I’m a big fan of Jonathan’s and think he’s done a ton of work re-envisioning Game Chef. The new tech is a bit daunting in the magnitude of opt in but once over the initial shock it seems to be a pretty good device. I’m still running to catch up on nuances of tagging and rss.
Nay sayers. Nobody likes a nay sayer. In my case, I’m thinking of effectively becoming one in going against theme and doing something on my own. Themes are loosely stated as : Star; Intrigue; Fleud-de-lys; divider; sea bird. On the surface, i imagine a rush of seafaring aged rps: Napoleonic through …? Spacefaring for some. There will be a bunch of people rushing to ape Danger Patrol and Kagematsu. Some perhaps to older pillars like Vincent’s Dogs or early adopters panning in Jared’s vanity Castle publication. Oh, and pirates. Lots of pirates. Vincent’s pirate game has summoned a lot of attention.
The next issue is the well of folks that will dwell on Webster’s effluvia of the themes and keys to derive the most abstract value of the words in order to “fit” the criteria of the badges. A path to originality perhaps but bad design.
So, i don’t have it much in me to do a sea/space-faring game at the moment. Don’t want to force myself to do it.
Jonathan has said repeatedly that it’s possible to swim with the current of Game Chef and just do your own thing. Last week, in anticipation of GC, I came up with an idea i’d like to pursue. I hope that i’ll get some feedback from other participants and that you’ll stick with me for the ride. the goal is just to FINISH something.
Amen! the Ingredients immediately screamed “seafaring” game to me, which totally turned me off. I just started by throwing out the ingredients and looking at the theme, thinking, “what would a mechanic for intrigue look like?” That took me somewhere excited. Klunky and staggering, but exciting.
It’s funny, a bunch of posts I’ve read have said “everybody’s going to do an Age of Sail game,” though, so far, nobody seems to be doing one 🙂
Hans: Intrigue may be the one key that i try to include. Generally, that’s totally a hot button for me but i’ve just shelved a thief game and it treads similar water.
Jonathan: are you saying it’s not to late for me to pull out my Patrick O’Brien books and get to work?