A creative but chopped-up centipede alien

Hi pal!

As most of you might know by this point, I’m currently working 100% on Surmount (try the demo if you haven’t yet). Which is possibly the biggest game I will ever make. Despite the fact that this one isn’t finished yet, I still feel the urge to create more games.

Never finishing anything

Learning to code was very difficult for me. I didn’t have the right kind of mindset or focus, but I kept bashing my head against it and now I’ve actually become quite efficient and know some slightly more advanced things. But after all this work, all this learning, all this head bashing, it feels like I barely have anything to show for it. Even though I know I could do so much now.

And I’m sitting here with this huge craving to finish a tiny game. I love falling block puzzle games (like Tetris). So I decided to try to make one myself, because it seems relatively simple.

A sketch of what the game might look like.

There’s a part in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 that always stuck with me.

In it he describes a race of aliens who don’t experience time the same way as we do, they experience it all at once. They perceive themselves like a long centipede, stretching from the point of their birth, to the point of their death. A dotted line with every version of themselves, blurred together into one. They experience every single moment of their entire lives at once.

I always thought that sounded lovely, to be so connected and in tune with every version of myself. It’s impossible to exist in every moment of my life at once, but I believe that through making stuff, my past, present and future selves can communicate and connect.

I’d like to be a long, continuous centipede like that. But instead I’m a centipede with big missing chunks. Because I hardly ever finish any projects.

“I haven’t put in enough time to finish stuff yet” was one of the first reasons I thought of. But that’s not true. I’ve spent hundreds of hours on projects that I’ve abandoned. Lack of work is not the issue, it’s something else. Then I found this great definition of what a project is…

My definition of a project is “any undertaking that cannot be completed in a single ‘sitting’.”

If you can complete it in one sitting, that’s not a project. That’s a task, or a simple set of tasks.

A project has to be something that requires that you collaborate, either with others, or even “only” with your future self.

A lack of empathy towards my future, present and past selves is the real issue.

With this falling block game I dwindled down a design-path which relied on lots of different types of blocks with different behaviors. Which would mean I’d have to add lots of content.

• Present Jonas spends time going in a direction, even though he knows it will result in more work than an alternative path.

• Future Jonas is unhappy about the amount of work that’s been handed to him. So he simplifies things.

• Past Jonas’ time has been wasted.

This keeps happening just because I feel like I need to explore every possibility of what this thing could be. I do stuff like that even when I intend to make something very minimalistic!

There are those types of projects that I really need to get right, to take the time with, like Surmount. But I don’t want to approach every single project I ever make with that level of perfectionism. I can’t treat every single project, or every decision within a project, as if it is a make or break.

I don’t want to make a few things, I want to create a large body of work. Kinda like a centipede of aliens. But I gotta learn how to collaborate better with all these different versions of myself that are scattered throughout time.

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Mini Notes

🗞️ News - Surmount is pretty much everything I love in one game

Someone at EuroGamer wrote this mega flattering article about our game after actually playing it. I can’t stop thinking about it!

All the talk about climbing games in there is exactly what I was bothered by when I thought of this idea. There are so few climbing games that are just actual full games, they’re usually couch coop games or very short single player games. With Surmount we wanted to make something that you can really dig your teeth into.

🧱 Post mortem - Mixolumia

In this post mortem of Mixolumia, the developer says something that I think puts the finger on exactly why there aren’t many falling block puzzle games around, despite the success of Tetris.

…there’s no story, no world, no characters, no progression beyond high scores and your own sense of satisfaction and personal achievement. I love this kind of game, and I’m happy with my take on it, but it doesn’t give people a lot to talk about.

The only times I hear people talk about Tetris, it’s usually about something surrounding the game. Like someone breaking a high score or going to a competition. The game itself doesn’t really generate conversation.

🏴‍☠️ Trailer - One Piece Live Action

My immediate reaction to seeing this was cringe. But I don’t think there’s any way avoid that with a One Piece adaption, it’s just way too out there, the powers, the character design (can’t wait to see season 2 with Chopper). Even if the effects are a little wonky, I’m gonna love it as long as they capture the sense of adventure and the heart of story.

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It’s still early days for this falling block puzzler prototype, but I’m committed to finding a way to make it as small and as good as I can. I want to build the habit of finishing shit.

Thank you for reading! Have a creative week.