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A Game Design Plan For A Time That Is Trying

Well I missed my chance to do a Mechanic Monday, and then got too busy at work to do a TTRPG Tuesday like I’d planned.  I suppose I could simply say “here it is, late” and do either of those but instead I think I’ll just talk about where I’m at with regards to game design, and make a plan for hitting some goals during These Trying Times.

I told my playwriting students in an email this week to make three writing plans at a time.  Ambitious, Realistic, and Bare Minimum.  Although I didn’t come right out and say it, this is meant to gamify things.  You can feel bad about falling short of the Ambitious or Realistic goals (and feeling bad discourages future progress more often than not) or you can feel good about hitting the Bare Minimum (and if you can’t hit that, there are bigger issues that need addressing).  We spent the lion’s share of the in-person time together doing exercises, having discussions, and doing a lot of theorycrafting and pre-writing.  Now that I’ve sent them off to do the bulk of the actual writing away from their cohort, I’m trying to give them tools to build and maintain writing momentum - and that includes managing your own highs and lows, your motivations and habits and dopamine patterns.  Gamification - use with care, caution, and conscious intent.

So what do I want to get done? Let’s start with bare minimum and work up from there.

Bare Minimum:

  • Work on physical components for one game
  • Be able to say I did my best to write a game design post every week


Well, that doesn’t look like much, but that’s kind of the point, right? So let’s go to the opposite end.  La-la-land.

Ambitious:

  • Complete a working Alpha prototype for BURN
  • Complete a working Alpha prototype for Amberlodge
  • Build a Beta of FFGMGM
  • Complete a draft of the DOLLIE scenario
  • Write at least one game design post every week for three months
  • And now to get real crazy: Build a 5-week game design class curriculum
  • Also nutso: Identify sections of blog that would make a good book


Hahahaha that’s bonkers shit right there.  But again, that’s the object of the exercise.  So now let’s split the distance.

Realistic:

  • Write at least one game design blog post every week for three months
  • Complete an Alpha of BURN or Amberlodge, or a Beta of FFGMGM
  • Complete a draft of the DOLLIE scenario
  • Build a 5-week game design class curriculum


It’s still a lot… but it should be attainable.  We’ve got a smaller, discrete project (the scenario) that I’ve already started, a habit I’m already in that I just need to stick with, a tabletop prototype is the big challenge but the idea phase is done and it’s a question of execution, and the class curriculum thing seems very out of my wheelhouse but considering the scope of the project and the lessons I’ve learned from teaching my playwright’s class, it’s a good next-level challenge for me.

So those are the tiers of my game design goals/plans for the shelter-in-place.  I think I’ll want to do some more thinking before I get to the next part; what my conditions and habits are, and what strategies I can put in place to ensure my success.
Til next week!

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