i feel small scale games work has a strange affinity with practical effects work and puppetry. the process of performing with a very deliberately shaped, simplified but expressive character (or door, or stone, or room) is similar.
Replies
hahahaha, I am a game designer and a puppeteer and just went "oh shit"
aug 30, 2025, 9:01 pm • 9 0 • view
but more specifically and seriously, I think that there is something to both being performance without necessary being the center of attention and the intimacy of physically inhabiting something you made that does feel closer to small/indie game work than many other mediums
aug 30, 2025, 9:03 pm • 5 0 • view
and maybe most importantly - a generosity of audience! we are asking an audience to believe that these simplified gestures painted with expressive but broad strokes are the thing that we say they are. I think it is something more than just a suspension of disbelief.
aug 30, 2025, 9:14 pm • 5 0 • view
yes, they really do have that in common! i like to think of inviting that kind of engagement as part of the art.
aug 30, 2025, 9:35 pm • 1 0 • view
i really like that active interpretation and imagination on the part of the audience are part of it! it can make it a very equal relationship, even, if you're after that.
aug 30, 2025, 9:36 pm • 2 0 • view
My adjacent take is that games that do not move the camera can at times end up hitting harder, because in looking like (puppet) theater they make the artifice manifest. They get away with lower Production Values(TM) and force deeper investment, in a weird way
aug 30, 2025, 9:33 pm • 1 0 • view
it can really help ground more abstract or nonrealistic elements! they're like a part of a drawing.
aug 30, 2025, 9:38 pm • 0 0 • view
I'm learning this with embarking on a jounrey of paper-doll style animation for my game
aug 31, 2025, 4:10 am • 1 0 • view
oh that sounds so fun! i really want to try something vaguely puppetlike right now too, possibly for this project...
aug 31, 2025, 6:43 am • 1 0 • view