First of all, I’m sorry if this is an inappropriate use of this email list; I honestly forgot about this newsletter entirely, and don’t even remember exactly what the meaning of the name signifies, or the logo that Aude graciously drew. I think I might have had some vague idea of combining crafting and games in one place, somehow, eventually, and, haha, it turns out that in a roundabout way I sort of have?
I took two weeks off work at the end of August because I really, really missed my brain and thought I might be able to give it a sort of rigorous creative powerwashing if I took some considered but unstructured time off, to make room (which my colleague Allie recently reported on) for the possibility of spontaneity. It seems paradoxical, yet it turns out this method suits my always-needs-a-plan-ass brain. I spent some of my time shopping and eating and seeing friends; mostly I just sat down and tried to make stuff.
I’d had a vague idea for a long time that I’d like to learn how to make games. Partly, I have to imagine, out of sheer Puritan guilt; I’ve played so many literal thousands of hours of games over the past few years, virtually replacing all previous TV- and movie-watching and converting a large percentage of my reading to audio in order to accommodate. I think in some way I have to believe that investment of time inevitably adds up to something productive.
But mostly I do think my motives are pure. For one thing, I love, love, love games. I think they’re just the best?? I don’t think the concept or pursuit of gaming is for everyone but I do believe there’s a game for everyone, some combination of puzzles and choices and vibes to draw in and hold the attention of every sentient person. It might not actually be worth everyone’s time to try and figure out their own, but it is my hope that as the industry evolves and there are more and more ways to play high-quality, low-barrier-to-entry games, more people are willing to give it a shot.
I didn’t know where to start learning, or even what questions to ask in the first place. I asked a lot of friends to ask their friends, and Googled a lot of proper nouns. Through a bit of trial and error I settled on a game engine (Game Maker Studio) and an art style (retro pixel art); for learning the former, YouTube has been invaluable. I don’t know if these are tools I’ll use forever, or even with which I’ll make a first game. For right now, though, I like their accessibility and tone, and the limitations they both provide are a blessing. I’ve found I can be a lot more creatively nimble when I have a set number of something in front of me (pixels, stitches) in which to execute a project, rather than trying to put the whole octopus to bed at once.
Everything I’ve watched and read stresses the importance of prototyping rather than getting precious with stories and styles and art assets right at the beginning, which is advice so perfectly tailored to counter my instincts that I laughed the first time I heard it. I’ve made a lot of cute little pixel art landscapes, which is not the same thing as making a useable game. I have a couple of concepts, a few ideas for characters and themes and mechanics, but nothing close to a solid idea yet. Still, I’m invigorated by each part of the process (the process chiefly involves figuring out what the process is, at this point), and find that when, say, the coding side is too much, I can turn to figuring out how to make things look the way I want, and vice versa. There’s a cadence that isn’t unlike a gameplay loop in itself.
So I’m learning to code, I guess, and learning to make art and animation and even a little bit of music, and thinking about how gameplay is structured and where (lol!) writing fits in; my other conspiracy theory is that I’m doing all of this because I haven’t been able to write with any fluency in like, years, and thus I must be trying to sneak up on myself. Mostly it’s just fun to be having fun, exciting to be excited about something again. It’s been a while.