Reflecting on 2021, December’s To-Do List & an Early 2022 Peek
It’s that time of the year again; time to pull back the curtain and take a look at what we’ve accomplished, what we’ve failed to accomplish, what we’ve learned, and think on how to move forward. Over the last eleven months and change we developed and released a plethora of fun little games. The general recap: HEDGE and its expansion HEARTH, Spirited Cafe, DISASTER/PEACE, Dead Belt, and Skyworthy. On the side, we made a Down We Go stretch goal “The Velvet Pamphlet”, a small charity game “Run, Familiar!”, and a campaign BBEG zine “The Widow of Roses.” We also ran a successful Kickstarter for Court of Blades and have been hard at work doing all that entails.
This has been a great year for experimenting, though that doesn’t show any sign of easing up going into 2022. After building games on some truly amazing SRDs (System Reference Documents) including Forged in the Dark, Lumen, Carta, Lost & Found, and Together We Go, we’ve also started work on a couple of bespoke game systems. Early in the year I had voiced my desire to challenge myself and make a short format game. I was in love with the zine aesthetic, and the punk essence of zines is like a big, warm security blanky for the indie designer still getting the hang of all the skills required to make a game. It’s not just allowed to be imperfect, it’s expected. So, I built Spirited Cafe and then sat on it and fretted that no one else but me could run it until Shawn made me release it into the wild. We’ve come a long way in one year. -Oh, but I still love zines. Possibly more now.
I’ve also looked back at the first game I formatted, the early release of Court of Blades, and comparing it to the others. I can see improvement by leaps and bounds, month over month. Most recently I’ve gotten accustomed to working in InDesign and building everything on grids. Before I made the move to professional software I invested in a pile of educational books, but the only one I would shout from the rooftops about is Thinking in Type (2nd edition). To be perfectly frank, most of the other content I’d rather look up on YouTube as needed. (Oh, hi, visual and kinetic learner here.)
All of that and the year isn’t even over. At the end of every month my favorite thing to do is make a to-do list for the next month–after checking the progress we made on the current month’s to-do. So let’s talk December. As we are finishing formatting the final Court of Blades zine unlocked by stretch goals, we’re also working on another solo journaling game we’re calling “Dark Bargain.” You’ll get to play a patron working to enact changes to the world through your warlocks in exchange for power and gifts over the ages. Finally, getting our website up and moved into has also been on the hit list. These are our primary objectives for December, which is about all we’ll try to bite off on to wrap up the year, seeing as our boys will be on winter break in a couple of days and the holidays cometh.
Early 2022, we’ll be working on fulfilling the Court of Blades Kickstarter and finishing up the co-op and pvp expansions for Dead Belt. Also in the works are a couple of new games we’re jazzed about, and an upcoming and yet unannounced (now partially announced?) partnership that is going to lead to some really cool stuff next year. But more on that after the holidays.
See you all in January!