The Indie Gaming Cookie

/*** THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR  CHANTS OF SENNAAR ***/   Did you know that I got into a Twitter disagreement with one of  Chants of Sennaar 's game developers a few years ago? In a now-deleted tweet thread of mine, I had presented my (admittedly uninformed) thoughts about the game's climax based solely on what I had seen online, deeming it unnatural and unnecessary. After all, Chants of Sennaar  is a puzzle game about learning languages, understanding ways of communication, and bringing people together — what the  hell  does a creepy, early horror film, Groot -esque creature in non-Euclidean space have to do with  anything ? So, while I admired the unique style and mechanics of the well-beloved indie title, I dismissed it for what it seemed to me: a tantalizing masterpiece, ruined only by its inexplicable trope-isms and action climax for the sake of action climax.  This overtly long tweet thread of mine (overt especially for a game I h...

"A real appreciation for poetry does not come from memorizing a bunch of poems, it comes from writing your own."  - Paul Lockhart, in  A Mathematician's Lament I know game design when I see it. I have played many, many games. I consider them my pastime, my hobby, and my passion. In fact, I have made a few games in a few different places. Yet, I can't shake off this feeling that I am  not  a game designer, or that I didn't learn it the right way . I love game design. I read about game design. I know the words, the theory. I know what  cognitive load  means, or what  endogenous value  is. But look at my portfolio, at my pedigree, and you will see that it is meek, it is meager, and some may say, it is  pitiful .  I learned how to use Unity at a young age of 13-years-old, and I learned how to make games in Scratch at 11. In these platforms, I made a few fun, silly, small projects, and when I felt up to it I tuned into YouTube tutorials to m...

Hi!  It's been a while, has it not? Since now and my last blog post (June 4), so much has happened: both good and bad. For the world, multitudes of natural disasters, global tensions, and the rapid downfall of old powers. For me, it's been a stressful period of college enrollment. The one source of light that's kept me sane is my partner, with whom our relationship was made official between then and now. Naturally, the first thing we do (or, the first thing I make him do) is make a game together. I'd been wanting to create an interactive fiction / narrative game based on our then-recent graduation. Thus, over the month of June, we spent crafting and molding our latest project:  Today, We March.   (Play the game here: https://cookiejargaming.itch.io/today-we-march ) In this article, I just want to spend some time detailing some of the design and development processes we had to undertake during the creation of Today, We March. One of the  —  perhaps the —  mo...