Damwain Games

Well yeah. I was just sitting here, eating my muffin, drinking my coffee, when I had what alcoholics refer to as a moment of clarity.
- Jules (Pulp Fiction)

Or in my case thinking over the stuff that went down at Indiecon.  I owe a massive thanks to Lisa “Oooshie” Platts due to a conversation we had last slot in the bar on Sunday night. I was talking to her about how I ended up getting together with my wife, at the time I didn’t think much of it but having reflected upon it, I realised that that particular incident was very much my own version of what “What You Wish For” sets out to explore.

I was stuck in a crappy job I hated, driving 100s of miles every week until one December 22nd I was working late at a customers in Driffield (just a bit north of Hull), when my boss rang me and told me I had to be in Portsmouth first thing the next morning (at the time I was living in Manchester). Driving home that night I’d had enough and I started just thinking about where my life was going. Christmas Eve, I booked tickets to fly to Singapore and handed in my resignation.

Everything good in my life stems from that one moment and decision, thinking about it in that terms really gave me clarity on what I wanted to achieve with What You Wish For. So, thanks Lisa, it was just a random chat but its resulted in a much clearer vision in my head and now the What You Wish For manuscript* is moving along at a pace.

* – well manuscript is a bit much for the 4 – 8 pages I think the game will stretch to (including play advice)

Its only with actually having run this at Indiecon (you can see my report here) that I have realised that my information about this game on the site is well out of date. There has been a big change in the focus of the game from my original blurbs, so I intend to get that all updated over the next day or two.

The game as it is now, is about exploring the past memories and future hopes of an ordinary person who has become disillusioned with life, and they are given an opportunity to reflect on where they have come from and where they are going.

This is a brief synopsis of the game at Indiecon and the ideas we explored, hopefully it will give you an idea of what the themes the game is designed to explore are.

First up Piers played an office worker who had become stuck in a rut doing the same thing every day, with no real appreciation. He had a wife, but the spark was gone from their marriage.

His past was explored through the memory of playing Cowboys and Indians with his childhood friends, with some painful aspects introduced by the loss of his friend later fighting in Afghanistan, memories of his Grandmother suffering in her last few days, and unexplored homo-erotic tension between himself and his best friend.

His hope was a journey of self discovery to work for a charity in Africa helping to build farms in remote communities, with doubts being introduced in the form of whether his wife would wait for him, and the futility of working in corrupt and war torn areas where what you worked for is so easily destroyed.

In the end he chose to move forward with his life, by giving up on his hopes, and re-evaluating where he had come from and making a go of it again with his wife.

John played a frustrated author, who had previously had success, but now was writing unfulfilling trash to keep his publishers happy.

The memory was of university, a more creative time in his life and his relationship with a girl back then, his regrets came in the form of his grandfathers hard times in the mines of the rhondda, missed opportunities and the loss of first love.

And his hopes were around finding a new creative fulfilment and a muse to inspire him at a writing workshop. The doubts came in the form of irritating authors who had previously sapped his creativity and a muse whom reminded him of his first love.

In the end he chose to move on with his life and forgot about his past, he stopped answering his calls from his publisher, and signed up for the creative writing workshop.

Barbara played a divorced single mum, who worked in a supermarket.

Her memory was a family outing to the Zoo, with the pain being brought by memories of her drunken father and her break up with her ex husband.

And finally her wish was to escape to make a new life in the orient with her daughter, and doubts came in the form of whether she could really trust men again and the distance from her aging mother.

In the end she decided to take the plunge and move on to the future quitting her job and cashing in her savings to move to China.