It’s said that it takes 4000 hours of study and practice to become an expert, whether it’s for sport, music, dance or academia. 4000 hours works out to be about three years of full time study – the same length as an undergraduate degree.
For the past three years, I’ve worked at Mind Candy as Director of Play, which really means I was the lead designer of Perplex City. I’m pretty sure I worked more than 4000 hours during that time, but that doesn’t make me an expert; it just means I’ve figured out a lot of ways of how not to make ARGs. I know that I shouldn’t dangle random strings of numbers in front of people who are looking for secret messages everywhere. I know that I shouldn’t expect weary players to be able to decode a signal being flashed by torches across the River Thames – while being several hundred feet above the ground. And I know that I should never underestimate our players.
I’m sure you’ve heard the bad news. Perplex City Season 2 will not be launching in June, or in the near future. At the time, I was being honest when I promised that it would launch next month, but there are some circumstances that are out of control of even a puppetmaster. I know that this will hugely disappoint a lot of people, and it’s a real disappointment for me. We all worked very hard on making Season 2, but it just was not to be. And so, it’s time for me to move on.
I’ve had a wonderful three years at the Mind Candy. I’ve learned a whole range of valuable and bizarre skills, from organising an event on the other side of the world to researching how bees dance. I wouldn’t be able to list all the things we achieved with Perplex City – the rich story, the friendships made and the battles won are endless. I feel privileged to have worked with some of the most talented and hard-working people in the business who helped make Perplex City, and to have had the opportunity to make a game for such a dedicated and energetic group of players.
In particular at Mind Candy, there’s the Story Team: Andrea, David, Jey and Naomi, all of whom are also moving on to different places and projects. I’ll always remember the times when we ran live events together – not just because of the sense that we worked as a team, writing and improving each others dialogue in real time, synchronised to multimedia – but because we did it with our players, who added their own melodies to what we did. It was like jamming in a band, and it made a beautiful sound.
I also remember writing the first post by Kurt, feeling so excited about writing something that would be part of the Perplex City. Almost two years later, I remember writing his final post in Season 1 and reading the comments on the forums about it. More than a few people suggested that it was made by a different writer, which I took as an (inadvertent) backhanded compliment.
And then yesterday, I wrote his post that’s up on Violet’s site. It pretty much summarises how I feel.
I’m sure people will have a million questions, but here’s the thing: I’m in Hong Kong right now, and I’ll be out of touch for a week and a half. So if you have anything you want to ask or comment about anything, send me an email and I will get back to you.
mssv + Have You Played 