No One's Finished That Level Yet

So the game designer thought,
What made the ancient classics
Great was their simplicity,

Simplicity long since lost,
Simplicity now just mocked,
The tranquil white glide of Pong.

If you were to disconnect
Yourself completely from games,
Narratives, and world building,

For a month, a week, a day,
Just one whole day, let your brain
Just sit with its thoughts to play,

What kind of simplicity,
Purely intoxicating,
Elegant play could you dream?

Then the designer recalled
Dinner with a musician
Who’d surrendered performance,

Practice, even tinkering,
To attempt compositions
Seated at the piano

Listening to nothing and
Not playing, just thinking them.
The thought of that musician

Poised silently at the keys,
Still, concentrating, intense,
A bit of spit at the lips,

Rose up in the gamer’s mind.
That musician had composed
Nothing. Now would nothing play?