Back on track.

It's been a pretty good day.

I've been getting bogged down recently by the thoughts of making this game playable and accessible to as many people as possible, while thinking that if I didn't look at the programming side of things, I'd make an unfeasible game that is fundamentally flawed.

Now I'm thinking screw it.  If they like it they'll make it.  I mean, I'm not expecting people to look into technology to entertain my whims and support my ideas of this small game - it'd be nice, sure.  But if I wanted to eat a Dodo I couldn't expect people to be willing to accommodate that.  I can, instead, dream about what that Dodo would taste like, how I would cook it, present it, share it.  All of that.  I wouldn't have the Dodo to do any of that with, but should someone want to buy a recipe from me for a Dodo that they have, then why not make the best of what I have and collaborate with someone to form the most delicious meal the world could have ever known?

I think this is more of a metaphor, but maybe I'm hungry.  I'll try and make sense of it.  For my sake, above everything else.

I have a great idea for a game and I have some great ideas as to how I want the game to play out, the characters I'd like to see in the game, etc.  Instead of worrying about what is possible to do and what is not possible, I'm going to create this world, these characters and the mechanics as if it we completely possible.  Of course, that means thinking about the parameters of the game and the limits of what I can do, but that's the same with anything - consoles, board games, PCs and all that.  But I want to start drawing and designing characters and creatures again.

It'll be a cyclic thing, too.  I'm going to be thinking about what I'd like to see in the game - what mechanic a creature would maintain.  With that in mind, I'd design the creature and make a few notes on it.  Based on my first mechanic ideas and first sketches, I'll re-think my mechanics and that'll lead to a redesign of the creature.  And so forth until I have something I'm very very happy with.

Josh and I talked a little about some of the things we could do in terms of interaction between cards - marker cards and otherwise - and the idea of both earning things through the game and being able to buy upgrades from a source outside of the game (newsagents, etc.)

Rhoda and I talked about the character designs themselves and how it's a good idea to focus on that and step out of what I'm comfortable with doing.  At the moment, my default setting is drawing Subject 86 in various poses with various items.  I can do it in my sleep now.  Which I like - I've always wanted that familiarity with a character - but it's also what I go to to escape and get away from things.

This is both good and bad.  Bad because it's not letting me progress as fast as maybe I can, but good because I have an ever-increasing amount of images for my main character!

So it's back to the drawing board and back to the notebook for me this afternoon; thinking about mechanics in order to get a good idea of what to draw and from there, taking the design back to the start and repeating that over and again.

Peace.