I was talking on the phone with my mom, and she said: “your brother sent me yesterday photos from the beach. He was happy, he also put a Sun that smiles in the message.”
The “Sun that smiles” is her interpretation of the smiling emoji. I grew up typing ASCII symbols to create smileys. Then with MSN, those symbols were automatically translated to a smiley. In our interpretation, a smiley is a face, not a Sun. My mother, instead, had nothing to do with all of that. First time she saw a smiley was in WhatsApp. Her interpretation is a Sun, not a face. And she is right, is a yellow round circle with eyes and mouth. It is not a face, definitely! It is more a Sun.
Her meaning is more poetic than mine, too. A Sun that smiles, a Sun that cries. That is not the face that my brother wanted to show. There was a third entity in their conversation. It was an happy day at the beach, and the Sun smiles. I love it!
Sometimes the same happens to our games. The shapes we present to the Players have a meaning for us, developers. And then the game is out, everyone in the World will play it. Some of them will see a face smiling. Some other will see a Sun, instead. And that’s very powerful.
Nice story!