playability

i'm not pre-convinced of the goodness of this game. i don't have a coherent vision for a delicately woven set of aesthetics and mechanics (or whatever) that i'm confident will produce something fun (or whatever). it's origins were a pretty instinctual exploration of the constraints "analog sticks" and this image:

constraints

that word. what are they? you might, at some point in your life, have been told something like "constraints inspire creativity". perhaps even by someone offering you purportedly inspirational constraints. it's a phrase, we might call it a chestnut, that i think is mostly true (bookmarking for another time whether "creativity" is a enclosure by capital on "imagination"). a good constraint can push you to make something cool or to make something you wouldn't otherwise.

but it's true to a point that seems, to me anyways, near absurdity. can you imagine what it would mean to make something without constraints? i can't. i've been thinking about this recently in the context of my own games, and i wonder if it might be helpful to exercise what we mean by "constraints" a bit, at least as far as this chestnut is concerned. so that we might intentionally select the constraints we bring into our work and why. and reject the rest.

seeing them

there are probably a whole bunch of ways ways to tease apart that word, "constraints". here are some:

one probably familiar distinction is whether a constraint is external or internal. an external constraint is offered by someone or something that isn't you. for example, say your teacher asks you to make something in a week; that's an external constraint. an internal constraint is everything else. any constraint that nobody but you is imposing on a thing. on it's own, this distinction isn't too exciting.

a gradient that gets a little more interesting to think about about whether a constraint is explicit or implicit. an explicit constraint is unambiguous, clear, & stated. for example, "this game is 2d". we all pretty much know what that means. on the other hand, an implicit constraint in ambiguous, unstated. maybe unknown. for example, you might be making something that you want to put on your itch. implicitly, you've constrained yourself: "this game is itch-worthy". that's fuzzy. to be "itch-worthy" can mean many different things, even to you. but it certainly excludes some games.

now that we've thought the "itch-worthiness" constraint, it sits somewhere along the gradient. you probably wouldn't say it's as explicit as "this game is 2d", but it's a lot less implicit than it used to be. this gradient is everywhere. an implicit rule in football is "don't pass the ball to the other team". a less implicit rule is "don't eat turf off the pitch".

choosing them

the gradient i like spend the most time in is whether a constraint is required or accepted. you can probably conjure a required constraint easily: "finish the game by october 1st" or "use these assets or you're fired". as far as i can tell, they are universally external.

another better chestnut: "responsibility can't be assigned, it can only be accepted". i can't tell you to be responsible for something. if you don't want to be responsible for it, you won't be. this is the beating heart, too, of the accepted constraint. it's one you assume responsibility for.

sometimes the ends of this gradient are taped together. a constraint that is required of me, i also accept voluntarily. i like trying to make a game in a week, but i also am "required" to.

sometimes they're not. sometimes you volunteer constraints nobody requires of you. sometimes constraints are required of you that you don't accept. sometimes you can shrug those constraints off, simply choose to ignore them.

sometimes you can't. you might agree to a required constraint to under duress. like under the threat of firing or failure. this is not good. imo, it's important that we identify these constraints and work with others to make sure they're made optional. to find for ourselves the ability to shrug them off.

hurt

don't work under constraints you can't accept. find a way to accept them or find a way to discard them, if you're able. it will only hurt otherwise.

but this game

the explicit constraints that inspired wands were explicit and external and required and accepted. they were assigned to me, and i was fine with that.

there were other implicit constraints that, when i made the first version of the game, i chose to reject. in particular, i rejected: "this is fun" and "this is playable" and "this makes sense".

unplayable

these constraints may be helpful if you want to make something others want to play. but they necessarily limit the space of possible things. sometimes playability is not a goal. sometimes it's even a non-goal. playability needn't get in the way of expressivity, until it should.

i enjoy making games that aren't very "playable" (i just made one even less playable). that some might call "player hostile" or illegible or not non-communicative of my intent. i don't really see it as hostile, i like players just fine. i think about you when i'm making something, even if the thing i'm making can't be played like a mario. i don't mind if you don't perceive my intent. my intent isn't important, even to me.

i want you to have your own experience with the thing. even if that experience is, "ugh, whatever". i want to freely explore an expression and for you to be able to do the same, if you so choose.

until it should be

then sometimes i find i do want to make something more like mario. i'm trying to do that with wands right now, to balance what it is with something it could be. a game that you might want to stick with for a while, where you can bounce around between different reasons for sticking with it.

and it's difficult. i'm having to adopt new constraints, like "it's playable", and in the process i'm finding that i have to leave behind some old ones, like that animation up there. identifying those points can be painful, frustrating. but i'm confident that if i keep at it i'll find something that i wouldn't have had i'd burned myself worrying about playability and fun too early.

that's it

i have a lot of work to do on this game, a lot of plans for things to add. combat more focused on scoring one solid hit, more and fewer objectives, new graphicomusical effects, opportunities for play that have nothing to do with fighting, character asymmetry. i'm excited to make a videogame.

find constraints that excite and inspire you. that’s what the chestnut says, right?