why not start with a linear narrative?
use all the techniques we already know and feel them in video game form?
have you heard of walking simulators? They're just that, with one or two
twists. Yet...
I'm not saying you should show it to anyone if you're not ready.
This sounds like ... rambling. There's no connection between any of the lines. If you're brainstorming, brainstorm. I suspect that's what this is.
Is this a backhanded compliment? Do you think they're being particularly effective because they're trying to evoke crackheads?
I don't think that piece of writing is intended to be a technical treatise on creative writing. Instead, it to me reads as a tool to help technical writers for games to elicit effective story content that has an impact on the player. So I do think their prosaic poetical style intentionally evokes wandering, in order to encourage the reader to mentally wander as a part of their own creative exploration process when writing story content for video games.
Totally true. I downregulated the feedback to be a little more kind.
My experience living in LA may have colored my response.
To address the meat of your response
> it to me reads as a tool to help ...
I don't see why this even qualifies as tool. There's no summary, not flow of logic, no conclusion really, just some thing a former mentor used to call a "walk through the garden of thought".
Sure, the thoughts look pretty to you, but you need to cultivate it for your audience, which usually means getting to the point and providing evidence or information clearly. If you cannot do that, at least be engaging, so that the reader sticks with you until you reach your point.
This writing style just doesn't do either of those things. It's confusing to jump from line to line and have to fill in a lot of gaps, it's not easily scanned for relevant points (every line is bolded and separated from text), it just ignores everything we know about presenting information.
Thank you for the frank sharing of where you are coming from and clarifying so richly your thinking, it's really valuable to me. It shows me again how we all are different and soothes me to a degree, reducing my expectations of myself around strangers.
I agree with you, given that context. This article is not an effective brief nugget on emotional introspection for videogame writers.
I see it intended to be something different in style. And the fact that I choose to see it differently is the fascinating part to me, than this whole thread here on hacker news. It's like everyone else on this thread is upset and throwing their systematized note cards up in the air due to the article being unoptimized for Google's search engine. It's frankly odd to me, this mob of judgment jumping down the throat of the author.
> throwing their systematized note cards up in the air due to the article being unoptimized for Google's search engine
In my opinion, it's more criticism of the article for not communicating clearly to the reader. I don't care about Google SEO, but I do care about being able to understand the purpose of what I'm reading.
> this mob of judgment jumping down the throat of the author.
I do take issue with this. We are not our work. If we create something that has flaws, it should not be rude or uncouth to address those, nor should it be considered a personal attack on the author. Otherwise, why wouldn't the same apply to the critique itself? Wouldn't it be similarly wrong to jump down the throat of somebody who criticizes the work, as much of this thread boils down to?
Writing is not sacred, and we are not what we write. If we take critique personally, then we are setting ourselves up for defensiveness and an inability to grow or develop.
That said, it's clear that many people like the presentation. The fact that this article isn't for everybody is not a bad thing. Not everything needs to be for everybody, and somebody who points out why it doesn't work for them can be right, while at the same time, those aspects aren't a problem for other readers.
When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.
What is being said here? And was it said? And was it said with 100 words when 10 would do? Were the other 90 words evidence or engaging content or ... a garden of thoughts?
A few notes on a topic without the in between words.
Works for me.