CommentAs I move CubCrossing.com from SquareSpace to Tumblr, I’ll be archiving my old posts here. Don’t get excited. This place is still dead. Visit CubCrossing.com or Twitter for new stuff.
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On September 30th, 2007 I published my first entry on my blog at SpryBry.com. I tried blogging once before, but gave up after I started blogging about how sorry I was for not having the time to blog. My chunky bum needed to take a different approach — something lightweight and sustainable.
I opted for the tumblelog/microblog format; instead of posting lengthy articles that demanded too much time to read and write (like this one), I would post quick thoughts, quotes, conversations, links, and images that could be digested within a few seconds (the average user ended up spending about 30 seconds reading my front page posts). In the end I amassed a collection of 1,407 posts over 1,365 days (a little more than 1 post per day for 3 years, 8 months, and 27 days).
I wrote my final post on June 25th, 2011. It wasn’t planned, but it was inevitable.
Here’s why I quit.
When I started blogging I was 20 years old and about to graduate from university. I was an aspiring game designer with an ego, but I had never actually made a game (it’s much easier to judge the work of others than it is to work on something yourself). I was lazy, but more than that I was fearful. I feared failure.
What if I was full of shit? What if I wasn’t the rock star of a designer that I thought I was? What if my work turned out to be indistinguishable from the mountains of worthless games already out in the market?
University taught me how to learn, but it taught me nothing about how to be creative (and by “creative” I mean being able to make things out of nothing — not fluffy, egotistical talk about how capable you are when you don’t have the portfolio to back it up). I chose to attend graduate school because I wasn’t ready for the “real world.”
I asked my undergraduate research advisor, Dr. Bill Tomlinson, for a letter of recommendation. I told him that I’m a naturally born game designer, and that I needed to attend grad school to cultivate my talent lest the industry corrupt my ideas and ambitions.
He declined.
He said, “Bryant, how can I recommend your abilities as a game designer when I’ve never played any of your games?” I responded, “Well, I’ve designed plenty of brilliant games, they just aren’t in a playable state right now.”
In truth, I had designed nothing. I deluded myself into thinking that the shells of ideas I had in my head were legitimate designs. You’re only a game designer if you’ve made games that others can play.
Bill replied, “Make a good game and I’ll write your letter of recommendation.” I fought hard to avoid the hard work. Every day I would come to him with a new idea for a project, and every day he would say, “That sounds great, Bryant! Go and make it!”
My hope was that he would recognize the brilliance in my ideas and write a recommendation based on that. But Bill was unrelenting. He wanted something playable.
Bill left me with one last bit of advice. He said, “Without fail, your first game will be crap. Your second game will also be crap. Probably the third, too. You’d be wise to get those out of the way quickly so you can start building the good stuff.”
I faced my fears and made a game. I called it SpaceSound (or, as my dear friend Ellen called it, Richard Simmons in Space). It was crap. Objectively crap. Bill’s reaction was, “This game sucks. My freshmen students could make something better than this.” And he was right. That game was a pile of steaming shit.
I went back to the drawing board and made a second attempt. It was equally shitty. But there was a small glimmer of potential, and that was enough to convince Bill to write my recommendation. I was accepted into grad school with a fancy scholarship from EA, and I’ve made many games since then (some shitty, some slightly less shitty, none as shitty as my first two).
What does this have to do with blogging?
I started blogging because I feared failure. I was afraid of being creative. I needed to face my fears, so I committed to posting on my blog every single day of the year. It didn’t matter what I posted so long as I did. Each post was an act of creation; I was putting something into the world that didn’t already exist.
The majority of my posts were failures — completely worthless to anyone and everyone. A handful were good. Only a few were memorable. The ratio doesn’t matter. What matters is that I got used to implementing my ideas and sharing them with the world.
My game design process is pretty simple now. I no longer hold onto shells of ideas. If I have an idea for a game, I’ll quickly prototype it (usually on paper) and playtest it with a few people. If it works I keep iterating and testing. If it fails I throw the idea out and move on. There’s no room in my head for ideas that will never come to fruition. Ideas aren’t valuable; it’s the execution of ideas that’s worth something.
That’s why I stopped blogging. I learned my lesson.
Yet here we are. What’s my reason for blogging now?
The answer is: I’m not sure yet. But I have two ideas.
- I want my friends and family to understand what I do and why I do it.
- I want to understand what I do and why I do it.
And hopefully, while all of this understanding is taking place, I will do things and people will enjoy the things that I do. Hopefully.