The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
As my jet flies over Japan at night time, I catch my first glimpse of this completely foreign continent. The sparkling lights far below aren’t the same ones I just left — it’s an alien world in the distance. Seeing those glimmers of life, the weight of this journey finally hits me. This year’s gonna be big.
I’m not writing in present-tense for flavour — I’m actually inside a giant tube right now, being hurled over the furthest reaches of Asia. The almost twenty hour flight from Toronto to Manila has about four hours left and I’m wide awake, flipping through a small stack of books about San Francisco in the 1920s. I haven’t made a game that’s ever made it to market, but I’m working for myself, on my own project, bound for a faraway land. Permit me this small hubris: this feels pretty damned cool already.
Still (the voice in my head ever reminding me) the real test is what comes out of this trip. I spent the last week furiously creating and revising schedules for the next year — deadlines for research, for writing, for art-style, for user interface, for the first prototype, for the first randomized story — a whole year’s worth of work, hopefully planned properly, but likely completely missing the mark. All while dealing with the realities of preparing a year-long adventure — credit cards, medical insurance, packing properly. A tug-of-war between making this game and traveling (that should be the slogan of this blog).
The right balance will be hard to find. But everything I do leads back to games. Leisure time in a new continent is very important, the wonder and mystery of new places spark my imagination. My first game is based on my surroundings and there’s no reason the think future games won’t share similar muses.
The flight attendant just handed me a drink. Good timing, I’m exhausted, and I couldn’t figure out a good way to end this entry. How about a toast? To uncovering many new mysteries over the next year!
Quote by Albert Einstein
Image by Rigobert Bonne