Possibility Space
What it means to start making a game, and to finish.
Making a game always starts with an idea.
The instant that idea forms, the bounds of what it might become feel endless. As you design, ideate, and choose, the space begins to contract and take shape into something not quite so formless, and a meaningful possibility space is drawn. The number of possibilities shrinks from something unknowable to something that fits in a particular area, in a particular shape.
But as you start to fill in the details and explore the space, the number of possibilities begins to grow again. You learn about your space you’re mapping, and with that knowledge, you start widening the scope of what might be. The potential grows, and it keeps growing... until one day, it stops.
Through either choices you’ve agreed to, budget, market forces, or all of the above, choosing what your game is forces you to also choose what it isn’t. The possibility space begins to contract. Edge by edge, the space where your game might be is refined and defined like marble becoming a statue. The cuts become more inevitable, each decision excluding possibilities it’s incompatible with. As we settle on what we must have, we inherently define what we cannot have and must not have, and we bury those possibilities. When we spend our time, the amount of time we have left dictates what we cannot spend the rest on. Eventually, the possibility space that began infinite has a definite singular form.
When you start a game, it can become anything.
When you finish, it is precisely one thing.
To finish is to mourn the death of infinite possibilities, and celebrate the birth of one new thing.
That is our Ambrosia Project, and this is Ambrosia Sky.
Available Monday November 10th, 9am EST on Steam and Epic Games Store.
// for those we have lost
// for those we can yet save