Creating A World in Seven Months

God created the World in seven days. Seven months on and I still have not finished designing a world on paper.

God makes everything look easy. That's why we want to drag 'Him' down to our level. Make God's magic tangible and place it in our hands (electricity) - though not always under our control (killer bees). Creating a whole world though, that's a tall order, even for a supernatural-sentience, even 'He' needed a rest... and has been more or less resting ever since.

About a year ago I had a simple idea for a DnD role-playing game adventure -  re-create that sensation of isolation, fear and gloom felt in infamously challenging computer game Dark Souls, the film Cube and the 90's T.V. show Knightmare. Then shape it into a liveable experience. I want to do something different with the game that I'd not experienced with it before; to have the environment speak tombs about the world without it being laid out for you by None Playable Characters (NPCs). Putting all the emphasis on the players to figure it out or face dire consequences. It turns out that it's not as easy as one might imagine.

In order to make the game enjoyable as well as difficult I developed some strict rules that I am abiding to in order to shape this game:

5. There is always a way out. Even if it involves going THROUGH the hindering force... or the exchanged death of one player for another.
4. The locations the characters progress through must be telling a story of What, How and Why. All clues are in the environment. No exceptions.
3. Puzzles must be solved in real-world terms i.e. use chess, rubric cube and other puzzles to represent the situation facing players in game for them to solve. I can't have a puzzle unless I can represent it in real-terms.
2. The players are my enemy. I must beat them but by the rules of the game. NO INSTA-KILLS.
1. Make it fun.

I am not sure how or why God made the world as 'He' did but 'He' is an idiot. God, like most DnD writers forgot the first and foremost rule of any successful role-playing game - fun.

I'd hate to imagine what creating a universe feels like.

I've decided to focus on creating this game for the time being, that and I am completely disillusioned from the idea of writing a blog that says the same shit every other person on the internet is thinking. This is my new BIG project and this will be my log of the process.