People last year asked for a bit more insight into my process.

Here's what I've done so far: 9pm looked at the theme. Let it cook a bit while watching some TV with my wife. Chilled for a bit, slept.

Woke up, lay in bed thinking over the theme and mechanics. Saturday morning seems to be my best thinking time for this kind of thing, and if I can come up with a kernel or two that I can run with, I can spend the afternoon tinkering with them and hope one of them coalesces into a workable game. (My LD49 entry came together after discarding at least 3 basic mechanics as entirely non-functional, but I knew I wanted to do some sort of dexterity game about things not falling with readily available components)

So here's my kernel I'll be working from: "Delay the inevitable" + "LD/50" + dice -- each round, something encourages/requires you to roll an increasing number of dice. If the combined roll is >50 you lose (or the game ends).

• Try to get "press your luck" feeling in.
• Probably a solo game, both because this kernel supports that and because they're easier for people to try
• LD/50 is 15
• This means 25-30 dice are probably adequate again (Liar's Dice/Perudo has 30)

Noodling will be around making something fun, how hard I want to lean into the medical theme vs leave it as quiet inspiration/an in-joke sort of thing as people might find it uncomfortable, whether I can tie the results of rolls into the next round usefully (so it matters what you get not just whether you hit 50), whether an additional randomizer [cards] is desired or will be crufty and a board is sufficient, what the actual game is -- why am I pulling dice, what makes me want to use more, where's the tension encouraging me to pull more than I "should", what is creating inevitability (is it inevitable that I'll eventually roll over 50 or is there some other end condition the dice are pushing back?)

I'll check in again later as I progress. I might do a desk stream at some point, but as I've recently done a major move I'm not sure I can make that work this jam.