Halfway through @gabedurham.bossfightbooks.com's book on Majora's Mask and I'm really interested in what it has to say about open and closed texts. I'm noticing in my own work I've felt a lot of pressure for the "meaning" to obvious and upfront, otherwise it doesn't get played at all. 🧵 - ThreadSky

agaitcheson.bsky.social • 54 days ago

Halfway through @gabedurham.bossfightbooks.com's book on Majora's Mask and I'm really interested in what it has to say about open and closed texts.

I'm noticing in my own work I've felt a lot of pressure for the "meaning" to obvious and upfront, otherwise it doesn't get played at all.

🧵

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agaitcheson.bsky.social•54 days ago

Is ambiguity a creative luxury afforded to well-established creators? Or am I just unambitious?

Specifically thinking about The Book Ritual, which is incredibly upfront about its themes of grief. The talking book is sad and preoccupied with losses, over the course of the story you find out why.

agaitcheson.bsky.social•54 days ago

I definitely felt at the time I needed to make it clear what it was about, otherwise people wouldn't sit and spend time with it. I didn't want it to seem arbitrary... But also I wanted it to be in exhibitions, and for that it needed to be obvious why you'd exhibit it.

agaitcheson.bsky.social•54 days ago

At the same time, I think I enjoyed writing it all so unambiguously. The talking book expressed my own feelings and I found that therapeutic. The writing also gives the player (who writes their own grief stories in secret IRL messages) a clear model to work from.

agaitcheson.bsky.social•54 days ago

The book is like like "here's how I talk about myself, now you try it." And the player can focus on their own feelings because the talking book's feelings don't need to be puzzled out.

So maybe I'm not just unambitious. Maybe obviousness is a useful colour in the creative toolbox.

gabedurham.bossfightbooks.com•49 days ago

I think it's so project-to-project! Does ambiguity serve the piece or distract? It's a tough time for it, though, even when done well, thanks to internet context collapse, social media willful misunderstanding, etc.

agaitcheson.bsky.social•49 days ago

Yeah, I agree. I think it was the right artistic choice for my game, but it does bother me a little that I came to it for quite commercially-pragmatic reasons. Even though I made the game for a pretty artsy audience, that sense of a need-to-be-noticed held quite a lot of sway creatively.

schreppybroepke.bsky.social•54 days ago

It feels like an interesting conundrum: writing it the way you WANT to, but then you risk most, if not all, players missing the finer points. Or „optimising“ it for players, but running the risk at feeling unhappy with the simplicity, for lack of a better word, of the script. Ultimately, I think…

schreppybroepke.bsky.social•54 days ago

…the specific kind of experience you are building can provide some „wiggle room“: For your book installation, the juxtaposition of its quirky look and physical mechanics made an interesting contrast with the ultimately serious subject matter: The disconnect between the two arguably made it work…

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