Roleplaying recap, 2023
Game design
I've published eleven games this year, all comedies of different sorts. I am not convinced that "Comedy Evening Games" is the best branding for all future games, but I started writing games in the pandemic and I felt we needed comedy more than anything else. I have no regrets. It has amazed me that I have managed to keep all my games in the comedy field, and yet each game has trod new ground.
My favourite game from the beginning of the year was the Unnamed Fairy Princess Game, because it really tapped what childhood make believe is all about. I went through several versions and every time I had to re-ask the basic question: "Is this capturing the what it's like to be a fairy princess?" It pushed me, and I love the results.
My favourite game from the end of the year was The Furgatives. Which is really a typo, it should be the Furgitives. FariRPG produced the Dash! rules and asked people to make games for it. I am not normally a fan of SRDs (because I when I design a game I want to produce rules that fit) but I really liked the idea about making a Dash! game about running. All my initial ideas seemed un-fun, so I bounced onto "on the run", and after that everything just fell into place. The biggest joy of using Dash! is that the SRD includes a publishing template and that made a huge difference. With that, publishing became really easy: change what was needed, leave the rest, add art.
The Furgatives is where design experience comes in. Once I had the concept, it all came together really quickly. I remember all my media - Hanna Barbara cartoons, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (multiple watchings!), The Fugitive (film and some of the TV series). What I wanted to achieve was clear in my mind so, with all my other design experience, it was trivial to write and tweak. And one of my friends is running it for his troupe, so I've had feedback about how well it works.
I spent a lot of my design energy this year focussed on the DriveThruRPG.com PocketQuest jam. I spent money on cover and title art. I invested emotionally in this new enterprise. It didn't work. I was competing with fifty other games on the same theme and those with better marketing and/or more immediately appealing games got ahead of me. I learned lessons. Also I tried to squeeze a forty page game into twenty and I missed things out. And because it was my first longer-form game it needed more work on the game play. Unfortunately the sales I've had don't justify expanding it as I hoped to. Maybe I can at least do some of the basic improvements when I have an odd moment. (I will also add that Decard, from Rowan, Rook and Decard, loves this game and I consider that a win anyway.)
However, one thing I got out of it was a really cool logo.
Logo for Comedy Evening Games
However I still consider this year a success, and incrementally my sales are increasing enough to continue. Not enough to pay for the Mighty Scout Leaders art, or all the other games I buy, but I decided it doesn't matter. I really enjoy designing games and while I enjoy it I will continue. I will just learn better where to invest my emotional energy.
Social Media
I love talking. I like talking into the void less. I've met loads of great people on Discord, Twitter and now Mastodon and I am happy with that. But I need to stop relying on it as a way to sell my games.
Twitter
Twitter is a tough one for me. It's clearly the place where you can hit lots of people and popular accounts get huge numbers of views, but there are a few problems.
The problem with Mastodon is that you don't get bumped by an algorithm. However, for me this has increased my visibility, not reduced it, since other people don't get bumped ahead of me. I still don't have much engagement, but I get more than on Twitter!
Discord
Discord is funny because you can join all the servers you like but I don't know how many people trawl the self-promo channels. However I really like Discord as a support network. You can share and dig deeper into problems and it leads to a constructive atmosphere rather than just a race for the algorithm.
One thing that I've enjoyed is there game design jams on RPG talk. Every two month they have a new theme, even if I think some of those voting for it are just trolling those who might submit. Some of my games only exist because of the inspiration of this scheme.
Layout/graphic design
I worked out a long time ago that I am not artistic. Creative, yes. But I have no design aesthetic and no artistic skill. Unfortunately, the key to being a successful game designer is to make people want to buy your game, to sell them on the inside based on what they see on the outside. I am always going to be on the backfoot.
But I have gone from basic layout using Word and basic art, to more imaginative layouts using Affinity. Even if MSL was a poor investment of emotional energy, I did learn a lot about Affinity by making it. I am better at choosing fonts and better at finding suitable art.
I have also made improvements on accessibility. All my PDFs have bookmarks. All my new games come with an HTML version with easily customisable layout. From my conversations on Twitter and Discord, I don't think I need to do more than that for accessibility. But my plan is to make videos for each of my games. To start with, these will be audio/video books but I hope to get comfortable enough to do commentaries.
(After prepping for this months's 31 character challenge, I curse anyone who produces a PDF without bookmarks. Why would you do that, especially for a game over twenty pages? A good program will even do it for you.)
Health
Since my blog covers game design and my health I should talk about this.
