The first month of 2021 is just about over, and I’m doing a little retrospective/postmortem/whatever on what I got up to this month!
AI (and Personality)
I made and released this small project that got a bunch of nice comments (both on the itch page and on twitter). It was a very satisfying expression and exploration of using the videogame form to express personalities.
It was easy to do it in this simple form; everyone knows Tic-Tac-Toe and it was trivial for me to predict what a player might enjoy having acknowledged! Doing it in a larger, longer game is a lot harder, but still, I’m inspired to keep trying.
Playtesting (in Paradise)
I’ve been working on a strange little game about a raccoon building a computer called Yrkkey’s Paradise for a couple of months now! Starting with HANDMADEDEATHLABYRINTH issue 0, I have been more consciously and intentionally seeking out playtesters, responding to playtests throughout the process to fix up issues with my games before releasing them — rather than after, or… at all. 😅
With the way I design games, I really only need a couple of playtest reports before I’ve changed enough to date any further reports on the same build, so pacing myself has been hugely important: not sending a particular version out to as many people as possible, but sending it to 3-4 individuals at a time and then very quickly making changes to fix up problems that I couldn’t have noticed on my own.
(Or ones that I would have been too stubborn to acknowledge :P)
playtests for Yrkkey’s Paradise are now closed, but if you’re interested in helping me out by giving feedback on my future works-in-progress you can join my new discord; i’ll be doing a “playtest” for an experimental collab zine/comic soonish. is it really a playtest if it’s for something you read though? hmm
Posting more!
The blog posts have been coming back! In case you missed them, you can read all of January’s posts here; they have all fit into the Brain Problems category — I’m hoping to have fewer brain problems, but I spend a little too much time self-analyzing and ruminating 😛
Speaking of ruminating on brain problems…
This month I’ve been trying to post things to the internet with a little more intent, and part of that was thinking about the platforms I’m on, but most of that was about what I choose to put up. I don’t browse twitter much anymore, and you might have noticed(?) I’ve been trying to tweet once a day (-ish), on things I’ve accomplished and/or found creatively inspiring, saving my more meandering and personal thoughts (my brain-problem-like ruminations) for this blog (or, even better, the zine!)
I won’t go into it too much, but: it feels like a healthier way for me to share those deeper and more complicated thoughts.
End of January
Thanks for reading. I’m still feeling out whether I’m going to do one of these every month, but it felt like a good way to start out 2021.
The format is nice when I have lots to talk about, but I can’t help but think I should have a bit more focus – if only my life was more easily summed up and stuck under a nice singular friendly heading! Ahhh!!!