Hi! Whats This?

Hi, so you've found your way here and are probably wondering what this is all about?

This blog is basically my way of putting down my thoughts about design.

I love design, specifically mechanical design, that is; the design of entertainment systems.

Whether that be in board games, video games, apps, edutainment, or anywhere else you might find a system in place designed to be interacted with for some purpose that includes entertaining the user in some way

But why 'Fluffy Crunch'? Well firstly I just needed to put something in or I'd spend all day trying to come up with a perfect name that both encapsulated what I wanted to write about, had some wordplay or pun, and represented the feeling of the blog.
More on topic however it refers to the idea of 'Fluff' meaning anything around entertainment systems that don't directly interact with the systems mechanics. Think of a book set in the world of a  game you might play. Sure it might heighten your enjoyment of the world as a whole but next time you interact with that game it wont really factor into how you interact with the system.
The opposite of this sort of became known as 'Crunch' or 'the inverse of fluff'. Its the system itself, the rules of the system, how the user interacts with the system, that sort of thing.

           However I believe that the best experiences are created when the Crunch is fluffy.
           When the rules of the system reinforce or build upon the fluff.

To get a bit technical for a second a few years ago the idea of 'ludo-narrative dissonance' came up in relation to video games, this refers to any time the narrative is at dissonance, or 'at odds with' the mechanics of the game. To give a basic example of this a game who's narrative involves sharing rewarding the user for hording up loot by giving them levels.
While there are some holes in the idea of ludo-narrative dissonance, and it can get a bit nitpicky at time ultimately I think its something to keep in mind when designing any system.

          Basically it comes down to whenever you design a new system asking yourself:
                     How does this work with the fluff (and all aspects of the 'product') to
                          create a more consistent whole not a unrelated set of 'things'

So why this blog? Well basically I like thinking about crunch, and how it relates to a whole bunch of things, fluff being a big one of those. So this is a way for me to organize my thoughts as well as work on explaining them better.

Warning it will probably be long and at times a bit technical, but hopefully interesting and a bit entertaining.