No Can Do
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| |
| The card's front face | The card's back face |
Contents
Synopsis
| Signalling something impossible. |
Relationships
Context:
Awareness 
.
Close to:
Failure 
.
Makes use of:
Sound Effects 
, Foley 
, Dialogue 
.
Description
The interaction between the PC/player and the game world implies experimentation, at least until the rules of the game world are well understood. To signal impossible actions, designers frequently resort to sound.
If we imagine of a continuum between sounds of Achievement and sounds of Failure, sounds of No Can Do 'feel' somewhere between neutral and tending towards Failure, although they don't get close enough to the latter to the point of being similar. A No Can Do sound is mostly informative; it does not reflect a judgement on the action of the player -- although it informs about something that can not be done and, as such, which is not interesting repeating.
Solutions for No Can Do may be diegetic or non-diegetic. In the former case, the PC usually expresses itself the impossibility, possibly accompanied by the Foley of the failing interaction. In the latter case it is common to use a Sound Effect directed to the player.
Examples
