Command-Z

As a designer, there is a certain quality that I strive to achieve.  While creativity and stick-to-it-tiveness are certainly valued, I think that one of the most challenging qualities to develop and exhibit is to recognize when a design is not working.

I recently spent a lot of my time into implementing a quest.  Although I did not author the quest, I still felt that it was a clever quest and I liked a lot of the elements within it.  It seemed like a great idea and I was excited about it.  I put the quest aside and continued to work on other projects.

When I came back to the quest with fresh eyes, it no longer glowed like the great idea that had shined earlier.  I now saw some potential problems with it, and my solutions to address the problems all seemed contrived.  The best solution was to abandon the quest.

It pained me to throw that quest away, as I still like the idea of the quest and I placed no trivial amount of time installing it into the game.  Throwing it away was a hard decision but it was the right decision.

On the bright side: I get to start over again and do something new!