Exploring ludodissonance

Readers of my previous post on ludonarrative dissonance may have noted that formal dissonance and moral/ethical dissonance didn't sound all that bad.  Defying genre expectations?  Putting two ethical systems into conflict?  It sounds more like art than bad game design, right?

To be quite clear, ludodissonance can be quite bad--bad meaning that it creates effects contrary to the desires of the game designer.  If the goal of the game designer is to make a serious game, but the mechanics of the game make the characters look ridiculous, the game designer has unequivocally failed.

However, "bad design" is not all ludodissonance has to offer.  Dissonance is a very useful tool in the creation of art, so I want to survey examples of dissonance outside games, within games, and then speculate on ways to think about ludodissonance going forward.

Schell School

To me, the most important part of the test is the final task: turning it in to the provost.  You have to look confident, almost dismissive, but not too much or they'll think you're fronting.  I don't know if they actually have a hidden score sheet somewhere grading my "attitude," but it's not really about the points at that moment.  It's a sense of propriety--an affirmation of what you are and what you stand for.  It's a test of who you are as a person: too arrogant and you're a bully; too timid and you're a coward, unfit for your position.

coupla links

This is why we make games.

And this is why we read the comments section.