The Transient Nature of Ideas

You Will Die In This Place is the stitched together reanimated corpse of a multitude of ideas that never really died, but were not intrinsically big enough to build an entire game around individually. In some ways, this makes it exceptionally easy and freeing to write for, because no idea is too small, weird or irrelevant to incorporate into its nihilistic mass. The only constraint is that it has to build towards the theme and add depth to the message with increasingly layered metaphors. It is often said, with good reason, that in writing you should let your darlings die. However, the pieces can be repurposed into new art in future, so I believe that you should never completely let them fade away. You never know when some old ideas could be the missing piece that makes a new one work.

I find that I get ideas at the most inopportune moments, such as when I'm out walking or working my day job as a teacher. Whenever possible, at the earliest practical moment, I like to email myself a short summary of the idea or some key words that I hope my future self will be able to reconstruct the idea from. I suppose this is the digital equivalent of talking to yourself. It could be easily replaced with a notebook (digital or otherwise) but, these days, email is something that is accessible from practically any device and requires nothing beyond a phone which I already carry.

These are the bodies of a random selection of emails which I have actually sent myself in such circumstances:

• 'The alignment chart - (need better terminology) a grid of physical vs cultural and linguistics difference (from a origin of perceived norm)'
• 'Fictional non-fiction, bias, reliability and authorial intent'
• 'On the importance of narrative and the unplanned and undefined'
• 'D6 worker placement character. Possibly minion/companion character. Have pool of dice. Roll each turn. Place on character sheet to determine actions. When taking damage, roll a dice for each point of damage. Place on char sheet (maybe paper doll). If value overspills container limit, suffer consequence. Maybe reduce dice pool each turn.'
• 'Giant fucking ants with pheromones and shit. They eat each other to pass on complex information. They'll eat you to understand you too.'

Read like this, they are the disjointed ravings of a lunatic, and yet several very important parts of the game have begun their life this way. Take notes. Don't tell yourself the lie that you'll remember the idea later. Don't be precious about it. What seemed like an incredible idea at the time might not survive re-examination - and that's fine.

I said before that writing for You Will Die In This Place has largely been an easy and cathartic experience. What complicates it slightly are the different formats the text takes and the voices who deliver it. Within the overall fiction of the project, You Will Die In This Place is the unfinished brainchild of the fictional Charlotte Avery, a struggling transgender artist and writer who went missing some years ago. However, the rulebook itself is the product of the equally fictional Samantha Little, an indie developer and friend of Charlotte who attempted to finish her game from its notes. So, included within are pieces written from the point of view and in the voice of both of these distinct characters. Rules, essays, design documents, notes, commentaries. Giving them their own distinct personalities, writing styles, quirks and themes is a challenge, albeit an enjoyable one.

Charlotte is supposed to have been a literature student in her early 20s when she designed the game and wrote most of her essays. She's a person struggling with identity, depression and the purpose and nature of her art. She is both desperate to share her ideas so that she can discuss them meaningfully with others and terrified that she will be misunderstood. Her art and writing is philosophical, but at times melodramatic and pretentious. To her, art has to mean something and games are as much a medium to confer meaning as any other text. By constrast, Samantha is older (at the time of her writing) and, being from a science background, more analytical in nature. However, she can be somewhat oblivious to deeper meanings and her ideas are often more restrained, edges dulled by concerns of marketability and wider appeal. If it isn't already obvious, both of these characters are aspects of myself.

The following is a short fiction which I wrote in the voice of Charlotte Avery while walking to work last week. It doesn't yet have a specific home within the overall layout of You Will Die In This Place and perhaps it never will, but it was a transient idea that I refused to let blow away in the spring breeze.

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Morsgagap by Charlotte Avery

The strange figure who walked up to Simon Cranfield was entirely unremarkable in both dress and physical appearance, looking neither old nor young and possessing no noteworthy features. Simon scratched at his scarred face with a gnarled fingertip before looking back down to his half-eaten sandwich – it was lunch break and he was ahead of schedule.

“May I have your time?” the figure asked.

“Sorry, I’m not interested in… whatever you’re selling.”

Simon didn’t bother looking back up at them. He wanted to say that members of the public shouldn’t be here, but didn’t want the trouble that might entail.

“I have nothing to peddle, I just want your time.”

The stranger’s voice was stilted but somehow possessed of an almost soothing tone. He briefly looked at his watch and considered the fact that his usual companion was absent.

“Sure, why not. I’m used to nattering my time away.”

The figure silently sat down on the bench next to him, keeping a comfortable distance away.

“Not today,” they said.

“No, I had an argument with David earlier and he’s fucked off somewhere, so I’m alone today. It was a stupid thing really.”

The figure simply listened and so Simon decided to continue.

“He keeps questioning things. ‘What is Morsgagap?’ he says, and ‘What happens when we go to Mulethe?’ Does it matter? I’m just a simple workman and I live my life one day at a time. I have things that I enjoy and people that I love. I don’t care about Morsgagap and Mulethe. They don’t affect me.”

The stranger did and said nothing, but he got the impression that it nodded. It was good to talk about things, he thought. Perhaps the stranger would agree that David had been unreasonable.

“My parents raised me as a Zirbalest and I’ve never really questioned the doctrine of Zirbal. It’s comforting, I suppose.”

The stranger finally spoke. “It was written by people like you, for people like you. Of course, you would find it comforting.”

Simon slowly turned to look face to face with the stranger, their impassive gaze meeting his own in return.

“Who are you, stranger?” he asked.

“I am Morsgagap and I have come to take you to Mulethe.”

“What? Now? What does that mean?”

In that short moment, Simon unexpectedly found himself to be a philosopher.