It probably wasn’t terribly clear (particularly as my methods of thinking out loud are baffling and needlessly complex even to me), but there was a theme to nearly all of last week’s posts: “working stuff out”. Deciding what to do with the restless frustration that keeps me moving from game to game, considering what can result from reconsidering an old game into something familiar but new, and even setting down what I consider to be a game (or at least a first pass) – it was all part of figuring out what comes next. Not career-wise – my job is awesome, as is the company I work for and the people I work with. I’m talking on a broader, more life-long scale. While beginning to move back into pure design from production (more on that much later, probably) is providing me with more outlets for the aforementioned frustration, it’s not quite enough. I need more than outlets, I need challenges to push at the boundaries of both how and what I think about games. In short, I need to start making them on my own.

There’s a slight problem, of course: I have no ability when it comes to creating art assets and am pretty much useless at programming. The former I have friends I can guilt into helping with, and the latter I intend to start teaching myself on the weekends, but that doesn’t solve the immediate problem of wanting to start this erm, immediately. The solution didn’t hit me until this morning while I was out running, and it was so obvious I nearly crashed into some old lady who was just out minding her own business, oblivious to the risk of idiot game designers careening towards her: I can create rule sets. Not all games need art or code to run, nor do they need to exist on a computer screen.

More later when I have the time. Stuff, she is happening.

Filed under: Opportunities For Play, thinking outloud