Hello everyone.
This is Kimura-san, your indie-videogame-making Uncle.
As you know, I’m currently hard at work developing a new RPG.
Today, I’d like to talk about “seriousness and unseriousness”.
Game development is something like a “locomotive of seriousness”.
Developing RPGs, especially, is a long-distance train, like the Trans-Siberian Railway.
We are a very small development team… but, day in and day out, we work very seriously to keep the coal burning, in the locomotive that is game development.
Shoveling in programming, drawings, music, and everything else… all of these things become heat energy, which keeps the locomotive moving.
Put another way, we are a busy, steady locomotive that chugs along, puffing out smoke.
But what exactly is the “game itself” that such a serious locomotive produces?
I like to think that a game is neither just a product, nor a work of art, it is just “play”.
And, what do you know, “play” is the opposite of seriousness.
“Play” is something that is meant to entertain someone.
Solving weird puzzles,
being a brave hero who steals,
being antagonistic or cooperative,
telling stupid jokes,
messing with your friends,
getting messed with yourself.
Chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga…
“Play” is a very unserious event.
It is like a “box of unserious toys”.
Maybe we, the game developers, are ourselves locomotives working seriously to create the unserious.
I don’t know…
We have been such serious locomotives…
Even as we spend time talking about random, stupid things…
I hope we don’t always just run at full-speed, and instead can take leisurely strolls around the pathways of the game’s world.
Because full-speed is not the only correct answer.
September 30, 2022
Your Indie Game Making Uncle
PS: Recently, I drew some of those pathways. Here they are:
[This diary entry was first published in our free newsletter, The Secret Onion Cellar. Want to receive development diaries just like this, along with the latest news and behind-the-scenes information on everything happening here at Onion Games? Click here to subscribe, and you’ll also get a FREE MINI GAME, music samplers, downloadable art & more!]
