Mountain Missive Nr. 10

The Flower

The cabin door swings open, cold wind disturbs everything. The gently balanced carving falls and shatters. Ursamat coughs weekly, the hand already on the knife, chipping at the block to unveil his flower again.

Repetition is a motive. Sequential posts out of order on a blog on game design.

Mountain Resonance echoes in layers of repetition. Feedback of pain, fed back into the people in The Kingdom Of The East from their past and their future. One personal fact reemerges sitting in front of many past character sheets. I can’t draw faces. Again and again. Pain and embarrassment. Similar observation, at most gaming tables half of the others doodle on their character sheets. Human repetition seeping into the games. To take the best of that, a character sheet of Mountain Resonance has a place for a flower.

There is no ugly flower, only personal beauty. Flowers fulfil duties, soldiers of meaning. Meanings change through the layers of war

Dog Years flowers, fixed to a soldier’s chest, standing on fields burning. Hope and peace, piece of the homeland and promise of innocence.

Last Summer flowers, fist full high in celebration, or laid to rest a graves of those not suffering anymore. Celebration and grief for those still suffering.

Long Winter flowers, unreal life carved from dead life, subconscious ticks of repeated movements. A collective coping mechanism, hypnotic state of loss. Fixed in a loop. Unmoving design as a rebellion of life.

The wooden flowers came before many other layers, again and again, adding until a game feels ready.

How will your flower look like?

Gabriel Loppé - View from Mont Blanc Summit, Sunrise, 1869

Get Mountain Resonance and its supplements for free on itch.io, and sign up for the upcoming print run on Kickstarter.