I'm staunchly committed to not saying that my resolution is "to blog more" (and technically I just failed). I've spent this break hanging up with old friends, discovering strange board games, getting annoyed at Metroid Prime: Corruption, and finishing a public build of "Hush". So I've restocked my larder with random gaming shit to write about, and you'll get more of all that later. Today is New Years, so on to the obvious!
Be More Healthy
The standard American resolution... as American as Apple Pie, Large Fries, and 32 oz Coke. Corollary: Eat more Burger Kind Chicken Fries instead of those fattening Arby's Veal Rings.
Improve the Presentation of Ideas
It's occurred to me recently (thanks, in part, to an insightful critique by Ethan) that I've forgotten something important. Communicating ideas is HARD WORK. This is NOT the listener's fault: even the most intelligent of us spend so much time swimming around in our own brain bisque that we have trouble grabbing hold of new concepts. People pick up certain details and miss others, they attempt to form their own models of what they're looking at/listening to, and hell, sometimes they're too preoccupied to worry about what you're trying to convey in the first place.
Having an idea is all well and good, but it must be packaged. If I'm growing apples and I want to know if they're tasty, I have to do more than set them on a table and hope people like them... the apples must be (in some way) shiny and smooth to the touch, I need to put up a sign signifying free apples, I have to tell people where to bite (not on the stem) and then I need to make them feel at ease so they can give me their honest opinions. As a side note, I should also make sure that they are not Red Delicious or Macintosh, and I should pin down the difference between Fuji and Gala. What am I talking about? I'M TALKING ABOUT APPLES, PEOPLE. Try them, they're magic.
Collaborate More Often and More Graciously
This is a little pat, but it's genuine. From Belinda to Sean to Adam to my Aunt Ann, there are lots of people who I'm indebted to this year... people who've helped me turn my life and work into something I'm really happy about. Hush (which you'll see up here on the 1st or 2nd!) benefitted from at least 30 different playtests in the last month alone... and if it hadn't been for the hard work of Devon Johnson, Chris Baily, Brittany Pirello and Joey Orton there wouldn't have been anything to test in the first place. There's no doubt about it, I'm in a collaborative medium: and I really want to take that further this year.
But right now I am once again out of time. I'm heading up to New York for a New Years reunion with the Home Team of Pure West (who, as I've mentioned before, are hard at work on something very exciting). Need to pack... I'm wondering if time management should've been on this list, but it's too late for that now.
In 2008 the jokes will not improve.
