Greetings again, travellers!
As we are at the beginning of a quarter, I thought it might be a good motivator to list some of my first quarter goals for 2018. Obviously there are going to be some writing goals in there, but there are also some game and design goals as well (I haven't forgotten that this site is technically my "Level Design" portfolio). So here is the list of goals for the next few months:
- Finish the roughs on the first 5 episodes
- Find a copy editor
- Collect my beta readers
- Get things to my beta readers
- Outline the world settings and timelines for table top RPG
- Research open table top game engines
- Decide on an engine for the game
- Finish building 5 books (Bookbinding projects)
- Build one miniature set (Miniature crafting)
- Build 10 digital assets for the set (3D Modeling)
- Record voice demo
- Start a vlog or podcast
- Finish the Borderlands Pre-Sequel and the BioShock Infinite DLC
- Write these blogs in advance of Wednesday night...
Now I know I've got more goals than that, and that it may not be possible to complete all of them. However, these are the things I am working toward; the steps along the path.
Another thing I would like to touch on this week is hobbies. I think it's important for people to have hobbies, and the one I've picked up over the last year was bookbinding. So far I have completed four and half books. It started as a project from 2016 when I made myself a custom planner binder. From there I wanted to design my own notebook to jot down my ideas wherever I was, so I made a pocket sized notebook. Now I'm creating a few as fun gift ideas.
Anyway, what I'm getting to is that my new hobby last year was to make books, and this year I've settled on the idea of creating miniature sets. They will be of both the settings of the stories, but also for game design locations as well. I'm imagining a sort of stop motion game play on a constructed miniature set photographed at angles like a point-and-click adventure or hidden-object game. I'm still decided on which one to do first. I thoroughly enjoyed building my booth miniature a while back for my portfolio show, and I'm itching to do some more.
Lastly, as I want to start playing more games (in addition to designing and programming them), I'm adding a section to each blog where I will go over what games I've played since the last blog.
This week I've clocked in some time on Star Wars: The Old Republic (I should probably add a goal to actually finish one of the story lines...), and participated in an excellent first round of a D&D campaign (We've just started Storm King's Thunder on Roll20; I'm playing a warlock).
Sadly, as the planned family game night had to be postponed this week, I didn't get any board games in this week. We've rescheduled though, so there's still hope for next week.
Until then, keep thinking, writing, creating, and being awesome!