Design, implement, and produce an entire videogame by the end of this month... do it sanely.
1. Post builds as frequently as possible; the public energy is necessary for you.
2. Skateboard first, not car. See 1.
3. Use the [AB] framework. The entire game is one effortless movement.
4. Draw from real experiences. Don't fall into genrefucking.
5. Remember Steam deadlines. Plan every day.
6. Reminder you are a creative being; set yourself up to get in the right mindset each day; see 4.
I would LOVE the echoic poetry of ten oubliettes. But, arcade oubliettes, like Databug or Starseed Pilgrim. Something with an obvious and immediate fail state. You are ejected,
An overworld. You drop DOWN into oubliettes. A too vast overworld, like Shadow of the Colossus.
Chain reactions
Experience: wondering, where is this going? Where are they going? Saturn Apartments—a single long mystery (where's dad?). Girls Last Tour—yes, literally, where are they going, but perhaps more accurately, where will they end up?
Where will I end up?
Who will I be, at the end of all this?
SERPENTES LOOP--
You spend a little time committing to a world. Some initial setup happens, revealing initial information when the stakes are low. I'd like to experiment with this... an easy introduction that sets you up for some of the drama which will appear later in the run, the actually dangerous stuff.
PASSWORD ROOM. Summoning games by right positioning of elements... a more complete realization of Yrkkey's Paradise, perhaps?
Different combinations produce different game worlds.
BOTTLES WITHIN BOTTLES. down then up again...
a top level menu with a very simple (re)quest... you satisfy a simple request by going into the bottle and coming out again. no sweat. but then what? find the bottle within the bottle... an oubliette that goes ever deeper. a place from which there is no escape.
score:1
what if there is more to score than '1'
return the player to the main menu. not "new game" (?) but some other terminology of entrance.
eventually, eventually, you will understand the scope of everything. eventually i will too.
Note to my level designing ass: It's ok to make unreachable parts of the level. It's ok to use unreachable parts of the level to express or convey something. It's ok.
JULY 7 TODO: dumb for me not to have realized this consciously sooner, but SOMETIMES GAME DESIGN TECHNIQUES ARE NOT THE LOAD BEARING ONES. e.g. if I want a place to feel like a subway tunnel, perhaps it cannot be achieved as well making gameplay elements as it can with sound or visual or something else. Doing the gameplay first is possible, of course, but it might be very difficult without anything to hold on to or build on top of. And it might be the wrong order in which to do things,
[AB]
My most important job is to understand what keeps it all together... my commitment is that I will draw my vibe from personal experience. I think the best thing I can draw from right now is that strange feeling of meticulous searching... actually, it's a surprisingly metroidvania-friendly activity.
Set a riddle at the heart of each zone. A riddle. You should want to move, move through the space. But the riddles keep you where you are.
I have a model already. Is it interesting enough to fuel exploration of it? Does anyone want to explore... yet another interconnected platformer world? What novel data structure, novel organizational architecture, can i construct and present and make interactive?
Can't put this into words well
- SEARCHING IS ENJOYABLE. Sifting, probing. But to search there must be material to search THROUGH. Is that material videogame or something else? What is it? Where do we get all that material?