So, how’s that game of yours coming up, mate?
It’s been, what, 10–11 months? Pretty long period of inactivity. Well, not exactly of inactivity because I was preoccupied with other stuff, but it was inactive period for the development of Zenith:Unknown anyway.
Why is that? Mostly because I had an a-ha moment. It was not really what one would expect of such a moment, you know — an explosion of creativity, profound conclusion, universal enlightenment and whatnot. It was a moment of realization I was dwelling into something that is more of a nerdy hobby, than a possible business venture. And let me be honest with you here. I started working on this project with the idea to try and make a living out of it. And at least for a while. The orgasm I was going to get out of having it done and seeing people playing was going to come as an extra. But my primary intention was to turn this into business. And after I put couple hundred hours into it I suddenly realized things were not going to work this way.
Making this game from scratch was going to require me to invest tremendous amount of work and my own money before it could even get into some sort of shape.
And to me that was a no-go. See, I am tired of working 9–5. I am tired of my current lifestyle. I am tired of working in order to have a lifestyle at all.
I am tired of the place where I’m forced to live so I can work so I can have a lifestyle I don’t like.
I am tired of the people who co-inhabit my environment. I am tired of everything around me. All I long for is a house in the woods where I can grow tomatoes, raise hens, go fishing, do what I love and give the general world the middle finger. That’s exactly how tired I am of it all.
And getting into more debt so I can make a board game which will theoretically turn into profitable venture at some point in the future was not going to get me any closer to that.
This conclusion might have come from the way we are taught to think around here. Or it might have been a manifestation of simple logic. I did not know nor did I care about the reasons. And I don’t care now. Rushing headlong into this was going to set me back in every possible way and that was and still is the absolute opposite of what I aim for.
So I just said fuck it, let’s focus on something that will actually get me where I want to be quicker so I can afford to waste all the time I desire into that game a little bit later on. And that’s exactly what I did in the months that followed. I put all my spare time into the development of two business concepts that are now slowly pulling off the ground. Which gives me a little room to breathe and brings back the game into my scope.
Needless to say time also helped cool down the unhealthy enthusiasm that initially sprung back then.
Couple days ago I came back to the drawing board and started reading the documents again. To be honest, there was not much of a gameplay where I left off last year. I managed to come up with board set up and general concept of the game, but never really had a clue how the game was going to actually play. Yet this is pretty normal for me. My chaotic mind works this way — I just throw plans, ideas and concepts and after they reach certain critical mass it all ties up perfectly together. It’s just there was nothing close to critical mass where I left. So I started writing down new ideas, scratching some of the old ones and most importantly — think as a player instead of a writer.
So, what’s my plan for the future of the game. I don’t have one. I’m going to work on it, but it will most certainly not be my priority. I will try to pull off a playing prototype in the next few months, but will not be looking into any possible scope about when it’s going to be done. Or as they used to answer questions about the possible release date of Duke Nukem Forever:
When it’s done.
Oh and by the way I ditched the visual board game prototyping concept. Only took me few minutes to realize it was not going to work at all once I started thinking about the actual gameplay.
Zenith:Unknown
a proper sci-fi board game
