Update 1.2 - Re-visiting the Grave

I'm getting back in the saddle of game-making, and figured it would be a good idea to pick up where I left off. After some feedback and gameplay tests, I've made some small changes:

• I've updated art for some of the cards that needed it most. I've drawn a little since the first go-around, so even though I'm no expert, it feels a little more refined.
• I've made updates in the text of the rules, cards, and map, for to help improve clarity and better indicate the direction of some puzzles.
• I've established a leaderboard, with a link to it and my itch page in the rules.
• Small grammar/POV/continuity fixes within the details of the text.

I'll likely re-visit this game from time to time, hopefully with more feedback/playtest data in hand, but all in all, I'm finding that I'm ready to close the door on this one. The last thing on my list is to update the Steam workshop files when I have the chance.

On a personal note, yesterday (5/11/2024), I did something that had been on my to-do list for over 15 years, which was to visit Bruce Lee's grave in Seattle. 

One of my first dates with my high school girlfriend was getting ice cream at our small town's burger stand, and walking around the graveyard a few blocks away. It was bright and sunny, I don't remember what we talked about, just all of the good feeling behind it. That same girlfriend and I found ourselves at the University of Washington, a couple of years later, and the Volunteer park/Lake View Cemetery where Bruce Lee is buried was not far from there. We planned to go, but didn't, and eventually split up.

I think that this made some sort of foundational idea that I wanted to go with someone, maybe as a date, maybe just with someone special, at that point in a relationship. Fast forward to when I met someone, and was married. I lived maybe an hour away, sometimes closer, sometimes further, in and around, for years, with no real excuse not to go on some bright and sunny day. Maybe less to re-live the first memory, but to have that same important feeling I had the first time, with another person. But also, for my love of Kung Fu. Then, I found myself making this game, during COVID, and my now ex said she would (reluctantly, I feel) go with me. One thing lead to another, and by that, I mean our differences led to divorce, and  again, I avoided going alone, until yesterday.

I had elevated it in my mind to some pilgrimage and spiritual experience. I think this is another reason why I wanted to share it with someone. I parked nearby, and walked in. I had a lot to look at, considering this game. Names and dates, shapes, lifespans, eras. Art and masonry. Flowers, fresh or dry. The other visitors. The first, an old man who slowly kneeled before a flat, ground level marker, took his straw hat off, and bowed and kissed the grave. He raised his head a moment, and then kissed it again.  He put his hat back on, brushing the grave and cleaning up the edges with his hand, and stayed kneeling. I was on a rounded, winding path behind and to the side of him. There were others around. Part of me wishes that I hadn't been there for that private moment, but another part of me holds it dear now, and I hope he would be ok with the moment being both touching and important to a stranger.

Bruce, and his son Brandon, are buried side-by-side, with a ramp, a small fence enclosure, and with a bench nearby. There were others there, though I had a moment to read everything, take it in, and then step aside for another's  photo op. This experience was still good, short and meaningful but became eclipsed by the rest of my visit. 

I walked more paths, seeing simple markers, family plots , obelisks,  and truly mountainous monuments. My thoughts were solemn and introspective, but meaningful and fulfilling. One could spend forever looking at them all. 

On the far, outside edge , I was looking for the way into the park proper, to see the arboretum before I left to be at my friends's one year old's birthday. I was following the fence line, realizing there were no gates or gaps, and that I would have to wind the paths around to make it back to the entrance, then circle the outside of cemetery to get to the park. I was having thoughts of cutting through graves, but decided to stay on the path out of some respect, and kept following paths. Along the larger one, there was a groundskeeper, the bed of his gator-style cart full of watering cans, and he was watering flowers that I couldn't tell if they were in a container or the ground. He saw me walking by, and said "Good Morning, welcome back". I said good morning, and nodded an affirmative, and wiping away a tear that had perpetually been in my eye since being there.

Now this, given the game and its story and theme, was bewildering, and one of those moments in life where you get a feeling  that things are  not by chance. I wound my way back to the entrance, rationalizing on my way. People who are there are returning to see their loved ones, so it made sense he would say that. In the context of the game, and my never having been there, trying to find one grave, then eventually trying to find my way to the arboretum,  it was completely on the nose, and to be honest, jarring. 

This became the spiritual moment for me, one that I wouldn't have been able to share with anyone else.