ABSTRACT
As a component of a game feel system, metaphor has two aspects, representation and treatment.
Representation is the idea of the thing, or what it appears to be. Is it a car, a gelatinous cube of meat or a plucky spike-haired hero in a neo-steampunk tropical wasteland? Is it a MacLaren F l or is it Fatty from Run Fatty Run? Metaphor unifies the idea of the avatar, the idea of the world, and the idea of all the objects in the world. If you replace all the art, music and sound in a game with purely abstract shapes and colors, what you have removed is the representation. Imagine the game Diablo with graphics by Jackson Pollack and sound by Steve Reich. The fundamen tal functionality of the game is still intact, but the metaphorical representation is gone. While dribbles of paint and electronic pulses do not really represent anything, barbarians, buildings and cows give each object in the game some hook on which players can hang their conceptual hats.
