** Warehouse: Early stages of a PICO-8 game **
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I've had the idea for a while (roughly since my 2nd year
of university) of writing a story about an employee in an
infinitely large storage facility. Their driving motivation
is the fact that in this warehouse, every single object that
exists in the universe is contained within individual boxes,
and these boxes are organised in order of their value to
people. In other words, the more "objectively" important 
an object is, the closer one is to the true center of the
warehouse. The story would then be about the protagonist
travelling to this center as it would seemingly contain an
object capable of providing his life with pure, undistilled
meaning.

My issue with this story (apart from it sounding a little
too pontificating) is the fact that I have no idea what to
include between the beginning and end. Nevermind the fact
that I'm not qualified enough to assert what the most
meaningful thing in the universe is (if you are, drop me a
message!)

Because of this, the idea sat on the backburner for a little
while, not quite abandoned but not really developing over time.
Then I found out about the PICO-8 fantasy console from a fellow
neocities user that I am quite a fan of (links to anything I
refer to will be at the bottom of this document). They are 
using it to create a Bejeweled-esque puzzle game, and I was 
immediately enamoured with the deliberate restrictions the 
console puts on the user making a game. I've always sort of 
believed that when you put constraints on yourself in creating 
something, it resultsmin something a lot more impressively simple 
and elegant than ifmyou had unlimited resources at your disposal. 
I guess I'm trying to say that having to fit everything inside a 
box can sometimes be a good thing if your idea is attempting to 
push its way out.

Fast-forward to the early hours of this morning, I would guess
it was around 2AM - I am thinking about making a game on this
thing and trying desperately to come up with any ideas that are
actually worth making and - more importantly - worth playing. It
is at this point I remember my Warehouse story idea, and at that
point I felt everything slot into place. It could be a randomly
generated exploration game, where the player must find their way
through a random configuration of warehouse zones, finding various
items in each box. They need to keep watch of their hunger and
sanity when traversing the space, and attempt to create beneficial
items through a simple crafting system (two items become one, and
that function is explained through the concatenated name of its
two parts). The player could also have rare encounters with NPCs
that don't get in the way, but spoonfeed lore regarding the
warehouse and the objects it contains.

I got real excited about the possibility of actually bringing this
idea to life - finally! However it isn't lost on me that I've never 
even designed a game before, so I have started taking notes on the 
best way to implement the features I would want to see from a game 
like this. That'll involve familiarising myself with the PICO-8
system, and playing through games with similar mechanics and themes.
This is more an exercise of intuition; what mechanics just feel
right for me as a player, and what are the most practical methods
in implementing them as a programmer? Especially when I'm working
with a framework as lightweight as PICO-8, I need to create as
safe a balance between fun and simplicity as possible without
compromising too much of the core idea. I expect some stuff will
have to go, but I won't know for sure until I get a little more
acquainted with the console and the other cool things people have
made with it.

** References **
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