Well! I’m probably way behind my non-existent schedule on this, but progress is progress. I have, now, a complete outline of the game. All of the levels, all of the enemies, all– well, okay, most– of the secrets, the bosses, the writing. It’s all here.
Finishing is just starting. On a project of this scope, this just just scratching the dust on the surface of the outer layer. Still, it feels good. I did something.
Now: What now?
I’ve started breaking everything down into tasks so that I can proceed. The first priority is to make a technical specification, something noting all of the things the engine will need to be able to do to create the game I’m imagining. This will take a couple of days, but should help prevent me from doing any unnecessary work on the game engine and getting completely sidetracked. Once I know exactly what the engine needs to be capable of, I can focus on getting that up and running as fast as possible and, from there, start making something playable
After I have the technical specification done, as well, I will be a lot more comfortable with building the other task lists. Until I get this most fundamental part of the project nailed down, I can’t be too confident in anything built on top of it.
In the meanwhile, if building a list of engine requirements gets tedious, I still have a fair bit of design work left to do. I need to collate all of my design documents into one master document and add in ‘stage directions’ — notes on which story is told where in the game, what other lines are told where. Basically, just converting the notes I’ve taken into a more complete and coherent form so that, in addition to conveying the basic shape of the game, the design document also conveys specifics.
I suppose this is a kind of milestone. Which reminds me, setting milestones is also something I should be doing, isn’t it? I suppose that, once I complete the technical spec, achieving everything that’s on it will be the next major milestone.
The end is the beginning. Time to get to work.
A cat walked through the crack of the door
the space between frame and the floor
he couldn’t quite choose
between the two rooms
so he walked through the crack of the door
A cat walked in the between
into places he’d not ever been
no one thought to make them
for no path could take them
to the places just this cat was now seein’
A cat walked into its mind
its body was left long behind
It found its own history
and solved its own mystery
but there was no path back home to find
A cat walked in its old home
took its old seat with its old great aplomb
But things weren’t the same
In its life it remade
its new world was reframed
by the roads it had laid
no one called out its name
and it hurt when it stayed
when the cat walked in its old home
A cat walked through the crack of the door
the space between frame and the floor
sick of debates
between two like fates
he walked through the crack of the door
