Collide Games

Hi all,

It’s been a while since I have posted, I’ve been busy with a few life things in the meantime. I actually just went down to Sydney to play in the Netrunner Asia Pacific Continentals and, despite getting beaten for the most part, I had a lot of fun and spent some good time with friends.

On the game development front, I was actually involved in a small game jam amongst friends and have been in talks with a local game store (shout out Vault Games!) about perhaps doing some small scale R&D nights for people interested in making their own board game.

I suppose I want to take some time to talk about the importance of playtesting, expectations and mutual accountability in the development process. I think for me, this is a clear weakness I have identified in my own game development journey. I feel I am a very creative person, but I lack the persistence and drive to achieve measurable results without a lot of effort or planning on my part. A clear way this tendency manifests is that I flip-flop a lot on game concepts, mechanics and overall design in a way that really stymies moving forward with a project.

I have not been idle on the game development front since creating Spare Parts and have in fact printed and tested a large number of prototypes between friends, only to discard most of them or conclude that the ideas have some merit but need much more refinement. I understand this is actually very typical for the game development process, but I do think for my own sake I need to be involved in more collaborative processes and testing groups that will keep me focused and accountable for continuing on with a single process.

It’s for this reason I have really been warming up to the idea of being involved in small board game development jams with set themes/mechanics, both as an avenue of collaborative design and development and a necessary constraint on my creative processes.

Though it sounds counter-intuitive, constraints and requirements are some of the most important factors on cultivating creative content. I’ve actually had perhaps the most clarity and drive to complete a small game project when placed under the constraints of a set theme and mechanics. 

While unlimited choice sounds good in theory, we are still constrained by what we can imagine and conceive of as human beings. The sheer range of possible solutions to a problem (in this case, the problem of “making a fun board game”) means that we are likely to be stuck in decision paralysis on how best to achieve the most desirable outcome. In such cases, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.

If I am told the theme of my game needs to be “Picnic Party” and the necessary mechanic must be “Bingo” (yes this is a real game jam example), then my range of ideas is significantly restricted, but my clarity of purpose within that range is heightened immensely. How can I make the theme match the mechanic in a satisfying way, how does the scoring work, how many players can it accommodate? By having some of the biggest questions answered for you, the minutiae can come into greater focus.

In any case, I am looking forward to the future where I have a few more structured and collaborative events coming down the line. That’s not to say I won’t also be doing my own things in the meantime. I of course have a large number of (constantly mutating) prototypes which I need to knuckle down and commit to developing. Watch this space, hopefully I’ll have something interesting and more concrete to show you all soon.

Thanks,

Kian