Oct 2, 2025
Earlier this week I sat down and finally decided to write out this one idea that's been stuck in my head. The idea incorporates concepts I learned about distributed systems from my recent research into my game, which was something I wanted to do from the start. On top of that, I've really been interested in a number of things including a game called Routine, making-of videos about Alien, and—as I said before—fault tolerant distributed systems. One thing I've been trying to work on during the process of designing this game is being more intentional about where I'm getting and using inspiration. One thing I learned from reading Game Design Workshop by Tracy Fullerton is that although there are many things in games and media I find "cool", that doesn't mean they all make meaningful or sensible additions to my game, and often times these can actually cause game designers to get off track. Now, my process of vomiting this idea into writing feels like a deviation from that effort, but I'm glad I decided to do it anyway. I really just started writing down every idea I could think of in a stream-of-consciousness style. After a solid 1-2 hours of this I decided I had enough to start editing through. I thought that the structure of a concept document might force me to answer some questions I didn't realize I had. Then, talking about it in my meeting with Dr. Eldin, it feels like we've reached a tipping point, the catalyst being the fleshing out of the ideas I had. Now, I'm feeling like all I want to do is work on this project...