Kaftrio has been a game change for people with Cystic Fibrosis. To the point that, when I last asked, the hospital team was still adapting to all these new baselines. Apart from middle-age and lack of exercise, I don't have to worry about getting worse. I no longer seem to be carrying Pseudomonas. I am generally not at risk at all times.
Because I'm not fighting infection or having to spend lots of time on my lungs, I do have more time and energy for other things. But I am me, which means most of that goes into the things I do already: work, home and gaming. And autumn was tough again this year. In Chinese medicine, it's the lung month and this year didn't disappoint. Despite everything I said above, I did get a bit chesty; and it's the hardest season at work, especially covering for people as I was this year. Most of that was resolved by the osteopath - it was tightness, mainly from tiredness (doing too much) but also a random bug I had for a spell. But it did slow down game design for three months.
I'm not getting better; parts of my body like my pancreas are too damaged, and my lungs have scar tissue that can't heal. But I can, for instance, play more vigorous badminton and improve my fitness. In fact, getting fit is the only way I'm going to dramatically improve my energy.
Sadly, most of my hobbies require a sedentary lifestyle. So. And I really enjoy them. It's been very clear to me over the last twenty years that enjoying life, no matter how terrible it is, is a huge key to health. So I intend to do so.
2023
I learned a long time ago not to give myself solid plans for the future. In the past, my health would always break plans and they would be wasted. These days, it's just life. So I don't have firm goals.
As I've said, I want to continue designing, improving my craft and keep putting myself out there. I want to see how I get on with more longer-form games, but keeping my expectations low.
I've seen that I get the most traction if I can get people to play my games. Because they are genuinely cracking games. With Covid, that's proving difficult. We got Covid for the first time this year, and it was fine because of all of the vaccines, but we got it from the time we broke our rules about interacting with large crowds without masks. This doesn't bode well for conventions. And whilst I don't think Covid will kill me, I don't think that's a good reason to go looking for it.
If I have a goal this year, it's to find ways to get people to play my games. On that note, if you've read this for and would like to play one or more of my games this year then please do email me on picksatflies@gmail.com
I've published eleven games this year, all comedies of different sorts. I am not convinced that "Comedy Evening Games" is the best branding for all future games, but I started writing games in the pandemic and I felt we needed comedy more than anything else. I have no regrets. It has amazed me that I have managed to keep all my games in the comedy field, and yet each game has trod new ground.
My favourite game from the beginning of the year was the Unnamed Fairy Princess Game, because it really tapped what childhood make believe is all about. I went through several versions and every time I had to re-ask the basic question: "Is this capturing the what it's like to be a fairy princess?" It pushed me, and I love the results.
My favourite game from the end of the year was The Furgatives. Which is really a typo, it should be the Furgitives. FariRPG produced the Dash! rules and asked people to make games for it. I am not normally a fan of SRDs (because I when I design a game I want to produce rules that fit) but I really liked the idea about making a Dash! game about running. All my initial ideas seemed un-fun, so I bounced onto "on the run", and after that everything just fell into place. The biggest joy of using Dash! is that the SRD includes a publishing template and that made a huge difference. With that, publishing became really easy: change what was needed, leave the rest, add art.
The Furgatives is where design experience comes in. Once I had the concept, it all came together really quickly. I remember all my media - Hanna Barbara cartoons, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (multiple watchings!), The Fugitive (film and some of the TV series). What I wanted to achieve was clear in my mind so, with all my other design experience, it was trivial to write and tweak. And one of my friends is running it for his troupe, so I've had feedback about how well it works.
I spent a lot of my design energy this year focussed on the DriveThruRPG.com PocketQuest jam. I spent money on cover and title art. I invested emotionally in this new enterprise. It didn't work. I was competing with fifty other games on the same theme and those with better marketing and/or more immediately appealing games got ahead of me. I learned lessons. Also I tried to squeeze a forty page game into twenty and I missed things out. And because it was my first longer-form game it needed more work on the game play. Unfortunately the sales I've had don't justify expanding it as I hoped to. Maybe I can at least do some of the basic improvements when I have an odd moment. (I will also add that Decard, from Rowan, Rook and Decard, loves this game and I consider that a win anyway.)
However, one thing I got out of it was a really cool logo.
Logo for Comedy Evening Games
However I still consider this year a success, and incrementally my sales are increasing enough to continue. Not enough to pay for the Mighty Scout Leaders art, or all the other games I buy, but I decided it doesn't matter. I really enjoy designing games and while I enjoy it I will continue. I will just learn better where to invest my emotional energy.
