This is a weekly recap of the goings-on in my professional life – to keep track of what I’m doing and to give you a peek at what it’s like being an independent creative.
When taking stock of my projects this past week I concluded that everything was trucking along nicely, but nothing was really getting done. It’s nice to have different stuff to turn to when you crave some work diversity, but focusing on one thing is ultimately better for productivity, so I decided to leave fawlty towers and off-stage and whatnot be for now and bear down on my detective game.
Preproduction on a detective story feels a bit like being a detective yourself. You start with a vague conception of the events and then you start to unravel all the clues until you have a sound theory. And much like an investigation, you start at the end and work backwards.
I’ve been writing the past few days, just a straight-up text file, hashing out the game flow from end to end, and I’m excited about what it’s becoming. This week will mostly be about scoping it appropriately and determining the mechanics and features.
I like to always incorporate something from the real world in my games, be it an event or a place or a folklore tale. And so during my research I found myself reading through an official Board of Inquiry report from a real murder investigation at one point. That’s about as close to feeling like a true detective as I think I’ll ever get.
