Clear vision, loose dice
When I started working on Aiguilles, I didn't dive into mechanics right away. I had a rough outline in my head. I knew I wanted to explore inventory management in an extraction loop. But before writing rules and rolling dice, I wanted to define the ideal feel.
When designing video games, I’ve found that formalizing game feel is a great way to figure out what players should do. It helps me avoid pushing mechanics around aimlessly. A clear framework ensures that mechanics are there to build the intended experience. I build this framework by laying out a set of core references that directly relate to the structure and themes I want to explore. Over time, as I research, prototype, playtest and reflect on the game, more of them influence specific areas. In the end it becomes a web of references, also known as Appendix N.
At the center of the web sits one "X statement". Well, two statements in this case:
- Mechanics: ARC Raiders × Mausritter
- Themes: Citizen Sleeper × Mushroom at the End of the World
Four touchstones, very different from each other.
- ARC Raiders gave me the extraction loop, the push-your-luck rhythm of “one more container” and some world-building pillars: underground humanity, surface danger.
- Mausritter was all about the simple roleplaying ruleset: characterization, inventory management and exploration procedures in a few pages.
- Citizen Sleeper framed the emotional register. Precarity ever present, relationships as survival, the body as a resource that degrades.
- Anna Tsing’s Mushroom at the End of the World brought me the philosophical spine. Like matsutake mushroom pickers, Aiguilles are precarious laborers finding value in what capitalism left behind. The mushroom fruits where conditions allow. So does hope. And as Tsing writes, "landscapes are radical tools for decentering human hubris". That's what I want the Pale to be.
Together these key references roughly triangulate the experience I want Aiguilles to deliver. Not an epic power fantasy, not a grimdark descent into madness. Just people in a bad situation, looking for what can be salvaged: gear, memory, each other.
This creative direction is my anchor, it prevents prolonged drift. When I’m exploring an idea, I ask: does this serve the game? Sometimes the answer is no, and I cut something I liked. But the vision prevails.
Stay sharp.