Dev Log 4/7/26 || Hey, is that the end of the road?

In a sense, yes.

As it stands, Goon Game is playable, and by the 27th of April, it will have a new board, rulebook, cards, and game pieces, all giving the project a more professorial flair. The only problem there is that all of that work is rather rote and uninteresting, like changing your oil; it needs to be done, but no one wants to hear about it. So, I’ve gone without writing about the game during that time because the bulk of my time was spent changing oil; reformatting documents, changing wordings, distilling info into pitch decks, etc. Work that I have touched on to some degree, and fear repeating myself were I to try and get another 500-1000 words out of the topic. What I can get 500-1000 words out of is the lead-up to the end, or, in a roundabout way of phrasing, a pre-postmortem.

There are still I’s to dot and T’s to cross, so it feels like putting the cart before the horse, trying to reflect on a project that is still in the works; however, I do have this strange sense of foreboding closure that I can’t make sense of. Well, tell a lie, I can make sense of it, and it’s not strange at all. The feeling is called dissatisfaction, and it is the bane of the artist. To be clear: I am not dissatisfied because I am unhappy or displeased with my work, far from it; I am dissatisfied because I know it could be better if I were better.

For those of you who have not read it, there is a section of The Princess Bride that was omitted in translating the book to film. Unlike the film, in the book, Domingo Montoya, Inigo Montoya’s murdered father, whom he swore to avenge, is a character apart from his son, who is the focus of the section detailing Inigo’s backstory. Long story short, Domingo is an artist, swordsmith by trade, whom Inigo remembers toiling over his master work, flitting from anguished cries of inadequacy to the roar of creative triumph. There has not been a character in fiction that I have not empathized more with than Domingo Montoya: a man in love with his craft, because he is frustrated by his own inability and driven to improve.

I find myself in a similar headspace to Domingo Montoya, both knowing that I have the skills to accomplish what I wish to make, but lacking the foresight to actualize the vision perfectly. I have come close with Goon Game, as it is a game of my own creation that I would enjoy playing, yet I also see the flaws within it that persist due to my own inability. The balance is untested, there is little visual flair beyond serviceable formatting, and with the current game pieces, things feel as if they lack depth. Things that can be hammered out with time, something one never seems to have enough of, leaving a workable prototype that I can use as proof of concept, that I can build better iterations off of.

I suppose I’m just sick of prototypes, of not having a finished product. But this mood is sure to pass as the cry turns to a roar, most likely after some distance is put between me and this project. Fun as it's been working on this, you can only stare at the same four walls for so long before you start to go a little crazy. So, as the end of the road comes into view and I cut, print, and practice those final deliverables, I am looking forward to pulling over for a spell before setting off again. Nothing gets done if you do nothing after all, and if there is one thing I hate more than my own inabilities, it’s being too lazy or too jaded to fix them.

Cut.

Print.

Practice.

Pitch.

Graduate.

Break.

Iterate.

There’s the next three months of my life right there.