Not the June Newsletter
Mark vs. Jason
by Mark
It’s crunch time. I’m in the throes of my continuing education program. The work school year is ending. I’m hopping on a redeye this Wednesday to fly across the country for a dance fighting event, to see my sister, and hopefully Peter too. Somewhere along the way there was “Two Wolves” and “Animal Kingdom” in its many forms. Jason invited me to this place called Wimsy Vale, but that world wound up dying—and we found ourselves at the edge of the world, playing an abstract game.
Jason commented last night that we’ve gotten more playtesting in for the Abstract Game than anything else we’ve worked on. I think there are many factors as to why that is: the teach is simple. Games only take 8–10 minutes. It's light on both components and setup. It’s also the first idea that has been more unilaterally decided on. I wrote some mechanics, and Jason put together the win conditions—and the game became playable.
On the other hand, this game has captured my imagination and interest in ways that other games we’ve worked on have not. On my way home from our testing last night, I was reflecting on Jason’s objective of designing something that we would want to play. One of the defining things in Jason and I becoming friends has always been playing head-to-head 1-v-1 games. Mark versus Jason.
Looking back at where we have come from—in terms of exploring game design together and each of our own personal motivations for this project—it makes a lot of sense that we seem to have landed on a world where the game we are most drawn to working on is simple enough to work on in the fleeting moments we find to sit down together, and has the head-to-head component that originally catalyzed our friendship.
JasonNav
by Jason
You don’t need directions when you don’t know where you’re going.
Like most things, I’m sure someone, somewhere, has already said that. But as far as I know, I didn’t hear it from anyone—or from AI—so I’d like a © or ™ attached to it with my name.
People keep asking me what I want. Saying “I want to make a game” has been an unsatisfying answer—and I get why. They’re trying to help during playtesting, asking how I want the game to flow, and most of the time I say, “I dunno.” What I really want is for them to tell me how they want to play it.
When someone says an idea, mechanic, or decision is “stupid,” I can’t do anything with that. I can’t fix it for them. I don’t know what they want… and I realize, that’s exactly how people feel when asking me what I want.
I can’t keep moving forward with the assumption that someone else is going to build my game. I’m doing that now.
Go go abstract!
Also, “Not the June Newsletter” is my fun way of saying sorry this is the May newsletter.
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