ya ever be so bad at writing ya make yourself sad
I have so many ideas. I am the ideas guy. I get in so many moods, I have so many things that feel like very real visions of games and experiences I want to author. It's all a whirling haze in my head. That haze feels real to me. And then I go to write anything down, and it's nothing. I can't decide on doing A or B. I thought I had an idea, but it was more the idea of an idea. I can't do any of the specifics.
I wish very much I could get either: medication. Or a writing partner who could see through it all and pull it into reality. I have neither, for various reasons.
I keep a google doc as a master list of every game I'm "working on." There are dozens, piled up over the years. I finally cut some out and made a "here's what I even remember wtf it is in 2024" list. It's still about 20. I will make probably none of them. It bums me out. I see some people crank out game after game after game, OR EVEN. One game! But like, really truly done! And I'm just full of jealousy.
Here's some recent stuff I'd love to make, that feels very real, that in my brain I'm just about to finish! Until I have to sit down and write the whole game, and it's nothing:
Revolutions Remix: anachronistic fast action game set in a fantasy 1800s. Tribute to Samurai Champloo, anime hip hop vibes, and the century of revolutions
Unnamed Pacts Game: cut-down PbtA game about mercenaries in an apocalyptic Thirty Years War who've made pacts with supernatural creatures for power. Drakengard, Berserk x Early Modern Wars of Religion. I've tried to make an Offworlders-sized game many times, and one of these days, I just might!
.dream//TWILIGHT: play a haunted virtual reality MMORPG hiding something more beneath itself. Takes place in an alternate Earth, on an internet as imagined in the 90s, before it became what it is today. So despite the MMO that can kill you stuff, it's basically a utopia. .hack//SIGN is an all time influential show for me, and making a tribute to it remains one of my all time dreams. An SbtR hack, surprisingly, but I think it'll work.
Swords Come Autumn: one-shot theatrical tragedy game about people resolving with violence what they might've solved with words. Scenes like Bleak Spirit and Firebrands, sword fights through dice dueling like Gunmetal Sonata.
Unnamed Pilgrimage NSR Game: pilgrims walk a shifting, otherworldly road towards the Holy City, and whatever they seek beyond its gates. I've been on a low medieval x religions kick recently, as shown in some other points here. Anywho, these OSR games are all minimalist by design, right? How hard could it be to write one! Right?? I've found I enjoy making a list of dark fantasy archetypes and their lil abilities, and make the most progress there. But I do not enjoy making the rest of the game. The DM section, the "here's a bunch of things you can actually present the players to make the game go" sections, are always incomplete.
Twilight of the Gods: low, dark fantasy game set in a late classical/early medieval world, on the brink of a cataclysmic battle between its gods. A hack of HEART. Go with your adventuring band on voyages through a shifting, misty world of supernatural incursions into the mundane. Vikings and Romans and Islamic imperials all swirling together. A lil' Elden Ring, a lil Dragon Age, etc. Been on an early medieval history kick lately. This is a project I started maybe 3 or 4 years ago now. I was surprised digging up this old google doc that I had originally meant for it to be JRPG-themed, and way more light hearted... I think all those impulses have moved into other games now. It's dark fantasy for sure.
And that's just from the past month or two. Some "longer projects" on the "back burner:" The Meaning of the Song, Prison Planet Abaddon, Dream of the Demon, Feasting Fantasy, Record of Twilight War, Black Box (Postmodern Dream Crimes), Insomnia Gothic..........
Well, I know it's not impressive to say you have ideas, and no one's ever interested to hear about ideas. I wish I could just, show results. Be silent until I come out into the world with a real thing I made and let it speak for itself. But I exist in a perpetual state of ideas being all I have. It'd be nice to at least talk about them.