Managing Your Ego

The team has been on site, in Japan, testing the game quite a bit. Amongst ourselves, but also with a wide variety of total strangers. The feedback and insights we’ve gained have been invaluable. The variety of changes we’ve implemented have dramatically improved the game play, and it’s hard for me to really explain just how smooth the game plays now, as compared to before. In fact, some of the changes have been so brilliant, I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of them myself. I invented the game after all. Why didn’t I think of them?

And that leads me to one of the most important moments of clarity I’ve had during this game’s evolution.

The hyper-artistic foundation of the game’s concept and design all originated from within myself, making it fundamentally intertwined with my own ego. When I had this revelation, I had to check myself. I had to check myself because it means it is in fact, impossible for me to be objective about the changes that need to be made. No parent will ever be able to objectively assess their own child as effectively as a 3rd party. Not until I started getting feedback from the team and hearing of their experiences when play testing with others, not until then did the conflicts in my own logic begin to reveal themselves.

I would tell the team to make whatever changes needed to be made to make the game flow better. Then they would come back with their ideas for those exact changes I requested. And it was at this point I would argue and invent reasons why those changes shouldn’t be made. If I want people to help me, I can’t have it both ways.

There is a way to do the game so that it flows better and offers a richer experience for all involved. This is what board gamers want. And there is a way to do it that more accurately reflects reality - what I was originally aiming for... And that’s when another important idea hit me. We live 24/7/365 in “reality”. Neither board gamers, nor anyone else for that matter, needs more “reality”. They want a game that’s fun, and easy to get into. And the good news is, we’re closer now, than we’ve ever been :)