I've been working on the Matrix Game project since 1988. Possibly even 1987, if you count the cognitive pyramid game as a proto Matrix Game. Yet it has taken me over ten years to bring the idea to a mainstream product. Why did it take so long? This is a whiney essay about what I've gone through to get this far. I'm going to write it now and get it out of my system because in fact, though I'm whining now – I really believe that I am ready to do well by Matrix Games due to all the preparation. ABOUT DEVELOPING THE GAME I've written it many times before, but it remains true, that Matrix Games are very different from other games. For that reason they have taken a long time to get right. My last published game was written in 1991. Essentially the turn resolution rules are the same today (except for the last minute inclusion of the new conflict resolution system in the fall of 98). The real growth since 91 is the evolution of the matrix. It is very subtle and will allow a lot more varieties of game than I can even think of. It pulls off a lot of different fields (psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, history and philosophy) that it is no wondering it came out so slowly. Maybe this work could have gone faster if I had not got burned out in 93-94, but I did. I CAN'T SPELL TO SAVE MY LIFE! As anyone who received EGG knows, I can't spell or proof read to save my life. In 1988, I also couldn't write either. To be honest though, I NEVER proof read EGG before sending it out. I did not have the time and given my little learning disorder I couldn't have done a good job of it anyway. So my first task was to learn how to spell and write. Sheer repetition, and a spell checker have now improved my writing to the point that I don't look like a complete idiot – just a partial one. MATRIX GAMES ARE TOO DIFFERENT TO BE PICKED UP EASILY Especially when they were more half baked, Matrix Games did not look like they would be easy to play. I remember Steve Jackson telling me in 1989 that the players would have to have masters degrees in philosophy to be able to play! I knew he was wrong but this faith of mine did not become a reality for several more years. The work of 1988 to 1994 laid the foundation of awareness amongst game designers, magazine editors, and radical fringe miniatures gamers. I now aim to build on that. A lot of people have now heard of Matrix Games. It was not always that way. Because Matrix Games are different, they are not a proven seller. Consequently no nice company came along and stole the idea from me so they could make loads of bucks on it. No one will do that till I show that MGs do sell. At that point though who would want to be "rescued" by some one else's company? FEAR AND FANTASY: SEEING YOUR NAME IN PRINT It is a real ego trip to see you name in print for the first time. I wrote my first game article for MWAN (Midwest Wargamers Association Newsletter) in 1987 – before Matrix Games, but my first published article was in the NUGGET in the spring of 88. The first Matrix Game article. Chris Kemp (the editor at that time) gave me his own invented editors award for most original game concept. My ego soared! Ego and fantasy filled my mind clouding my judgement and getting in the way of the work. Fortunately I got no other feedback from NUGGET subscribes for over a year. In that time, my balloon deflated some and I saw that this would not be a walk in the park. I was pretty young (24) totally naïve, and of course inexperienced. So deflating that ego was vital since the energy from ego is a flash in the pan and this job would take much more. In my mind I made a commitment to myself to do the work and let God handle the outcomes. At that same time I got my first job after grad school (as a social worker/psychotherapist) stopped drinking, started twelve step work, courted and married my wife and began dealing with all my other psychological crap that we all have. Whine, whine, whine. EGG AND OTHER MAGAZINES From 1989 to 1994 I edited and published the Experimental Game Group newsletter. I also wrote upwards of fifty articles for other magazines. I wrote regularly every week. The discipline was good. I grew in confidence and in writing skill. I found that I did have something to say and I made a lot of friends in the hobby. Of course that effort combined with work, marriage, production and mailing of EGG, running convention games and publishing "Campaign in a Day" in 1992 took its toll. By 1993 I was feeling tired a lot and needing a break. Campaign in a Day did not turn out to have the commercial potential my naïve mind hoped it would. Tim Price correctly pointed this out in his review of the product. Unfortunately the writing of C in D took so much out of me that I realized I could not do the marketing effort a successful game would require. I was stuck. The next game would have to be commercial. But I did not know what that would look like. My own taste in games runs to the esoteric (like the 1848 Paris Revolt game I'll run this year) so I needed to learn how to do mainstream stuff. A lot of Campaign in a Day scenarios did appear as convention games over the years. In fact running convention games has been one of my favorite parts of the whole project. Even at my lowest ebb I've always run games at four or five cons a year. DON'T CREATE A DEMAND YOU CAN NOT CONSISTENTLY MEET In 1993-94 I did not know what game would come next, but I knew I was not able to sustain any kind of effort so I had to shut down. I could have continued to do my development work out in the open but I felt that it would hurt the whole project in the long run, if I did put out something half baked. The game market is a mean one. Mistakes are remembered and your reputation