8:00AM — A phone call and my alarm wake me up simultaneously, unaware or uncaring of the fact that I had stopped watching classic science fiction television only a few hours before. Abruptly, a game design springs fully formed into my head. Not a world-changing, deeply philosophical game; rather, a game simple enough to finish quickly and complex enough to get me back into practice.

As I go through some morning rituals (making breakfast, brushing teeth, etc) I’m buzzing with anticipation. It’s been over a year since I created a game, and it’s been too long.

9:00AM — George Winston begins to play the music of Vince Guaraldi; it is appropriate accompaniment to the snowball fight simulation I’m about to make. Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu) has finished downloading and I’m ready to try it for the first time. Its interface looks very similar to the Sims Carnival Creator, which I’m very familiar with from my time developing games for that site. (http://www.simscarnival.com/people/sparks_gently) I’ve decided to give myself the day — about 8 hours — to develop this game. That’s not a whole lot of time; the graphics may wind up being very simple. If they are the only thing missing, I’ll allow myself a few hours in the future to update them.

10:30AM — I switch to Ghost in the Shell soundtracks. It’s time to get serious!

1:00PM — Despite a number of distractions (pleasant as they may have been, like finally introducing my roommate to the I Ching) the game is coming along nicely. Scratch has a few annoying limitations but I’m finding ways around them. The main gameplay elements are in place, snowballs are flying and win conditions are already implemented. The next big step is adding animations and other graphical niceties.

3:30PM — First real snag. The code that worked hours ago seems to have stopped working; when I attempt to set X and Y values for an object (a snowball, in this case) the X value catches but the Y value remains what it was. Grr.

3:45PM — Problem fixed. While cleaning up some code, I accidentally mixed around some less-than and greater-thans.

5:15PM — Calling it a day. Majority of gameplay is complete. Art, sound, and music didn’t get tackled today; this project may take another full day to finish.