I’ve spent most of today playing games. And before anyone jumps through the Internet to stab me from envy, let me clarify that: I’ve spent most of today playing one specific game. Battle of the Bulge. We’re working hard to get Miguel up to speed, which means he needs to understand the game. The only real way to grok a game is to play it, so that means I’ve been taking him through the game from both sides. It’s good fun-although not so good for my ego, since he’s now whipped me two games running. But that’s all right. It’s only a game…and besides, my revenge will be swift and certain.

In college, when I was young and foolish and fancied myself a creative writer, I noticed that when I was writing good stuff (which is about 25% of the time, if you’re very lucky) my mental landscape was completely different from normal. I’d be able to hold a story in my mind as a sort of shape, beginning, middle, and end unfolding to the point where all I had to do was transcribe what was already in my head. The noted software guru Joel Spolsky, who I’ve been required to absorb as part of my education here at Shenandoah, makes the same point in his magnum opus “Joel on Software”. One of the points he keeps hammering over and over is to minimize distractions to your programmers at all costs, because once something knocks them out of the “zone” of coding it can take up to an hour of lost time before they’ve gotten back into it. That makes perfect sense to me- writing good code to do anything even moderately interesting requires solving problems that the programmer hasn’t confronted before, and figuring out how to reach your goals without exceeding the resources you’re given is no less a creative endeavor. Like writing, really good code gets written when the coder can access that sort of altered state where he can hold the whole problem in his mind and visualize the best solution.

At least for me, making games is the same way. My most productive periods are always when I’m immersed in playing games- not necessarily the ones I’m working on, as long as they’re in the same genre. My mind pulls out inspiration from everything I play, pulling apart mechanics to figure out what’s happening at the level of simulation and probability as another part keeps notes on what it feels like to the player to go through rolling dice and pulling cards. I can imagine how various elements would go into the game I’m working on and try to figure out if they’d bring that elusive quality of fun to the whole production. And eventually, just like before, I can hold the whole shape of a game system- the rules, the die rolls, the way information is presented to the player and how they’ll react- in my head, and shape it into what I want.

It’s the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done. And it feels great to be doing it again, as I start to live and breathe Bulge.

Sorry for a somewhat solipsistic post. By next week I hope to be far along enough on the Bulge AI to talk a bit about how we’re constructing and testing it. Till then, cheers.

Related Posts

• Bulge UI Demo
• Art Diary #16 – the Splash Screen
• Kickstarter Update and a Message from Mark Herman
• Form Follows Function – Oh really?
• Shenandoah Studio is On Kickstarter!

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