Seriously. I’ve been wondering what the hell I’m going to do with this blog for the last two months.

This blog was basically always about what I was working on and learning outside my job. Well, currently I have no side projects (I need a Mac to continue Inaria iPhone development, and I just can’t face the code mess that is Planitia any longer).

And I haven’t learned anything recently to merit a technical article.

And, sadly, I’m giving up on Name That Game. Stupid TinEye.com.

But then I had an idea, once that should have occurred to me before.

I was going to write an article called “Amuse-Bouche“, about the rather large number of short indie games that attempt to get a point across or create a mood in a small amount of gameplay. One of the defining aspects of the amuse-bouche is that it ends; there’s no infinite number of levels that provide no resolution. In fact, providing a resolution is a big part of what an amuse-bouche game is about.

An excellent (indeed, near-perfect) example of an amuse-bouche game is Small Worlds. If you’ve got ten minutes, play it right now.

Other amuse-bouche games would be You Have To Burn The Rope, Achievement Unlocked and ROM Check Fail.

So to sum up, an amuse-bouche game is one that a) can be played typically in an hour or less, b) has a definite ending, and c) deliberately evokes a reaction beyond “having fun gaming”.

And then I realized that this is exactly what I should be doing.

Planitia was too big. Star Revolution was too big. Inaria and Sandworm were pretty much just right.

And what was I going to do next? A 3D RPG. A Neverwinter Nights. All on my own. Yeah, right.

So…all hail the return of the forty-hour game! And it will be my personal goal to create at least one of these every month for the next year.

I already know what my first one is going to be. It’s going to be a short Metroidvania called “Zeta”, and it’ll be directly inspired by Iji (which isn’t exactly an amuse-bouche game but everybody should play it anyway).