think that takunomi is proposing that all of these separate concepts are related but i am especially having trouble with the first two! the moments that a director can't account for and the moments that build the world... there's something interesting there, i suppose i am presently interpreting takunomi's perspective as story or plot-centric -- perceiving non-story world details as
- outside of the director's control
- inherently the negative space, emptiness
- necessarily "suggested"

re: gameplay, we're about to get into a lot of "gameplay" so i'll get back to it in a sec.

[droqen]

I shone a light on every detail in order to understand why such and such is done, and tried removing or changing all of it.

yes... this is something i am contending with a lot now actually: something can be intentional even if we can't give a reason for it. sometimes, analysis can be very destructive. i call for more intention. (and more blood.) but i think it's incredibly important to also be explicit that i don't mean things that you can defend verbally, for instance. or even explain to yourself.

I suggest the ma and noise of gameplay . . . The negative space of gameplay. . . . What you do, but aren't supposed to do. . . . The otherplay. . . . it's unintuitive to me to design with otherplay in mind, but that's where the real playfulness exists. . . not delightfully surprising the designer with the toys they gave you, but having fun with the nails they forgot to remove from the carefully constructed playground.

oh, takunomi! we're so close! there are a few statements that you make that i want to counter, then i'm going to try and wrap up.

The game that you DON'T play.

i think that the grammar here is sort of muddled and am assuming takunomi means something like, otherplay is what happens when you don't play the game? the game that isn't the game, that you DO play?

it's unintuitive to me to design with otherplay in mind

i don't know if you should, or even can. this is the weirdest part. i really think that my ideal is to stop thinking about the player experience completely, and especially stop designing for it. if the goal is otherplay, if the goal is to see your players "having fun with the nails [you] forgot to remove", then the only reasonable thing to do is to not seek to give the players any toys at all, don't construct a playground.

construct something else. construct something interactive but incredibly loose. not a playground, not a toy, just a thing. make an apartment building and let the player explore it. build a doghouse, a ladder, a boardwalk. don't make a game. just make something that can be touched.