It is amazing how much life can change in such a short (comparitvely) period of time.

A while back my friends (Chris and Henry) and I decided to create our own role playing game.  Perdition.  This hasn't changed and we are actually going through an organizational phase of creation.  I am very happy with that since it was something we needed to do for some time and it can only help us in the long run.

Since then I have decided to start another project with chi_gobbler who is in the finishing stages of his own game.  You can check that out at www.thirdeyegames.net if you want to know more about it.  

I guess although I have always wanted to make a fantasy game, which I am in fact doing right now, I also wanted to make something else.  Something a bit more dark and gritty.  Something that has a bite to it.  So, we are in starting discussions about what kind of game we want to make and that is kind of a fun thing as well.  

I am still very excited about the direction Perdition is going and I know that will only get better.  Especially since the farther we get along in the game, the more we are all getting on the same page.  That is a nice thing and I can only hope it will coninue.

This is more of me just rambling about game design.  I am a rookie at this and can only hope the process at some point gets easier.  :) 

So, we were supposed to get together this Sunday and play Vampire: Dark Ages.  

Wait, lets back up a bit.

Tonight, I was getting together with my co-game designers Chris and Henry to work on the game.  Apparantly, Chris had something else in mind.  He and his wife were supposed to be with us this last Saturday to help with the city creation for the Dresden Files.  He wanted to look at it to see how it went and to see if it helps us with our own version of that for our game. 

Our game never even came up.  

I ended up explaining SOTC and also how the city creation worked for DFRPG.  They seemed very responisive and seemed to (at least initially) get the idea of SOTC.  

So what does that mean?  We are playing SOTC this Sunday!

We have to make three new characters for them and my girlfriend.  

I am very excited, since this is the first step to us playing the DFRPG when I get farther into that. :)

So, tonight my friends and I are getting together to talk about the game we are making.   

With every venture like this there will be lulls, and I can understand that.  Not many can stay motivated, energetic, AND have time to work on a game all the time.  Well, except those who are lucky enough to do this for a living.  :)

So we have to figure out where to go from here.  What is the next step to be made in this project.  I am excited to get back into the creative mindset and move forward.  One of the problems is we all do things differently, and trying to find a balance is something that I believe we are still trying to achieve.  

So my biggest obstacle is probably the fact that I love to control things and the things I do need to be orderly.  Hello OCD!  I am a thinker and a planner.  I do my best work (normally) when I get to sit down and think things out and design from there.  My friend Henry on the other hand, does his best work when we are sitting around brainstorming.  So you can see how diferent just the two of us are, and we still have Chris who is somewhere in the middle probably.

So these are things that we are going to need to figure out.  

1.  What does everyone want to do with their time?
2.  What is the next thing we need to do?
3.  What do we need to change? 
4.  What are going to be making that is creative?

These are just a few of the questions.  UGH.  There is more out there.

We will see what happens tonight. 

Yeah, just as the title says, miscommunation on any leve sucks.  But especially when you are trying to make a game with a few of your closest friends and somehow you misread something they were trying to say.  Or they did not do a good job of clarifying what they mean.  Both sides are wrong in that case and you end up making something out of nothing.

My friend Chris put something on his blog that upset me.  I felt it implied something about me that did not seem to be true.  The second problem was not exactly keeping my friends in the loop as to what I was doing regarding certain networking aspects of our project.  

As usual with the fact that in this age people rarely talk face to face, we are left to decipher text messages, emails and blogs.  Don't get me wrong I am a huge fan of the blog (or email), but that doesn't mean they are always clear.  Lets face it sometimes when you put something on a blog, it does not come out the way you mean for it too.  Hell, that happens to me as well.  But in this case I ended up getting upset and it took an email or two for us to get things resolved.

Lesson #1.  Communicate better and be careful what you type in a blog or email.  Say what you mean to say and there will be no problems (usually).
Lesson #2.  Communicate better and let your partners know what you are up too.  That way they are not surprised by anything.

The positive that came out of this is that Chris and I may have a better understanding of each other and maybe we can use this as a positive moving forward.

The game is really starting to come along.  

For the longest time it felt like it was not really going anywhere.  I realize that I am the one that is most movitated of the three of us to get this done, and that tends to cloud my judgement in regards to where I think we should be...and what we should be doing.  Chris said it best when we me the other night.  I kind of picked this up and brought everyone else with me (I am paraphrasing cuz I do not remember exaclty how he put it).  That is something I have always done.  I love to lead and be in charge.  Even though in this case it isn't so much me being in charge as I am the one that kind of pushes us forward and organizes everything.  That would be the control freak in me.  I have to remind myself to let go of things from time to time or I can get a little crazy.

Back to what I was saying.  Chris and I me recently and we had a great meeting.  I had concerns about how we were gonig to delegate tasks for this especially with Chris and Henry's work schedules.  They tend to be a lot busier than I am and Chris especially had been very busy with his job.  So going into this meeting I really wanted to see where he was in regards to everything.  

A moment about Chris.  I give him A LOT of crap for some reason.  I am even really sure why.  But i do have to say after this meeting it really seems like he is into the game.  He really stepped up and is putting time aside from his busy schedule to really work on the game.  That is all I can ask for and his input has always been beneficial and even more than that he tend to balance out the over the top ideas Henry and I can come up with from time to time.  

I guess the bottom line is I feel great about where we are.  I am making contacts in the industry as often as I can and hopefully someday that will bear fruit.  

Everything is starting to click and hopefully this will only get better.