How To Stay In The Game

Overcoming Your Setbacks

There's no getting around it. Just when you see the finish line, it turns out it's a mirage and the end is really no where in sight, or so it seems.

Ever get the feeling that succeeding and meeting your goals is an illusion? Don't despair, you are not alone. Most of us set goals and often find ourselves in the middle of the desert with no water in sight.

Yes, life is tough and often the unexpected hits you right between the eyes more often than not. Here's where the line, 'Believe in yourself,' comes in. Or to be exact, believe in your idea.

Ideas come to us in so many ways and by so many means. They come to us in dreams, in the shower, during moments of reverie, upon awaking, in the news, via images or comments we've seen or heard throughout the day. Sometimes good ideas just happen to us while we are in the middle of something else.

Believe in Your Idea

The important thing is to recognize that the idea is good and marketable. Don't worry about how you're going to get there, just start moving towards your goal, one step and one day at a time. You're going to come across problems and obstacles, of course, because there's no easy road to success and in reality the road to success is usually paved with epic failures.

The difference between people who find success and those who don't is in how you process your failures and setbacks. Do you give up on an a good idea because it is difficult to achieve? Because you've stumbled into an obstacle that at the time seems insurmountable.

If this sounds like a pep talk to myself, well, you could be right but it is far more than that. It is a process of reaffirming everything you believe and everything that you are hoping for in your venture. Because getting to the finish line is half the fun. Finding your way through the labyrinth is part of the journey.

This past week I cheerfully opened my email as I do every morning, only to find an email with hard news, to say the least.

One of the parts to my game (Millennium) had just been discontinued. That means that supplies of this particular part are low and once those parts are all gone, they are no longer available. And that means I will need to find a similar part to take its place, or eliminate the part and its mechanics, along with its intended effect and re-do all the artwork and instructions that went along with it and so on.

A small nightmare. My first thought was that this was an inevitable end to Millennium because this part is integral to the game and in many ways the game is structured around this particular part, which happens to be multiple parts. In this case, a set of five train cars.

Quitting did cross my mind, but not for long.

Sure quitting is an option. Sometimes quitting is necessary because it will save you countless of man-hours and dollars spent for almost nothing to show for, except for an extrapolation of an idea, which might lead to something better than your original idea.

Hmm, not a good trade off after six months of hard work. So it's back to the drawing board to see if I can save Millennium. For now, I will exchange the wooden train cars with flat tokens. That will have to do unless The Game Crafter keeps these parts, which they will not.

What to do? Don't panic. It's not the end of the world, although it feels like it at times, but it is an opportunity to make the game even better. At least that is what I'm telling myself.

I'm not happy replacing these parts with tokens but it will have to do because I checked with TGC and in fact they are going to discontinue these parts. Lucky me. Good thing this is just a prototype.

I'm still ordering the prototype this coming month to see how it all plays out and I hope to find a better solution. Although I know that not having these parts diminish the game in so many ways. I mean the parts were very crude wooden parts anyway with no detail and ideally I want metal parts with great detail, similar to the Monopoly game. I know, dream on.

I could set out to cast these metal parts myself (by the thousands) if I need to but it's way to early to tell. Once I get the prototype in house and play-test it, I'll have a better idea whether to find a die caster to make these train cars or just scrap the train idea altogether.

I doubt that scraping the trains is a good idea. I'll just have to dig a little deeper and either find these parts elsewhere or manufacture them myself. It's a heck of a spot to be in after eight months of work.

No worries. I'll figure out something great.

Fingers crossed.

(This is where I sob and utter the dreadful words,  Good riddance cruel world!)