Flooding, a Retrospective

The flood has, well, not ended. But we have escaped it. We still have things to move and premises to sort, but we've been able to get back to work.

Work is continuing on both of our current projects, but we have turned our attention from the flood and back to The Viceroy. Now that it's mostly sorted as far as reproducing previous mechanics, we're stopping to take stock of what we can improve and change. We want to make it as much of a clear set of competing choices as possible while playing, without losing the original flavor of the game.

There is a Sid Meier misquote that I often say which is, "A game is a series of interesting choices." But apparently what he actually said was, "A game is a series of meaningful choices." That's a much better quote. Because The Viceroy is a good example of a game that is a series of interesting choices, but some of those choices are not meaningful. Still, giving all of those choices meaning through building balancing and effect alteration is extremely difficult, especially with the original game's feeling to maintain.

But progress continues, both in reconceptualizing things in small but meaningful ways and drying out the office furniture. As always, we'll keep you posted.