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progShould have worked more on the Gameshelf yesterday, the first day in August so far that wasn't a blur of either under-deadline work or other people's parties. But I got sidetracked, and instead banged out two complete designs for digital games. Both are follow-ups to another game design I wrote out a couple of weeks ago. The whole set comes from my continuing obsession about improving the space of internet-based multiplayer gaming.
It may seem a little strange, but I haven't done this before, at least not for a digital game. (No game I wrote for Volity was an original design.) Just writing the specs feels like a complete project. For each, I spent a few hours in intense thought and writing, and when I came out the other side I felt like I actually accomplished something, even though the rest of the world is none the wiser. Some props are due to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
queue and his recent output from attending a game-design workshop, whose first-day assignment is "go home and design a game" and don't care if it sucks, because of course it will, but look you've still just designed a game.
Anyway, these games. The last of the three, and the only one I feel is a viable game idea, concerns a style of online game-play I don't recall having seen before. Six years ago, when I was a younger nerd with fewer scars, this would encourage me to throw away the game and declare that the framework was the real prize, and then spend a long time working on only that, making it as general and well-documented and open-sourcical as possible. In fact, I did do that. I do not need to do this again, strong as the temptation is.
I don't have the time to work on this now, at least not right now. But I do wanna jump on it as soon as a slot clears up. It really is easy to get into the fallacy that one should just shelve the idea and let it age and mature a bit by itself. It doesn't work that way. Ideas are not cheese. See also Ze Frank's classic bit on "Brain Crack".
It may seem a little strange, but I haven't done this before, at least not for a digital game. (No game I wrote for Volity was an original design.) Just writing the specs feels like a complete project. For each, I spent a few hours in intense thought and writing, and when I came out the other side I felt like I actually accomplished something, even though the rest of the world is none the wiser. Some props are due to
queue and his recent output from attending a game-design workshop, whose first-day assignment is "go home and design a game" and don't care if it sucks, because of course it will, but look you've still just designed a game.Anyway, these games. The last of the three, and the only one I feel is a viable game idea, concerns a style of online game-play I don't recall having seen before. Six years ago, when I was a younger nerd with fewer scars, this would encourage me to throw away the game and declare that the framework was the real prize, and then spend a long time working on only that, making it as general and well-documented and open-sourcical as possible. In fact, I did do that. I do not need to do this again, strong as the temptation is.
I don't have the time to work on this now, at least not right now. But I do wanna jump on it as soon as a slot clears up. It really is easy to get into the fallacy that one should just shelve the idea and let it age and mature a bit by itself. It doesn't work that way. Ideas are not cheese. See also Ze Frank's classic bit on "Brain Crack".