They gave me buttons, which is a very easy way to make me happy.
The first talk was by Jake Elliott, who wrote Kentucky Route Zero, called Poems and Puzzles. It was such a smart talk. I'm not entirely sure I understood it all, Mr. Elliott is a pretty deep thinker, but I took notes. Most of what he said could be summed up by tension -- he talked about conversations and social interactions as a sort of puzzle, a turn based combat. Really the thing I got out of it, at least for now, was that puzzles in a video game are a conversation with the theme of the game.
Mr. Elliott also talked about basic poetry analysis, and it was all things I'd heard once or twice, but never in depth and never in relation to video games: things like parts of a metaphor (the tenor and the vehicle), or the tension (contrast) and the ground (similarity) between the metaphor piecees. It makes me want to go back and listen to more SBU English Club. That's the most indepth poetry analysis I really engage with, isn't that bad?
Next was A Story Teller's Toolbox, by Pang Hartman. I loved this, but it was a lot of talking about story structures, which is something I'm a huge fan of. I didn't learn much about story structures, but I also have pages of notes on Campbell and Vogler, so you won't show me much new in 45 minutes.
She talked, too, about something called Emotive Design, and reccomended this GDC talk by Sid Meyer called "Interesting Decisions". So, put it on your list. The idea is, you want the player to really feel the feelings you're trying to put forth. Mrs. Hartman listed off really complicated ways to do that, like mechanics, but then easier ones too, like sound, art, color, or just writing well.
She said to take the Bartle Test. I have not gotten around to it. I'll take it and let you know, I guess.
I'm going to cut myself off here and write up more part 2 later. Until then! 👋
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