A different angle.

If all these "at home" projects are making use of our computers idle cycles, those times when your CPU isn't doing something like running a web browser, when will I be able to plug in to the idle cycles of the human brain?

I have been thinking about a game for a while now, and I want it to be something that isn't derivative. I know, the post modernist in me says that isn't possible because everything has been done. The rapper in me says that it's played out. Yo.

While I use my idle time, the small spaces between emailing business contacts and writing up game design specs and making sure this company is still running, I think about how to make this game.

It's starting to drive me crazy that I can't think about how to come up with a compelling reason to play it. Then today I was sitting here in my office with this little wooden ball in my hand. Thank you macrovision for giving me this neat little toy at a trade show. It solved my problem.

You see, I was thinking about it all wrong. I knew I wanted to make a game and I knew how I wanted it to look and some of the key features. I was just having a hard time getting them all to fit together. I was trying only one approach, and then I saw that my problem is like a sphere and I only need to try another angle. The destination is the same, but my approach could change.

This is really really really hard to do. One suddenly has to shuck all their instinctive and learned problem solving skills from 31 years of life. Toss them away, and look at it with fresh eyes from another perspective that isn't your own. How would a concert pianist's approach differ from a molecular chemist's? The answer: one of their feet are both the same.

I know, that didn't make sense but I seek to guide you in a different way than simply spewing facts at you. Perhaps this is why nobody reads this blog...

Anyway I think that now I can see an idea beginning to brighten, that was once growing dusty beneath its star crusted vault of sky.

Where did I get the idea for a game like this? I dreamed it.

I saw this giant array of spheres in the universe and each one had a sound, and as I watched they all played their notes. It was neat, and pretty, and if I did it right I could make the galaxy do Mary Had a Little Lamb. This is a puzzle game, a challenge that is fun to look at and rewarding when done correctly. Well, thats what my sleeping brain said. It says lots of things, so does yours but perhaps you don't remember them as often as people like me? I don't sleep very deeply.

I'm writing it all down so that one day my music of the spheres can be played by others... maybe heard by them too. Then you can blog about how my universe opened strong but its current work isn't nearly as good as its first album, before it sold out.