Weird Dreams

Certain events have occurred that cause me to question and consider what, exactly, the "Bludgeon of Inspiration" is, and does. Be prepared for a story!


The thing that comes to the forefront of my mind is that when inspiration hits me, I work feverishly, or generally do things without too much thought going into what I'm doing. Hasty decisions are made, and the possibility of looking like a complete idiot is a very likely scenario.

This game's title screen is an excellent example of this. I was just chugging along, not really noticing, or possibly caring, what I was doing, then *BAM*, I posted the title screen. I started getting notices for it shortly thereafter, mostly people saying how bad it was. Thing is, I was so blinded by all the stuff I've done, and how fast I seemed to be doing everything in, that it did not occur to me that the title screen I made was "bad" in any way, shape, or form. I can admit that it's bad now, but I really don't have anything better, nor have any ideas for anything better. I suppose I could use ShortStar's take on the title screen, but I would prefer to use something I made (no offense to ShortStar intended). This talk of criticism leads me to my next point.


I tend to take criticism, both good and bad, quite personally. The games I make are an extension of myself, my psyche so to speak. So why should I not take criticism personally?

I think all designers think this way, to some degree. Saying that, I've taken this idea to exeptional exteremes. As a perfect example, I took Liberty's Let's Try of Legacy Reborn too personally for my own good. Consider: the game is canceled, and the download torn down. I don't think I'll ever have the heart to touch that game ever again. I managed to handle Creation's Pass/Fail of Matusmori Days better, but was an absolute emotional wreak with just the description for RPGSnapshot's video for it's play of Matsumori Days, much less actually seeing the video itself (Full disclosure: I still haven't seen it, nor have the heart to.). So maybe I've not changed all that much. Which leads to my next point.


I can be quite resistant to change. Particularly with mapping. I have no clue when I made my first map (Maybe it was with RPGM-95?), but my maps have this tendency to be empty in some way, shape, or form. My very first map ever was, of course, the typical "first map ever" - a huge, wide-open area with absolutely nothing going on. The maps did, eventually, get smaller and smarter, but there was always an "empty" quality to them.

Don't get me wrong, I've played the games that people seem to like ripping graphics from: Final Fantasy VI, Treasure of the Rurda, and Earthbound. It's not that I don't know what a good map looks like. I just don't like the idea behind the expenditure of effort that kind of mapping requires. Which brings me to my next point.


I tend skip over problems that I think are small, but are quite large problems in reality. Overly tough monsters? Just grind a bit more in the previous area. Terrible mapping? That's not my strength, so why care? Underdeveloped characters? Players must be skipping the dialog.

I realize that this kind of thinking is not particularly conducive to making an "average" game, much of anything beyond that. That I still think these things, while realizing that it's not good for game development, is irony onto itself. However, while I'm ignoring these admittedly large issues, at the same time, I can be pretty picky about other issues. As an example, with Matsumori Days, I "had" to write Masako a certain way, or she wouldn't "be" Masako. She would fail as a character. Then again, as nobody, or very few, seem to be "getting" who "Masako" is, I end up failing as a writer in that regard. I'm damned when I "do", and damned when I "don't". Now that's irony!


Thus is the story thus far of the RMN user called "Marrend", and his struggle to be an amateur game designer. Perhaps this story is harsh, and perhaps the so-called "Bludgeon of Inspiration" had some say in what the content of this story was. However, do not come away from this story, thinking that inspiration is inherently a bad thing. No, far from it. Indeed, inspiration is what makes creativity happen. Without it, there would be no wheel, much less anything more technologically advanced, like video games. Take this story, rather, as a cautionary tale: that doing things by sheer inspiration alone can lead to disastrous results.


What does this means for future game development? No clue. All I know is that I still have 19 days to fix this game's title screen to something more acceptable (Whatever "acceptable" is!), and fix the game balance one more time to something less tedious. I don't care about the mapping, or the use of RTP resources. There I go again, concentrating on certain issues, while ignoring other issues. One of these days, one of these days...