@kasdeya for us it tends to mean some mix of two things:

- for any given location i want to get, there are varied routes to get there — ideally which use different movement tools, so i get to pick the one i know best / find the most fun. so if there's a target i need to reach that is 8m off the ground do i grind a rail that conveniently goes right there, do i instead use a spring-launch ability because it lets me feel superior about not using the rail, do i climb a nearby structure and dive / glide, do i chain several wall-runs in an impressive display of control and timing, etc

- for any given route i want to traverse, there is some leeway in the execution — if i'm chaining a slide into a jump because it gives me a boost, an "expressive" system will let the second animation interrupt the first, so there's a whole range of possible input timings, each with trade-offs (as an example, maybe following up the slide quicker means i get more of the speed but less height, and i am rewarded for developing an intuition towards that relationship, and being able to do exactly what i wanted). this leeway is important both because it means that the "routes" mentioned above don't feel like they're just giving me the choice between quick-time events (which also leads to a very frustrating pass/fail scenario where i know what i need to do but i miss the input by a millisecond and need to start over), and also because the degree of leeway i have in combining movement tools directly contributes to how well defined the routes need to be. more leeway in combining individual actions means more flexibility to find my own route, or to notice something the developer didn't intend

from what we've seen and played of severed steel, we'd say it fits both of these descriptions pretty well — there's enough options available to us, that we can combine in interesting ways, and there's enough flexibility in execution that we can start developing our intuition for those options even before we've got enough ability to carry them out

@tempest interesting - okay! thank you for the answer and I think this helps a lot actually

so it sounds like expressiveness is kind of like the traversal equivalent of what immersive sims do, where they create an environment with objectives but aren’t designed with any one intended solution to that environment. they just give you a series of mechanics that you can use to get what you want in whatever way you want to use them

(and also, it sounds like another important factor is that there are a lot of nuances to the movement that you can do - so that you can do several different shades of double jump instead of one predefined double jump, for example)

so I’m guessing the opposite of expressive movement would probably be a precision platformer like Celeste, where there’s only one intended way to move and complete a level? (although, you do still have precise analog control of the character from what I remember. but there also isn’t any nuance to the dash either. maybe this is more of a borderline kind of game?)

@kasdeya celeste broadly fits the second of our two factors rather well — there's a lot of leeway in the jump, the air control is strong, and the dash can be combined with the grab and jump in a variety of ways

and while the level design is definitely intended to prioritize a certain solution, does actually have other routes to find — particularly in the early levels. the challenge to get the flying golden strawberry (complete forsaken city without dashing) is a good example of several alternate routes

@tempest ohh - okay interesting! can you think of a game that doesn’t have expressive traversal/platforming, in that case? I’m having a hard time thinking of what that would be