Intents and Purposes

I’m young (relative to a great many things). I’m naive. I still have the sheen of optimistic exuberance on me that is endowed to all who have had good upbringings and moderately easy lives. I have no great experience yet, and often I talk as if I know everything. It is the folly of youth, and I am well aware of it.

So I open this blog in the full knowledge that I know a pittance about what it takes to design a game. I have no experience in the design process, the development process, or any of the rest of it. There are people in the blog-o-sphere this very moment who have been making games and designing worlds within digital constraints for nearly my entire life. They have experience, they have wisdom, they have perspicacity. They bring a certain savoir-faire to the discussion that I have no hope of bringing.

And they have those words. Those words that reach from the depths of science and philosophy to mock and cow me. There are disciplines and learning that they wield in discussion that I have no grasp on. Words too tongue-twisting to pronounce. Concepts bandied about that I’ve never heard of. Math, statistics, psychology, sociology, politics, economics. Topics that can give me headaches at 30 paces. My knowledge and understanding is as to nothing compared to this.

So what could I possibly bring to these discussions? What could I possibly provide that would be of intrinsic worth to them? Well that’s just it: it’s not for them. It’s for me.

This blog, these discussions, reiterations and regurgitations, even my meagre contributions, are so I can better understand the world of game design as it is unfolding and developing before me. It is my means to internalize the breadth of reading that I find, and regurgitate it into something that is at least cohesive in my own head. I know that I will get things wrong. I know that I’ll sound the fool (from time to time). Please forgive me. And please correct me. The more I learn the better I am.

The intent is to learn. The intent is to do my part to define games and design.

The purpose is to make a better me. The purpose is to learn how games are made, from the inside out.