Words about worlds

The story so far…

by | Oct 18, 2023 | Chatter, Games | 0 comments

Where have we been?

Following the raven.

A crystal-clear pool of ice shines under a full Moon.  Icy pillars stand in a ring around the pool at the top of a mountain. Cold shadows are sharply outlined against the snow. A silhouetted figure stands, gazing at the magical sight.

The Unseelie Saga cover art by Teresa Guido

That is absolutely true.  But it’s not the whole story.

We have been following the raven. Creating The Unseelie Saga was a fabulous experience requiring a lot of time and effort. However, that wasn’t the hard part of the last few months. I’ve held 4 jobs since January, and my partner’s held 3. We also had a family member with health issues that were quite frightening for a little while there. They are well on their way to recovery. However, it has been a slow, care-intensive process. Some unexpected, good, and significant events also happened. All together, we’ve had quite the time.

At this point, we’re down to a reasonable number of jobs and a much more casual level of care support. We are recovering stability, creativity, and emotional energy. As a result, we’re back to designing games, building worlds, and bouncing crazy ideas off each other. As of yesterday, we decided to try to attend Metatopia with 3 games. We might make it.
Every now and then, it’s good to give yourself a ridiculous, over-ambitious challenge. If we make it, fantastic! We’ll meet designers, play great games, and get good feedback. If not, we’ll at least have forced ourselves to move further and faster than we would on our own. If the games make it through the gauntlet, they’re worth something.

Yes, I am also scribbling ideas for The Seelie Saga. At least one of its adventures will be a two-sided adventure: you play one or the other, depending on your choices in the last game. It will be a significantly different experience. The opening culture is also quite different and intriguing to consider.

Anyway, I’m trying to focus on other games and adventures for a while but I’m not dodging the ideas when they show up, as you can tell. We’re also spending some evenings watching movies together: old horrors, thrillers, creature features, and other Halloween fodder. It’s a bit challenging finding them because we have a limited tolerance for negative representations of different cultures, disabled persons, and a number of other tropes. The result is that we feel a tiny thrill of success at finding any campy movies to watch. We’re also incidentally gathering ideas for two games, one of which has been in the works for at least a year but has some tricky mechanics that will take a while longer to iron out. Some games are quick and simple to write. Others just take time.

We plan to get back into a rhythm of writing regular articles on game design, world-building, and science stretched into science fiction. We are aiming for two articles a month but we’ll have to see how life goes as we settle into our new schedules and work rhythms.
For now, come, join us. Turn into the autumn wind, and follow the raven.

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