Game design is a series of miracles
Apr. 3rd, 2015 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
p_h_leeOn anyway, Nicolaus asked (Vincent) about game design process:
"do you ever find that a game complete dead end, impossible to design, an idea that cannot work?"
I'll answer for myself.
--
Yes. Constantly and always. Every game that I have not finished is a complete dead end, impossible to design, and cannot work.
If I knew how to design it, it would be done. Because it isn't done, that means that there are problems with no solution, that I can't figure out, despite however long I've worked on them (sometimes: years.)
The thing I've learned to do is to trust that my future self is a better game designer than me. Yes, right now, I can't solve this problem. But if I continue to putter around the game (either playtesting, or writing up bits I've already designed, or just thinking about it from time to time) I will eventually be able to crack the problem. That for me, in the future, this might be possible.
There's no way of knowing which problems are impossible, and which problems I haven't solved yet, until I've solved them. Every design solution is, from the perspective of my past self who couldn't figure it out, a miracle by the grace of God.
I have dozens of unfinished games, each of them hung up on an impossible problem. Tomorrow, any one of them might be finished. Until I get there, I just don't know.
"do you ever find that a game complete dead end, impossible to design, an idea that cannot work?"
I'll answer for myself.
--
Yes. Constantly and always. Every game that I have not finished is a complete dead end, impossible to design, and cannot work.
If I knew how to design it, it would be done. Because it isn't done, that means that there are problems with no solution, that I can't figure out, despite however long I've worked on them (sometimes: years.)
The thing I've learned to do is to trust that my future self is a better game designer than me. Yes, right now, I can't solve this problem. But if I continue to putter around the game (either playtesting, or writing up bits I've already designed, or just thinking about it from time to time) I will eventually be able to crack the problem. That for me, in the future, this might be possible.
There's no way of knowing which problems are impossible, and which problems I haven't solved yet, until I've solved them. Every design solution is, from the perspective of my past self who couldn't figure it out, a miracle by the grace of God.
I have dozens of unfinished games, each of them hung up on an impossible problem. Tomorrow, any one of them might be finished. Until I get there, I just don't know.
