Hiding within an isolated hovel upon the mountain, the second disciple of the North Cave Mystic worked on his game design. How he labored and toiled, pushing the pen to scribe the perfect experience, one that fills the very soul of the player with emotion and feelings! How he calculated, to ensure a depth of strategy in which mastery of it would be as gratifyingly as finding the Deep Pearl of the Southern Dragon Sea!
And when it was done, he sought out the North Cave Mystic and humbly submit his treatise, the All-Encompassing Game Design Document, and begged the master for leave to finish his training.
“But the Tao of Games Development eludes you,” the Mystic of the North Cave said.
“It is within this reams of paper,” the student proudly declared.
“Show me,” the master said and with as meticulous as the historians of yore, the second disciple pointed out the all encompassing nature of his design, the depth of the game’s strategy, the ponderous nature of the foes and described the Ultimate Harmony of Mechanics and Experience. When he was done, he was flushed with excitement! Those standing around were moved to tears, for vision of the Perfect Gameplay flashed before their mind’s eye! Even the Jade Emperor upon his Jade Throne sighed!
Yet the North Cave Mystic sadly smiled and waved his feather fan. “The Ultimate Harmony of Mechanics and Experience is there and your game is Profoundly Great. Alas, it would take 49 decades before a coder could scribe the behavior you have prescribed, it would take 7 years before you could render such moving visage and the game itself would tax even those who have perfected the Ordering of Ones and Zeros. Even the greatest Mechanist will find it hard to devise a machine that could run your game!”
Crestfallen, the second disciple asked what he should do.
Smiling, the North Cave Mystic replied, “Turn it into a board game, and you could render your visage perfectly with the aid of Artisan’s Craft. There will be no need for AI and rules would be interpreted by human minds, and no need for any code!”
This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Singapore License.
