Friday, February 15

Auo and I left early. Auo was in an especially good mood because this is the last school day for ten days.

I am looking at the buildings over the road while waiting for the tram. As I am just about to photograph them I notice in the mirror that the tram has arrived. One snap, a quick swivel and I get in before the doors close.

At Arcada I will write some amendments to yesterday’s script before I forget them, and then make final preparations for this morning’s Real Time Web session, which will occupy most of the day. We will be looking at, and playing, games today because I want the group to examine game mechanics.

The morning will taken up with Castle Ravencroft. Tony bought it yesterday, after our conversation, and promised to bring it in today. Everyone will gather around a table and experience the boardgame version of Dungeons & Dragons; some for the first time.

After lunch we will have a meandering, chaotic discussion that will seem to take a very long time to get nowhere. Some people will leave and the rest will continue. I will attempt to explain what I think we are aiming at by explaining how we could use the tools we have gathered to make a game about Helsinki. As I explain it, it will become clear that we could make that game much more easily than the one we are trying to idenify.

There will be a single moment when it becomes clear that that is the game we should be trying to make, and once that is agreed, things will begin to fall into place at an astonishing pace. After the students leave at 15:30 I will race back to the office to write it up, and I will find myself adding to it and feeling it become very tangible.

I will go home happy.