Letters from Afar | 12-01-24
I got a new job. It's been a lot! I'll talk more about my journey to getting that job soon, but for now, suffice to say that it's been a lot of work between starting and now, and I was grateful for the American Thanksgiving long weekend to spend some time doing nothing.
Incidentally: I had Komments on this site, but I've stopped using them - they don't quite get what I want out of a comment section, and I'll be looking for an alternative.
priscilla via ghoulnoise: there was always going to be work to do
I'm no Kilgore Trout, but I hope instead you choose to take action, use the power of free will, and keep your head above the water. I don't pretend to think that choosing not to give up is easy, or that drowning in fear or despair is "the easy choice." I've spent years of my own life, on and off, frozen by depression and anxiety. I've had days I didn't want to live through. So to anyone who finds themselves there now, be patient with yourself and know that it's ok to shut down in order to protect yourself and gather strength.
A good deep breath after the US elections.
nic via enceledean - Wheel to Wheel: Design Diary
Main thing learned: it's incredibly hard to meaningfully tweak blackjack. This was pretty obvious from the start and remained true throughout. Any game that has a meta-structure of gambling can skate by without the complexity needed to remain interesting. Hell, a lot of gambling games don't even have any decisions at all. I kept thinking that with enough small decisions over time I could overcome that, but it never happened and probably never would have.
A terrific post-mortem on a microgame by nic. I've never made a microgame of this format and this write-up got me excited to try!
Reimena Yee - The Diminishing of Exploration on the Internet
Itās like being thrown into quicksand, every 90ās kidās nightmare ā with all that sand flooding over you, itās not wise to struggle too quickly. So you stand still, letting the content pour over you. You canāt step out of that quicksand and go back out to the world with air or trees or sunshine. Itās all sand.
Towards a more considered approach to the quagmire that is the current state of the 'net.
Thomas Manuel via The Indie RPG Newsletter - Murder on Arcturus Station
When I read Arcturus Station, I have this lovely premise dripping with potential and I donāt want to puncture it. If I was running this in 2016, I wouldāve just used smoke and mirrors ā pretended that I knew which suspect did it but really I would just see what my players thought and then use that to decide. (Someone on Bluesky called it āplanning behindā rather than āplanning aheadā and I find that phrase very funny.) All these new games do as far as Iām concerned is let me be honest about my smoke and mirrors.
A fun look at an old Traveller module.
Henry Stenhouse via Restart - Looking Past Paradise - An interview with Barry Topping
āI feel like I've been trying to choose the projects I've been working on pretty carefully,ā Topping says. āI'm definitely trying to build towards something. [The Needs] only really exists because of Paradise Killer. I made it with a group of musicians that I met working on Paradise Killer. It was funded through the National Lottery via Creative Scotland. So a big part of that album being able to get funded was, I could go to a funding agency and say: āWe all worked on this game, the soundtrack was a massive success.ā
I've been relistening to the Paradise Killer soundtrack a lot and it was fun to read this interview with its creator.