Social Media
I love talking. I like talking into the void less. I've met loads of great people on Discord, Twitter and now Mastodon and I am happy with that. But I need to stop relying on it as a way to sell my games.
Twitter is a tough one for me. It's clearly the place where you can hit lots of people and popular accounts get huge numbers of views, but there are a few problems.
- It's mostly filled with game designers. It's good for learning what's happening, but not so good for sales. The most "profitable" outcomes I've made are by joining bundles. I actually don't know if I've had any views from social media at all.
- You need to game the algorithm by posting at the right time and right frequency. I just don't have the energy/spoons for that level of interaction. I read and post as fits my timetable.
- Elon Musk. I mean, who knows what's going to happen with the platform. But it pushed me to Mastodon and I think this might be a good thing.
The problem with Mastodon is that you don't get bumped by an algorithm. However, for me this has increased my visibility, not reduced it, since other people don't get bumped ahead of me. I still don't have much engagement, but I get more than on Twitter!
Discord
Discord is funny because you can join all the servers you like but I don't know how many people trawl the self-promo channels. However I really like Discord as a support network. You can share and dig deeper into problems and it leads to a constructive atmosphere rather than just a race for the algorithm.
One thing that I've enjoyed is there game design jams on RPG talk. Every two month they have a new theme, even if I think some of those voting for it are just trolling those who might submit. Some of my games only exist because of the inspiration of this scheme.
Layout/graphic design
I worked out a long time ago that I am not artistic. Creative, yes. But I have no design aesthetic and no artistic skill. Unfortunately, the key to being a successful game designer is to make people want to buy your game, to sell them on the inside based on what they see on the outside. I am always going to be on the backfoot.
But I have gone from basic layout using Word and basic art, to more imaginative layouts using Affinity. Even if MSL was a poor investment of emotional energy, I did learn a lot about Affinity by making it. I am better at choosing fonts and better at finding suitable art.
I have also made improvements on accessibility. All my PDFs have bookmarks. All my new games come with an HTML version with easily customisable layout. From my conversations on Twitter and Discord, I don't think I need to do more than that for accessibility. But my plan is to make videos for each of my games. To start with, these will be audio/video books but I hope to get comfortable enough to do commentaries.
(After prepping for this months's 31 character challenge, I curse anyone who produces a PDF without bookmarks. Why would you do that, especially for a game over twenty pages? A good program will even do it for you.)
Health
Since my blog covers game design and my health I should talk about this.
Kaftrio has been a game change for people with Cystic Fibrosis. To the point that, when I last asked, the hospital team was still adapting to all these new baselines. Apart from middle-age and lack of exercise, I don't have to worry about getting worse. I no longer seem to be carrying Pseudomonas. I am generally not at risk at all times.
Because I'm not fighting infection or having to spend lots of time on my lungs, I do have more time and energy for other things. But I am me, which means most of that goes into the things I do already: work, home and gaming. And autumn was tough again this year. In Chinese medicine, it's the lung month and this year didn't disappoint. Despite everything I said above, I did get a bit chesty; and it's the hardest season at work, especially covering for people as I was this year. Most of that was resolved by the osteopath - it was tightness, mainly from tiredness (doing too much) but also a random bug I had for a spell. But it did slow down game design for three months.
I'm not getting better; parts of my body like my pancreas are too damaged, and my lungs have scar tissue that can't heal. But I can, for instance, play more vigorous badminton and improve my fitness. In fact, getting fit is the only way I'm going to dramatically improve my energy.
Sadly, most of my hobbies require a sedentary lifestyle. So. And I really enjoy them. It's been very clear to me over the last twenty years that enjoying life, no matter how terrible it is, is a huge key to health. So I intend to do so.
2023
I learned a long time ago not to give myself solid plans for the future. In the past, my health would always break plans and they would be wasted. These days, it's just life. So I don't have firm goals.
As I've said, I want to continue designing, improving my craft and keep putting myself out there. I want to see how I get on with more longer-form games, but keeping my expectations low.
I've seen that I get the most traction if I can get people to play my games. Because they are genuinely cracking games. With Covid, that's proving difficult. We got Covid for the first time this year, and it was fine because of all of the vaccines, but we got it from the time we broke our rules about interacting with large crowds without masks. This doesn't bode well for conventions. And whilst I don't think Covid will kill me, I don't think that's a good reason to go looking for it.
If I have a goal this year, it's to find ways to get people to play my games. On that note, if you've read this for and would like to play one or more of my games this year then please do email me on picksatflies@gmail.com