will follow you. My great fear at the time was that if I put out a flop and that distributors would not want to look at any of my later work. In fact, I've had the greatest fear and distrust of distributors and stores for years. They make money off the hobby, and I'm intimidated by money. It probably worked out well that I did not push Matrix Games at that time because that was the year that Magic the gathering hit the scene. Magic swept through the hobby like a fire. Many of my industry friends were caught in the crunch. Miniatures sculpting went belly up as all the money flowed in Wizards of the Coasts direction. Matrix Games would not have stood a chance in that market. So maybe the burnout was well timed. LESSONS FROM INDUSTRY PEOPLE Wizards of the Coasts great success did help me in one way. It got me thinking about what a successful business would look like. Over the years I've met a lot of people in the gaming industry and become friends with a few of them. Steve Lortz in particular has been most helpful. At Gen Con 95 Steve and I shared a room. Steve told me a lot of the basics of game publishing – which mainly boils down to marketing. I remember saying to him, that I realized that if Matrix Games were suddenly a hit – like Magic the Gathering – I would not know how to manage it. I would screw up! I realized that I needed to learn about business or the next step could not be taken. Steve introduced me to Dave Arneson (of D+D fame). I will always remember when Dave came up to me at Gen Con (I forget which one) and asked me to go out to coffee with him. He started off saying how sorry he was that I wanted to try to sell games. That it would ruin my hobby. Then he went on to give me some of the nicest (non-ego boosting) support for my project that I've ever gotten. It felt like being accepted into the club. Since then I've gotten similar feeling of acknowledgement and acceptance from Frank Chadwick (of GDW) and John Hill (Johnny Reb). The neatest thing about this support is that none of them have told me what to do or how to do it. Which helped me realize that NO ONE knows how to do this! Each game, each product is a new learning experience and experiment. There are no wizards – or rather we are all wizards. My wife used to date Guy Mc Limore (the first Star Trek RPG, FASA's Dr. Who RPG) So we've also known one another for a long time. (Something about my wife dating in high school the guy who was my best friend in college who later married my brother's old girlfriend who was my wife's sisters roommate in college and I'm a game designer and so is Guy, who was Terri's boyfriend after she broke up with David who was later my best friend in college. Confused yet? And the answer is no – we are not cousins!) Anyway, Guy also has not told me how to do the game business. He used to say that I was doing something totally different and that he did not want to lead me astray. So the real support I've gotten from industry colleagues is not advice. I am grateful for that. DEVELOPING THE MATRIX GAME 1995 TO 1999 By stepping back out of the lime light I was able to begin working on the problem "What should a commercial Matrix Game look like." In 95 my draft ran up to 200 pages. The key was to refine the matrix since the game was essentially done. I wanted to have a unified matrix so that I would not have to reinvent the wheel when writing each game. I wrote an outline of what a product line would look like (which is remarkable now becoming a reality) . Then I set to work writing rule books and running convention games/experiments. Never think for a moment that what you play has ever been done before! We are all of us rats in this matrix. I took breaks from Matrix Games and worked on Great Handfuls of Dice games, and a series of diceless miniatures games. I also learned how to make really good miniatures terrain – like Howard Whitehouse makes. Now I build inner city terrain boards to use to sell Matrix Games. I also started running games over at the local game store to learn how in store demos are different from convention games. Draft followed draft from spy games to mystery games to political games to horror games. Little by little the matrix I now use emerged. Nothing in it is really new. This is good. It means that players will not have to stretch themselves too far to understand each game. I had a publishable version done in 1996. I thought I would publish in 97. Was certain I would publish in 98 and finally am publishing in 99. Why did it take so long? It isn't the rules, it's me. I DON'T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BUSINESS When I realized that I would not be able to succeed if my games were a hit I started to study business. Now I am not from a business background (nor are my parents or grand parents) so this was a big challenge. I started by reading a book called "The richest man in Babylon" that explains the method of saving money all the costly financial planners teach. Save 10% of your income before you pay your bills. I started doing that and Terri and I have been under the financial wheel since then. I can't remember a time in the last four years when I've felt well off. But it is the first step towards business – cost control and thrift. I could almost be Dutch. Then Terri and I started selling books and used jewelry at Society for Creative Anachronism events in Indiana and the surrounding states. From which I learned about merchandising and moving large heavy boxes (which later led to my hernia!). In 1996 (aside from becoming a Muslim) I left my job at the mental health center and opened a private practice. This certainly added to my relative poverty but also opened up many doors for growth and learning. There are so many business