The entire goal of the last milestone was to figure out which design direction to follow. I experimented with many ideas, and a few front runners started to emerge, but nothing popped out with a this is the one feeling. By this time last week, I still didn’t know what direction to follow, and it was stressing me out.
From a gut feeling and discussions with various people, one idea was starting to show potential, but it was still just that, a vague idea, or more precisely a collection of gameplay ideas that didn’t really fit together.
Wednesday night last week, with desperation creeping in, I was in bed trying to get through the Game Mechanics chapter of the design book. I think I finally noticed I was exhausted the 5th time I read over the same paragraph and couldn’t retain any information. I was falling asleep, and my mind was drifting to other things (like what to try next when I got up) so I decided to put the book down and get some rest.
As I laid there, random thoughts started floating in about the design idea I had been favoring. Cool thoughts. I started saying to myself, “I hope I remember that in the morning”. The fourth time that happened, I finally decided to get off my lazy ass, grab a piece of paper and start jotting things down.
And the ideas just started flowing. One after another. Gameplay ideas, level ideas, cool features. Hell, even a back-story. I started making small sketches, and writing, writing, writing, filling up a couple pages in a few minutes. It was absolutely invigorating. It was my first significant design breakthrough. I slept like a baby, and woke up with a smile.
I now know the direction I will be heading in for the next few weeks. I’ll be implementing some of the concepts and trying them out. It’s quite possible that this idea does not work out, and if so, I’ll know very soon, and can always step back and try another direction. But I’ve got a good feeling about it, I think it has big potential, and I am looking forward to fleshing it out.
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December 4th, 2008 at 12:34 am
Brilliant – I’m really pleased mate! I was hoping something would jump out at you from the code you’ve developed so far. Must be a massive relief, especially because now you can be confident that your tech and the design you’re working to will mesh and that you’re not working in the wrong direction and second guessing the intention behind another designers words. Now your real creative fun can begin.
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