Greetings (again)

Hello, (again) everyone. You know my name and you know my game assuming you’ve already read last week’s piece. And since my previous article, I’ve honestly been a bit tired. Everything is going swell, (pretty swell actually). Things are going great but I can’t tell you (yet). If things continue to progress at this pace, funding won’t be an issue. Why? Can’t say yet. 😔 I wish I could but I suppose I shouldn’t get ahead of myself (and if I revealed it now, what will I be able to say later?).

So instead of spilling the beans on a yet-to-be-sealed can, I’ll talk a little about my aforementioned silly drawings.

Working Without

In basically all of your testing, we hadn’t gotten away from production art yet. Colby, our COO, had made some functional designs in Canva that worked great for playtesting, but we always knew this had to change. This was fine at the time, but we found out that the artist who helped with some presentation materials wouldn’t be available to work on the game.

Luckily, I was willing to pick up the slack. However, I was very honest with myself about my ability. It’s been long enough that my mobile subscription to Clip Studio has long lapsed. I hadn’t touched my stylus in months, and when I was drawing more often, I felt that I was hitting the skill ceiling that I was working hard to break through.

My draftsmanship wasn’t where I wanted it to be, but I could still make art! 😤

Playing To Your Strengths

It is a bit of a downer to know you’re not as good as you want to be. But it’s great to be self-aware to find a strategy that works for you. The theme of the game is “The Legislative Process”. Not the most stimulating subject matter for a game but it’s important information and overtly political.

Here we have a game with overtly political subject matter and a rusty artist. It has to be simple, engaging, and readable. If my art didn’t have to be terribly complex or anatomically accurate, that would be fantastic. After thinking a bit about these factors, they became obvious. Create cards in the style of a political cartoon!

Now there are political cartoons that do demonstrate considerable draftsmanship. The heart of what makes cartoonists successful is their ability to convey their ideas more than their accuracy. And I think I would be able to convey the rules and the loose metaphors associated with the political maneuvers.

I could maybe argue a bit more about my decision-making, but I’ll just show you a couple of cards and let you decide how on target I was. We’re still in the early days so things are subject to change, but I think this sets a good precedent for the look and feel of The Process Game!

Tell me what you think!

Thank you for indulging me this week. Please be sure to keep an eye on our progress and I’ll talk to you all next week!

P.S.: I didn’t mention this at all but I hope everyone had an enjoyable 4th of July!