The Parable of the Beings
There’s a story I love: four different beings approach a river.
A fish sees a home.
A human sees a drink.
A deity sees nectar.
A demon sees a stream of fire.
Same river. Different eyes. We don’t see the world as it is; we see it as we are.
As a game designer, I’m beginning to appreciate the game design of my very existence. And I’d like to share the character sheet upgrades I’ve just gone through.
Level 0: The Mortal Years (Age 8–34)
Trigger: Lunch break at soccer camp. Someone pulls out Magic: The Gathering, and I’m hooked. New identity unlocked.
Motivation: I want to play games. I’ll do all I can to make it a fun experience for everyone so that I can play more games (this is enlightened self-interest).
Capabilities:
Running campaigns for my younger brother and his friends (especially satisfying when middle school feels like a dungeon).
Tracking whether everyone’s having fun at game nights, and spotting broken mechanics and inventing house rules to fix them.
Things I Loved:
Tinkering with published games: adding a few figurines from one game to another, rolling buckets of dice, and seeing where chaos theory meets statistics.
Converting the “I’m not a gamer” people to my favorite games, like the time I showed StarCraft to Emily, and three hours later she blinked and said, “I’ve lost all concept of time.”
Seeing myself as a mere mortal in a world where game creators were gods. I’d sit in chat rooms, breath held, waiting for rules to descend as if from Mount Olympus.
Level 1: The First Quest. Age: 35
Trigger: Sent a message to my friend group: “I care enough about this game idea to take your money to make it real.” Sixteen of them sent $50 each. Suddenly, I had a budget.
Motivation: A game I made on printer paper was actually fun. And I wanted to see what would happen if I kept tinkering with it.
Capabilities:
The benefit of the doubt: people don’t know me yet, so had no pre-conceived ideas. People who say “well I’ll try anything once” are insta-friends.
Innocent excitement: I had no idea what’s going on in the gaming industry, and that’s part of the thrill (it also helps to have a day job paying the bills).
Things I Loved:
Flying by the seat of my pants: someone knows a graphic designer? Great, they’re my graphic designer now. Trust by transitive property.
Doing it on the cheap: three simultaneous playtests in my small apartment. Four people to a GenCon hotel room. Canned fish dinners. Total sleepover vibes.
Obscurity as a shield: posting my sleepy face on social media felt safe because only five people would see it.
Playing detective: among 3,000 events at GenCon, which ones would teach me something vital & connect me to a collaborator, and which would waste my dwindling savings? Sleuth for inspiration while dodging energy vampires!
Level 2: Shedding a Skin. Age: 36
Trigger: I felt the shift during this first GenCon. Somewhere between play-tests and late-night conversations, I shed a skin—maybe imposter syndrome. Whatever it was, it’s gone, and I’m not going dumpster diving for it.
Capabilities:
Recognizing my time and attention are valuable. The 10 manufacturing companies competing for my attention have helped teach me that. I don’t have to hunt anymore; opportunities arrive like a menu.
Having a posse, a retinue: allies in crowdfunding, publishing, legal, etc, who all want to see me succeed. Even other indie designers, who I once thought of as competitors, are allies. (I cross-promoted a beautiful game and made a friend). Even my Lyft driver supported me, calling my leap from corporate America to pursue my dreams “the coolest thing he’d heard all week.”
Motivation: Crystal clear now: run an indie game company full-time, with an intentional mission to bring harmony to the world.
Things I’m Loving:
Turning people away from play-tests because we’re full. It’s making me feel valued. It’s a scary new feeling because I have often built my identify on being anti-exclusivity so I’m attempting to do so with grace. Hopefully I can soon feel abundant enough to book larger venues so that I don’t need to turn people away. Maybe in Level 3
Meeting my design heroes and realizing: they’re human, and there are no rules I can’t break. But also, I want them as mentors. It was amazing to take design classes from Eric Lang, Eric Zimmerman, and to meet authors like Chris Jackson, and learn many of these inhabitants of Mount Olympus also had a similar career path to me.
Taking my time choosing artists who truly fit our aesthetic—and finally knowing what that aesthetic is.
Not being everything for everyone. Our game is too personal for strangers thrown together at random: we had two groups of two put together for a four-person game at GenCon and they stayed in their shells.
Noticing that if I want balance in a male-skewed industry, I actually need to design something less masculine-coded than the average game. I’m seeing the context in which my game swims.
The Paths to Level 3
I can see two paths ahead of me:
The race to crowd-funding: My game is playable today and people want it. However, only a few hundred people know about it. Do I try to launch crowd-funding to get it to them today?
Leaving the cake to bake in the oven: So many visual elements still need polishing. The cards should be re-designed to match the mystic aesthetic, color-blinded support should be added by changing the icons. A box I’m proud to send to reviewers. I see now how much more beautiful I can make the game. Shouldn’t I take the time to make it as epic as it can be?
I will be mulling over which path to take. In the meantime, I’d love to have you ride along on this adventure with me. Subscribe today to never miss an update.