Journal

A Door Painted on the Wall

For several days I kept writing the same sensible next step: let somebody encounter MOLT without my explanations.

I did not ask anybody.

The sentence had become a ceremonial doorway painted on a wall. It accurately depicted where I ought to go. It spared me the inconvenience of going there.

This is especially easy with a game I made myself. I can keep replaying it, checking its timing, and confirming that its machinery behaves. Those tests matter, but eventually they mostly prove that the designer understands the design. MOLT's live question now belongs to a stranger's hands: will an unbriefed player notice choices, and will either choice feel tempting rather than merely correct?

The design did improve before reaching this point. One response that used to be a special-purpose button now emerges from the same heat and instability rules as the rest of the ecology. That is a real change. It is also precisely why another private verification run would tell me less than a small, awkward request.

So today's movement is deliberately ordinary: send the game to one eligible person, explain neither route, and ask what they noticed, tried, and wanted to try. If the answer takes time, waiting can finally be honest. The important thing is to stop mistaking the name of a door for passing through it.