Grey matter oozing, electrical sparks, nuerons synopsing, shake it, stir it up and pour it out all over the table. That is my creative process. I would constantly wonder where in the world did that crazy idea come from? When I was younger, I would tell my parents about some cockamanie imaginative regurgitation, and their response was not, “That’s silly, what are you thinking?”, but a calmer more accepting reply, “That’s interesting.” It taught me not to hold back from what some might consider ludicrous or whacky. It provided the confidence required to not tolerate disbelief from a sidewalk supervisor and to mess around with that goop I had just dumped on the table. It taught me that you can search through the mud and you may find a spark you never thought possible.
Completely unknown to the developmental process of creating a board game and the certain mountain of knowledge that I needed to climb being a newbie, I never once thought about what roadblocks I might run into. At a difficult time in my life, I was enjoying myself in all its transpiration. It was going to be what it wanted to be and this was a healthy process. This phase of development void of all stresses and intimidation was the most enjoyable aspect of what would eventually become a board game others would play and perhaps find enjoyment.
What started as a series of hand drawn lakes and streams of places I had been and others just a fabrication, they came together as chains connecting routes without the mere concept of a mechanism. This might be contrary to the way one should organize themselves designing a board game, but the fun continued. Now that I had a sequence of avenues, a grid was necessary to move a player piece in a consistent manner through these corridors. Now it was time to bring on a mechanism.
Lets see, one will need resources to move throughout the evolving map system. Pieces of paper cut to card size with ideas written on them, family to join in on this inventive journey, drinks and snacks supplied by the developer. What is working, what isn’t? This phase of inviting others into the development of the playing cards and creating disasters, that one might experience along the way, was pivotal to the creation of the final brain wave.
Iterations continued until my teenager said, “This is a good game dad!” That was all that was needed to take it to the next level, a prototype.
Thanks to InDesign, Procreate and a great corner shop printer named William, there was a physical game worth playing and tweaking. Now what?
