Despite that I feel as if I am twelve years old still, I am an adult. At least, the law says so. In my youth I meandered about the immaterial possibilities of the future and now that I have arrived with the freedom, knowledge, and opportunities I had hoped for, it is time to start the process of manifesting those immaterial possibilities in the realm of physicality. This process starts tonight as I write this first post chronicling what will only be a very long trip. By the end I do not know what I will find, but that excites me.
There are too many unknowns to provide a comprehensive image of what I am talking about, but let me lay out the basics; I am going to make a game. Yes, this whole entire blog exists for me to write about my experiences in game development, so this might not seem to warrant such unique treatment. Here I will deliver an explanation. There are two forces that are driving the creation of what I am going to make. The first force is of the professional nature and roots itself in my desire to find a stable place in my career. It is quite clear to me already that attending college will not be enough on its own to truly provide me with the edge I am looking for, though it is certainly a great resource. I need experience and more importantly I need to prove that I am courageous and competent enough to do something of significance out of my own agency. This leads into the second force, which is of a personal nature. I am bored out of my mind and I have a great interest in seeing what I am capable of after spending my entire life watching mankind accomplish the incredible. Am I among them? Of course to some degree I am, but to what degree? The task I am about to go about completing will also bring a ton of improvement to me as an intellectual. The quality of the writing on this blog is a fine testament to how far I have to go. The final aspect of this personal driving force is, as if this blog post was not already under the pretension of angst already, existential. Why do I desire to be a game developer and is dedicating my life to the creation of mere games virtuous? I cannot explain my passion to others and they cannot understand it. I have already eliminated the guilt associated with being able to spend my time and energies creating games by simply dismissing it as fate, with which I feel I must fully appreciate out of humility.
I have developed four whole games, two of which are complete garbage, one of which is fun but brief, and an unreleased one which is the best thing I have worked on despite its usage of properties and ideas that are clearly not my own. Add onto this two dozen game modifications, a dozen stages created for a commercial indie game, and hundreds of scraped projects and ideas. This work comprises my current legacy, spanning the twelve years of my youth during which I taught myself the basics of game development. Well, I have arrived; I now know the basics. Congratulations to me, it is time to stop creating derivative genre games and to start work on a significant work. Cutting-edge work that has never been attempted before. I am only one man, but the craft is fresh and its frontier still primary uncharted.
The hour is late and my mind contains a soup of underdeveloped and unorganized conceptions in regards to this new project that I will need to have my dreams sort out, so I am going to reveal some of the other more solidified aspects of this, whatever it is. First, I expect this game to take at least four years to develop, but it will probably take more to maintain. Second, I am uncertain of how or if I am going to make a profit off of it. Third, I am going to make major usage of the influences from reading material on game development theory. Fourth, this game will be digital but of a new genre, one that is currently nonexistent as far as I am aware and has only loose similarities to what is already out there. Fifth, it will be family-friendly, comedic, and equally appealing to both sexes in content. Regardless of this, the intentions are not to water down the depth; this game will be as "casual" and as "hardcore" as a typical Nintendo game, by which I mean that it will find a balance between the two temperaments. Sixth, the Internet will be its platform. I personally have a distaste for browser-based game content, but I feel that if executed correctly it could really be brilliant. Also, this will greatly increase the potential audience size and allow for more accessible means for them to play. With so many games being created now by indies and hobbyist developers, no one has the time to download a .zip file or an .exe installer to get into a game. And finally, I am taking cues from the literature on interactive storytelling; I am not going to go as far as some others with the idea, but that might in fact be what works.
Hopefully that provides an idea of what this project is, for my horribly structured paragraphs have probably left behind a confused populace. I am recording the development of this project intimately; for its own sake and for the sake of it potentially turning into as a thesis topic. Of course posting everyday is unreasonable, so I will try to stick to a loose schedule of posting every five to seven days.
What is to come? I would sure like to know myself...
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