Gorogoa: How to Record Panel Adjacency Linking Different-Scale Ladders

Record the Gorogoa scene by stating that adjacent panels link ladders depicted at different local scales. Keep both the adjacency and the scale difference explicit, without adding a direction, measurement or action.

What belongs in the scene description?

The supplied scene has three essential parts: panels are adjacent; ladders are depicted at different scales within those panels; and the panel adjacency links the ladders. A useful record preserves all three in one connected description. Naming only the ladders loses the panel relationship. Describing only adjoining panels loses the local scale difference.

A concise scene record is: “In Gorogoa, adjacent panels link ladders depicted at different local scales.” This sentence retains the supplied spatial relationship without assigning positions to individual panels or specifying how the ladders meet.

Gorogoa’s publisher describes illustrated panels that players arrange and combine, establishing the relevance of panel relationships to the game. That general description supplies context for the terminology; the particular ladder scene recorded here comes from the supplied account. Gorogoa — Annapurna Interactive (https://www.annapurna.com/interactive/gorogoa)

Keep the description centered on that particular configuration. “Adjacent” records the relationship between panels. “Different local scales” records how the ladders are depicted within their respective panels. “Link” preserves the stated connection without supplying an exact junction, a route or a subsequent event.

How do you preserve adjacency without inventing a layout?

Use relational wording at the level the account supports. Here, “adjacent panels” is sufficient. An exact edge, orientation or position would require additional information. The description can be spatially useful while leaving those particulars unspecified.

Cooper Hewitt’s image-description guidelines recommend beginning with the most important content and describing the orientation and relationships of elements consistently. Applied here, that suggests a clear writing order: identify the panels, state their adjacency, and describe the linked ladders with their differing local scales. This is an editorial method for recording the supplied scene. Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description (https://www.cooperhewitt.org/cooper-hewitt-guidelines-for-image-description/)

That order belongs to the explanation, rather than to an event in the scene. Writing about adjacency before scale does not establish that the panels moved together first or that a ladder changed size afterward. The supplied account describes a relationship, so the record can remain in the present tense.

A practical sentence check is to examine each spatial term. Keep “adjacent” because it is supplied. Add a more precise positional term only when the account establishes it. Avoid turning “linked” into a claim that particular ladder parts meet at a particular boundary: that would add geometry the description does not contain.

How do you describe different local scales accurately?

Keep the scale difference attached to the depicted ladders. The phrase “ladders depicted at different local scales” preserves the distinction within their respective panels. It does not assign dimensions to the panels or establish the ladders’ dimensions outside the depiction.

Getty’s documentation guidance treats scale as a relationship involving a representation and what it depicts, and distinguishes numerical scale information from descriptive wording. It also calls for identifying scale derived through comparison or conversion. For this record, no measured ratio is supplied, so the appropriate wording remains qualitative. Measurements — Categories for the Description of Works of Art (https://www.getty.edu/publications/categories-description-works-art/categories/object-architecture-group/6/)

“Different local scales” is therefore the useful level of precision. Avoid adding a multiplier, a dimensional estimate or a rung count. Each would create an additional factual claim without helping preserve the relationship actually provided.

Also keep the difference visible in the grammar. A sentence such as “The ladders connect across adjacent panels” retains the link but omits scale. “Adjacent panels link ladders depicted at different local scales” keeps the connection and the difference together. This small wording choice prevents an abbreviated record from losing the scene’s defining detail.

Which sensory details can the record include?

The supplied sensory content is visual and relational: panels, ladders, adjacency and differing local scales. No ladder material, surface texture, color, lighting or sound is specified. Leave those attributes unassigned.

This distinction matters when choosing descriptive adjectives. A material word would identify a substance; a texture word would add a surface quality; a lighting phrase would establish an appearance beyond the supplied information. None is needed to make the panel-and-ladder relationship clear.

Cooper Hewitt generally recommends limiting image description to visible information. For this manuscript, the corresponding discipline is to use the supplied visual details and preserve their limits. The research provides descriptive methods, rather than additional observations of this scene. Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description (https://www.cooperhewitt.org/cooper-hewitt-guidelines-for-image-description/)

How can an optional drawing preserve the same information?

A drawing requires choices about placement and marks that prose can leave open. Begin with the written record so that any sketch remains accountable to it. If a drawing makes an unspecified choice, label that choice as illustrative rather than presenting it as recovered scene detail.

For example, an illustrative drawing could use neutral panel labels and simplified ladder marks. Those labels and marks would be notation choices, not features of the supplied scene. Any selected orientation, spacing or drawn extent would likewise need to be identified as illustrative.

Use this short planning sequence before making a sketch:

1. Write the supported relationship: panel adjacency links ladders depicted at different local scales.

2. Identify which details the sketch would have to choose, including panel placement and ladder geometry.

3. Label those choices as examples wherever they are unspecified.

4. Keep the qualitative scale difference explicit in the accompanying caption.

5. Leave traversal, a movement sequence and a puzzle solution outside the sketch.

If a sketch would require too many unsupported decisions, retain the prose record alone. The sentence already carries the essential information without imposing a particular layout.

How do you finish the record without expanding the scene?

Read the final description for three distinct elements: adjacency, linkage and local scale difference. Then inspect every added modifier and action verb. A useful addition clarifies one of those supplied relations; an unsupported addition establishes a new position, property or event.

The finished record can remain compact even when the recording method needs explanation: “In Gorogoa, adjacent panels link ladders depicted at different local scales.” It preserves the scene’s specific visual relationship and leaves unspecified details open.

Sources

• Gorogoa — Annapurna Interactive (https://www.annapurna.com/interactive/gorogoa)

• Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description — Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (https://www.cooperhewitt.org/cooper-hewitt-guidelines-for-image-description/)

• Measurements — Categories for the Description of Works of Art, Getty (https://www.getty.edu/publications/categories-description-works-art/categories/object-architecture-group/6/)