I’ve come to a kind of realization. I’m finding that I want the next project I do to be, faster. I’ve been denying myself the immediate joy of a completed thing because I believe in this. Once this is over, I’m not sure that I want to dive right into another giant project. Maybe, I’m thinking, I want to do something smaller, more, personal.
So, the first thought I had was something, small. A small game that I could design and playtest and throw away if I hate it for whatever reason. Really get into some wild experimental crap. Not “art” as I’ve made my position on that clear, but certainly some stuff that does really odd things with the concept of play and the application of mechanics.
Yet, once I thought of that the completest in me asked, “So what’s the point?” Further after reading the blog of another indie’s who wrote, “Who would pay for this?” about their own game. Having played it, I don’t know. It’s not that it’s lacking, it just has no context to support the concept of the thing. A larger game avoids that, it comes with built in context and inherit value. Smaller things lack that a little and that’s a shame.
So, what I came up with is the idea of making a series of games and selling them, collectively, as a set, an album as it were. A short collection (for an EP) of maybe 4 or 5 games, all tied together by a common theme. It could be something really basic, but something to focus the work towards. So start with something really random, like Hope, Loss, Death, Love and see what kinds of games you can come up with, throw out the ones that fail and keep and polish the ones that work. When you’re done, you’re created a body of work that conceivably, stands on its own merits, while simultaneously allowing the space to do some really unique stuff. I mean, if 2 are solid, you can use the other 2 to try something new that people will play because it’s part of a whole.
The cute bit about this, I think, is that you could come up with an idea and set it through concepting to prototype to game in a really quick amount of time. I’m looking forward to that. But first, back to those ever hateful cliffs.