Well, there’s less than two hours left in the week (less than fifteen now that I'm actually pressing Publish), so let’s try and get a post together, since I need to feel in control of my life. There’s a lot that’s up in the air right now, and I’ve just been utterly unable to do much game design stuff outside of this blog. So today’s going to be a roundup / quarterly report, and I’ll also see about pre-writing tomorrow’s Out of Mana. I think my goal was to write ten of those? And I’ve already done 6, which is genuinely shocking, to me, but I have been pretty single-minded in my commitment to updating this blog (Perhaps! To the detriment! Of my other projects!) so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But put aside tomorrow’s post for a moment, and let’s focus on this week; it’s not quite three full months of 2021 down, but we’ve got some definite data, so let’s just dive in.
Now, I took the last week of 2020 off, so I didn’t actually do a quarterly report, just various deranged end of year roundup-y type things of a different flavour, so I need to go back to September for the last plan I made. Now that was six full months ago, surely all of those plans have long since been realized, right? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
- Write at least one game design post every week for three (more) months
- This is a given and a background activity so let’s start here
- ^ Did this one actually
- Pre-Rehearsal Draft of Other Rockpools (September 20 [17])
- My top priority right now, especially as I’ll need to turn around a week after and do it again
- ^ Did it, but not games related
- Performance Draft of Other Rockpools (September 26 [23])
- Same as above
- ^ Again, did it but not games related
- Complete a draft of the DOLLIE scenario (September 30)
- I can start sooner but I need a first draft of this pretty much once I’m done editing Rockpools
- ^ Managed this, have written enough about it
- First Draft of Act I of Project Hercules
- Should only take two or three writing sessions to fill in the gaps on what’s unwritten and order/edit it into a coherent first half. Let’s add this in as another September goal
- ^ Did it, not games related, did not get together a reading of said Act 1
- Build a Beta of FFGMGM
- This can and should happen some time in September
- ^ Boo. Failed.
- Edit/Curation/Draft of TNC Audio Play
- Sooner? Rather? Than later? October? Early to mid?
- ^ Neither games related, nor ever released, despite being finished.
- Complete a working Alpha prototype for Amberlodge
- Can be physical or digital, but it’s got to have at least most of the systems, let’s say this is due by Halloween
- ^ HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA not a damn finger lifted on this one
- First full Draft of Lossless Compression
- No one is asking for this, and it may be best to just truly put a lock on that shelf while I try and get through a busy season
- ^ Oh well good attitude to have there Past Fin as you’ve done fuck all on this
- Complete a working Alpha prototype for BURN
- The scope of this deserves its own dedicated lengthy period of time. Perhaps I work on this in the deep of winter or come Spring, or once I’ve learned how to digitally build either FGM^2 or Amberlodge (or another of my designs)
- ^ HAHAHAHAHA nope
- And now to get real crazy: Build a 5-week game design class curriculum
- Before or after BURN. Timing TBD but probably something that I’d want to work on when I get ready to teach my other class again.
- ^ Nooooooooope.
- Also nutso: Identify sections of blog that would make a good book
- Last priority, even after BURN
- ^ Good because haven’t even thought about this
Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but mostly because I had some external deadlines, and half of it was non-games-related, which doesn’t excuse my games-related failures but does sort of account for what I was doing with at least some of that time. I think… that I have, or am approaching, the limits of what this routine/habit are doing for me. The blog, I mean. I’m getting all sorts of dopamine for talking and thinking, and it’s de-prioritizing the actual doing and making. Maybe - maybe I finish out ten entries of Out of Mana, and then any writing I do goes into a buffer, as I take an entire quarter, after I’ve moved, after I’ve finished with grant-writing season, and take the time each week that I’ve been writing, and spend it on prototyping. Because while these blog posts ARE worth something, and some of them are a pretty long way toward being a complete small/short design, I’ve done enough small games. I need to finish something bigger - I need to develop an idea farther. And I need to commit time to executing a plan, one piece at a time.
Wowzers, this is farther than I thought I’d take this. And I think that’s all still a ways off; the rest of this quarter and the next will be spent finishing up Out of Mana, some planned TTRPG Tuesdays, and making an action plan for each game - not to mention I do still have tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of funding to still write grant proposals for. But come July - look out, physical world!
That’s all for this week. Tune in next week! Most likely tomorrow. Bye!
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