…So, it’s been a while.
Pretty soon after I started this blog, my Nana (Z”L) fell seriously ill. She passed a few weeks ago, among her family, about a week before Christmas. I’ve taken the time between Thanksgiving and New Years to focus on my family, and give myself time to grieve. With the new year beginning, though, it’s time to come back to work and searching for a games studio to call home, and that means working on my professional blog.
I intend to write one post a day for the foreseeable future. As a disabled, chronically ill, person with a part-time job, I know that life will get in my way. I hope, as readers, you’ll extend patience and understanding to me when I miss days, and that you’ll celebrate with me when I reach my goals.
In order to help me meet my goals, I plan to implement a number of series to direct my creative efforts:
- Unsolicited Design Sunday: A day to share custom Magic the Gathering cards I’ve created and speak on the state of MTG design. Unless there’s groundbreaking news in the MTG sphere like the Pinkertons being sent to someone’s house again, MTG commentary will wait for Unsolicited Design Sunday, so that this isn’t just an MTG fanblog. I think MTG is one of the greatest games to use as an example for discussing lots of game design concepts, though, so it’s worthy of a day of its own every week. All Unsolicited Design Sunday posts will feature at least one original card design, so go to the Unsolicited Design tag to see my original MTG card designs, or avoid it if you can’t look at those!
- Traveller Tuesday: I’m currently designing a setting bible for a Traveller campaign based on a redesigned (Rimward) Gvurrdon and (Coreward) Spinward Marches. Taking inspiration from decades of Traveller design and stepping forward in a new direction, Traveller Tuesday will showcase sections of that project covering a wide variety of topics like speculative worldbuilding, conlanging (the process of creating a language for use in a fictional world), and setting design focused on playability and fun for a modern audience. This project will show that I have what it takes to design worlds that are engaging and exciting to explore for players of all kinds.
- Tabletop Thursday: On Tabletop Thursday, I’ll highlight all sorts of games meant to be played offline, from board games to card games to TTRPGs. From reviews and suggested modifications to existing games, to design ideas for my own games, to articles about the principles and ideas for making games for in-person play, Tabletop Thursday is offline, but not disconnected.
- Sprite Art Saturday: One of my passions is for creating sprite art that is clean and clear even at low resolutions. I generally work at sizes as low as 16×16 or 32×32. I’ve also worked on emulating styles I admire like Pokemon, Undertale, and Backpack Hero. Sprite Art Saturdays will feature original sprites I’ve created under a CC BY 4.0 license–meaning they are free to use, distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon with credit to me.
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will be free days where I can talk about anything that strikes my fancy! News in the games industry, design ideas, reviews of games I’ve played, discussions of the history of various issues and techniques in gaming, and more are all fair game–the only things I won’t post on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday are original MTG card designs and original sprite art under CC BY 4.0.
Thank you to everyone who is still following me for your patience, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Traveller Tuesday, when I’ll talk more about my goals for the Traveller Tuesday project and introduce you to my philosophy for long-term projects.