Hello, my name is Kazz. I've spoken with a few of you about my idea, but now I have decided to publicly exclaim it here. That's the kind of thing that you do when you are very excited. First, however, I feel that I must tell everybody the full truth about my recent activity. That part won't be easy or fun, but it would be unfair for me to let some of you know and not others; secrets are a burden.
On the morning of Monday, March 25th, I gathered several of our fine kitchen knives and began to cut my arms and wrists. I will spare you the details, but the self-attack lasted from 10:00am to roughly 3:00pm. For those five hours, I was in a strange, nihilistic, marijuana-fueled ecstasy. I'll remember it as the most terrifying moment of my life.
My conscious brain returned to me around 3, and I contacted my wife (whom you know as Lady Duke) and told her I needed to go to the hospital immediately. At first she didn't know why, of course. She stopped asking questions when I said "there is a lot of blood."
I was driven to a local hospital, where I was kept for roughly 48 hours. I received a few dozen sutures in each wrist; they are still there now. After 48 hours, I was taken to a mental health facility, where I remained for 5 nights under close observation. I met a few incredible souls there, and I am thankful for every moment in that ward, as difficult as it was.
Up until the attack, I had been consistently self-medicating my anxiety and depression with pot. It would force me into an "up" state; unfortunately, it would do this no matter what was going on. It was easy to simply smoke myself happy, and I'll be resisting that temptation for the rest of my life. If I'm lucky, and I can keep my strength, I will never smoke again. (I've already long since sworn off alcohol; MAGfest is going to be a very different experience now.)
After a very long struggle, which will never truly be over, I have found clarity. I know my life will not be easy, and I thank God for that. I am deliberately choosing a difficult path, and I want you to walk it with me. I have been pushing people away for a very long time. Now, I want to invite all of you into my life; to stay, if you wish.
For the first time in 28 years, I have found ambition. I have a goal that I believe in, and I understand my place on Earth. Even if I fail, I wish to be proud of the work I do and the effort I put forth from here.
It seems I know a thousand people like me: intelligent, but lost. We've never been able to do what we truly want. Conceited as it sounds, I believe I was born to be an assembler, organizer, and leader. I have confidence in myself, in my ideas and the potential of my work, and I want you to feel the same way.
So, here is the point. I am going to start a videogame company.
Announcing here, now, and for all time, the founding of:
kodePunc;
I have assigned myself the job of Project Director. I will be handling boring minutiae, tedious accounting, and lots and lots of planning. I have one goal in mind at the moment: create a videogame. There will be several hundred steps and probably a few years before this goal is reached, but I'm prepared for the long haul. I know too many people with too much potential to let them waste it; so, I am recruiting.
My strategy is simple: I am going to organize a very large list of tasks, major and minor. I'll handle some myself, but I'm smart enough to know that I can't do everything, and that things would be a tragic mess if I tried. The rest of the tasks will require people to step forward and volunteer to take them on. I'm subscribing wholeheartedly to my father's management philosophy: "Tell Why, Ask How." I will give you a good reason to complete the job at hand, and then I will let you decide the best way to do so. For this to work, I must trust you to get the most out of yourself.
The first project will be completed in two phases.
Phase 1: Organization and Development of an Alpha
Videogames, whether they are "art" or not (and I am not interested in the debate), are the combination of many artistic disciplines: storytelling, art, music and sound, acting, so on. The best part is that they are wrapped in an interactive package, where the player is participant and often protagonist. It is a rare opportunity to build an experience for someone else, and I'm very excited to try.
I wish to create a simple game. I'm avoiding the word "casual"; Farmville is called a casual game while people pour thousands of hours into it, and that doesn't sound very casual to me. I want to create a game that's as fun and interesting to play for ten minutes as ten hours.
I do, of course, have a few ideas myself, but I'm not interested in sharing them publicly just yet. First, I want to describe the type of game that I feel would be best for this project.
Gamers have two minds; the action-oriented mind (excited by blasting aliens in Galaga), and the strategy-oriented mind (interested by outsmarting one's opponent in Chess). The best games, as well as every human sport, involve both. My father's philosophy applies equally here; a game should give the player a good reason to play, and then make success or failure dependent entirely on the player's concentration and effort. Each failure must be caused by the player's own actions, and mistakes must be able to be remedied through practice and patience. The only satisfying victories are hard-won and deliberate, and those victories must be celebrated and rewarded. Luck is only a function of risk management; plodding low-risk strategies can work, but nothing beats a thrilling high-risk maneuver for the win. The player must always be in control of his own level of risk and potential benefit.
Enough theory; I'm thinking that the most interesting and fruitful platform for development is the iPhone/Android, although as a PC gamer from birth I cannot disregard the potential of Steam.
Insert many months of discussion, design, and labor here.
At the end of Phase 1, we launch a Kickstarter for our project and raise enough funds to complete Phase 2.
Phase 2: Conversion to Beta, Refinement, and Preparation for Release
I pray, with every fiber of my being, that I am strong enough to reach this phase. I can't begin to imagine what it will truly entail, but my hypothesis is that the interest and funding generated by the Kickstarter allows me to compensate volunteers for the hard work that has been done to this point, as well as greasing the wheels for the completion of the project. I have a lot of research to do before I can make any financial or timeline estimates for this phase; part of living with anxiety is learning to become patient, to breathe, and to pace myself. So, I will admit to no plans for this phase as of this posting. I believe that we can get here in time, and will have a much clearer idea of what to do at that point.
It's time for my final thoughts, I suppose. I've been writing this for over an hour, sitting in a cold garage at 3 in the morning, unabashedly wearing hoodie-footie pajamas and stopping, only reluctantly, to feed myself.
I'm asking you to join me. This is a true commitment, for a future together. I want to be part of something that is bigger than myself, bigger than the company I create. Consider the beaver: industrious, yet humble, he is born without a place in the world. He must create his own, damming up rivers and filling his own pond, and building his home there, stick by stick. That's me, and it can be you, and it can be all of us. Let's create our own place. It doesn't have to be big, and I doubt we will become rich. However, I believe that we are smart enough and talented enough to make a living from our shared passion.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope to hear from you.
- Kazz
