While creating something that results in a strong emotional reaction is difficult just by itself, I think you raise a valid concern, Henrik.

One way we've been able to avoid being manipulative in our game is by creating something based on an intense life experience. Even toning the game down a lot and reducing our prototype from a real-life 6 hours to a game-time 10 minutes still leaves us with an emotionally intense experience. One could argue we are doing the opposite of making something seem more emotional than it is by being manipulative. We've taken several steps to try to make it less emotional, and in one case we failed: http://www.blackjacketstudios.com/gdc/gdc-2013/

And actually we have a situation of extreme emotional flux as well, but again it's based on what happened in real life. That's just how it works sometimes; laughter comes in the midst of pain. I think as long as the flux is believable, you're fine using that.

I see. Well then I'd strongly suggest that your world is aware of this struggle and needed determination and communicates that well to the player. If you can do that, you should be good.

Otherwise you'll have the problem of the puzzles taking the player out of the experience. And if immersion of part of your goal, you don't want that. >_<

Live as in for free? I would love to see that talk.

In terms of "listening to your design", our design has basically told us to go in this direction. Interesting!

Also Thomas is probably my favorite game design blogger. So good 

I've just returned from GDC. There are enough experiences recently released and in development that are amazing players that we can probably stop worrying about "that's not a game" comments.

The only defense remaining was immature gamers and threatened game developers, but I saw all sorts of praise for things this year that had no game elements whatsoever. I'd say your defense is good and we can move on to the next step.

Cool project! Just curious, what's your intention behind using puzzles? Just following tradition, or something deeper? (either answer is valid, just curious)

Yeah, I know you weren't evaluating the term as such, you were just going with it for the time being. I do the same thing, too. ^_^

Never said hi, here, so...hi

I love your analysis of dys4ia. I don't think I buy the usage of the phrase "procedural diegesis," though. I'm trying to formulate why that is...maybe this will turn into a blog post, I dunno.

Anyway, welcome.

Hey Zak, welcome, and nice work on your site

Welcome, it's great to finally have you here...officially. ^_^

Agreed!

Not sure about you guys, but the first time I read Tevis Thompson was when he posted his Zelda rant. I love his writing; he's a true craftsman.

I love this as much as Jonas's Designing for Grace post.

Not just someone, Pippin Barr.

Interesting experience! Using minimal elements, it did a good job of depicting the feeling of your work being judged.

The experience was rather positive for me because I had a 100% success rate with both artists I played.

I dont know, you guys seem pretty quick to jump to complicated theories when maybe the answer isnt quite so complicated. I respected the game a lot, but simply found it too inaccessible. And I mean that in the sense that I needed to have read the books to find it very relevant, as opposed to an artistic or intellectual inferiority which seems to be suggested. I've watched my share of difficult arthouse films and can analyze the ideas present in the game, especially after reading your tumblr. But the game seemed to be what I think of as a "tool for reflection" to go along with the books. Since I didn't read them, I just found the experience intriguing but wasn't really moved by it.

With that said, I do really respect it since so much of the experience is meant to take place in the player.

It seems to me that the real skill is the thing you're doing while walking or standing still, like appreciating beauty, contemplating, planning, etc. Maybe that can be the learning process. It's like the idea of using content as the difficulty curve.

Yeah I was going to make a comment about the phrase too, but...meh. Seemed better to just post stuff.

Oh that reminds me. Jeroen mentioned a new iOS game Leaving is out. The dev has a paper with a similar aim as your talk it seems:  http://www.thomaspapa.net/game-movements/