skills to learn. Clear writing, public speaking and idea development I'd been working on for years. Selling skills, I was learning in the book/trinket business. How business is organized I learned while teaching a class on job hunting at the IU Business School. Which leave three tough skill: accounting, inventory control/shipping, and computer information science. My counseling business has been the vehicle for learning accounting. In 1997 I did single entry book keeping and studied double entry book keeping. I began using double entry book keeping in 98 and switched over to computerized book keeping this year. I am not a good book keeper and I will never be an accountant, but I see that it really is the language of business. I see how I can use the computer to do inventory control as well. Which leaves computers. I learned how to program in the late 70's but never did much with it. That experience helps me not be intimidated by computers. But I see them as tools not as friends. These little machines can eat up more time and feed more compulsions than any communications media before them. Still, the potential for the internet is vast. Who knows how Matrix Games might have developed if they emerged now rather than at the tail end of the paper journal era. After these basic mechanical skills are mastered, more skills await. Time management, how to find help, how to delegate, how to supervise and how to manage. Along with long term planning and persistence. But it doesn't end there, because the fault is not in our skills Horatio but in ourselves. GUT WRENCHING FEAR, ANXIETY AND SELF PITY After reading the above section I might be looking real good. Boy, competent! Don't believe that for a minute. Since I left my agency job (which I had to do if I was ever going to be in business) I've felt more fear than I've ever felt in my life. Business is totally foreign to me and it has felt like walking into the wilderness without even a pocket knife! No one in my family, amongst my local friends or my social work colleagues has been able to give me any support. In short, it sucks! So what was I learning about myself in 96-99? Well I've done a lot of exposure to fear– which really does desensitize one to it. I can now feel large amounts of fear and not have to flee from it. I also learned how to recognize my feelings more easily, so my internal monitors are much more finely tuned. Then I realized that there is a point where "feeling you feelings" is stupid and destructive. Dwelling on pain can be just as narcissistic as avoiding pain. Keep in mind that obsessions are part of who I am. At times I've been able to channel my obsessiveness into useful work. But feeling fear and then pulling back from it certainly pulls the strings of obsession. So I've been learning how to stop it. Which may be the most important lesson of all. Because, if I was say very successful with Matrix Games, obsessions would defeat me no matter how many skills I posses. Why is wisdom so important? It isn't. Unless you want to succeed at something. I once heard that success could be as frightening as failure. That never made sense to me. Now I see why. Failure means its over, you can feel bad for yourself. But success means you move on to the next challenge. And there is always a next challenge! It is amazing how many of them are internal and emotional. HAS ALL THIS RUINED MY HOBBY? Yes and no. I seldom get to play games like I used to when I was a local game club president. But I still love Matrix Games. For the last five years I've been a player in a modified Matrix Game PBM run by Carl Carlsson in Sweden (Carl writes for the Lone Warrior). As Duke of Mantua I've been able to improve public works, start public education, invested abroad, and eventually been driven out of my country by Tuscan aggressors (wonder why it took them so long? I've had nearly no army for the last five years!). I enjoy playing and refereeing in the games I've run at cons and in store demos. And I still get a kick out of coming up with new game ideas, even now. What I have found though is that commercial games in general are boring. Especially games only about war. Someday soon I'll write an article on why war is so boring – because it is. No matter what the weaponry it is still a ritualized dance that Grok the caveman would still recognize. I also don't role play much anymore. Matrix Games have spoiled me. A referee has to be very good for an RPG to be better than an average Matrix Game. Call of Cthulhu games at Gen Con have done that. Fantasy games about dwarves with Mohawks, Japanese samurai, or sad vampires do nothing for me. Give me Buffy the Vampire Slayer checking to see if she's broken a nail any day of the week. In other words I like stories that do not lend themselves easily to RPGs. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT? Well my work is cut out for me. I have to build a garden in which Matrix Games can grow. The seeds are all gathered, and I know how to sow. Now I just have to do it. Inshallah (if God wills it). I can't do it all on my own. I will need your help. Because, as you now know I am a flawed person. (But at least I haven't has sex with any interns!) AN APOLOGY FOR ALL THIS WHINING You now know more about my struggles than you ever wanted to know. For that, I apologize. A lot of this stuff has been bouncing around in my head for several years so it feels good to let it out. It's good to not have too many secrets. It helps minimize burnout. I promise that I will not indulge in this kind of narcissistic belly button contemplation again (at least not in print). Now on to real articles! Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #2 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com