The Grass is Oft Greener: Lamentations of Design

There is a strange dilemma when one sits down to work on a game. See? You just saw it right there. It’s the creative process shoved up all cozily to economic considerations. Not something I shout from the rooftops, but there it is.

This year, we downshifted a bit from our past production cycle. Why? Because we’re working on larger, broader things. We’ll see how things wind up at the end of the year, I suppose. I’m diligently toiling away on all sorts of things, as you well know.

Here’s the key thing for me. When I”m designing, I’m totally immersed in the game space. The rest of everything just falls away. The noise, the heat, the general distractions of life. The aches and pains and itches and worries and everything else. When I’m in that game space, time seems to be suspended, and I am interacting with the game on the most personal, creative level.

When you design a game or pursue anything for that matter worth having (and what you and I deem worth having may wildly differ), you have to approach it with a directness and forthrightness and without apology or hesitation.

Once something is a thing. Once it is done and other people are playing it, it emerges like a strange, exotic butterfly into the wild, and while we may think we know how it will fly or how it will behave, it’s a matter of wind and luck as to its fate.

Just some random rambles as I wrap another long day and share some of the thoughts knocking around this old noggin of mind.

Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!