From Conception to Execution (Tabletop Design Blog)

First off, thanks for spending your time here. It's appreciated and any feedback you can provide is extremely welcome. Secondly, I'm not a blogger, but I do enjoy the written word so hopefully that will translate well to this medium. As well I'm no photographer as you can tell by the shot of a prototype of one of my many games in the background clearly demonstrates. Perhaps you'd prefer to think of it as a depth of field experiment, naturally drawing the eye to the text? Lastly this blog will chronicle my experience from beginning to end as I create a game from scratch. Hopefully someone will find this helpful should they try to create one themselves (something I strongly encourage) or perhaps someone could see a misstep I have made and help redirect my energies in a more productive manner. I digress though, so onto the subject at hand.

It was last Thursday the first day of September that this idea popped into my mind. It wasn't a completely original thought by any means but where it led was an interesting place indeed. Several years ago in my youth I spent time creating a new coding language, for myself mostly to expedite certain aspects of coding. It was a tedious and ultimately fruitless effort that I learned several lessons from, mainly that creating something from the ground up is a huge undertaking and often time is better spent using tools already provided to create your vision. Well it would seem I've forgotten that very lesson as creating a new medium of sorts is almost precisely what I'm doing.

If I were to be coding, it would be simliar to building a new engine. A tool that could be used to develop and build upon, something that was designed for modulation. A mechanism which allowed each person using it to create a totally unique experience based on their vision and not particularly mine. As I have said it is not a completely original design, I am not reinventing the wheel. I'm still using the basic mechanisms of play the same way a programmer utilizes a processor, screen and keyboard. What I am doing is purposefully taking the control of the games direction out of my hands as a designer and creating a system that future generations of designers will adopt and build upon. At least that's the idea right now.

There is no doubt in my mind that what I propose is a massive undertaking that should take years to do properly. There is also no doubt that I will ultimately deviate from this initial concept for one reason or another. I will however maintain the idea and that is partially the reason for this blog. A constant reminder of what I need to accomplish and why I began in the first place.

I have much more that I would love to share, but I fear this post is already too long. I will post again soon, with more information to follow.

Thanks again for your time.