mmrempen's recent activity

  1. Comment on Looking for a simple lists app in ~tech

  2. Comment on Looking for a simple lists app in ~tech

    mmrempen
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    I use Workflowy and can highly recommend it. It’s extremely minimalistic (speaking as a fellow easily distractable and annoyable goblin brain), it has infinite nesting, a drag and drop UI (or easy...

    I use Workflowy and can highly recommend it. It’s extremely minimalistic (speaking as a fellow easily distractable and annoyable goblin brain), it has infinite nesting, a drag and drop UI (or easy keyboard controls if you prefer that), the lists can look like a simple list or kanban board (including nested inside each other), and it has other features like tags and such that I never need but which I’m sure are useful. It works great on mobile and desktop (including in-browser if you find yourself on a foreign computer) and syncs across everything. I used to use the apple notes app but Workflowy is my life now.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Are there any of you living off of creating original art? in ~creative

    mmrempen
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    I'm a self-employed cartoonist and game designer. I publish a weekly web comic which I've done since 2011, and in 2020 it was picked up by an app for publication, and now they pay me for each...
    • Exemplary

    I'm a self-employed cartoonist and game designer. I publish a weekly web comic which I've done since 2011, and in 2020 it was picked up by an app for publication, and now they pay me for each strip I post. It's not crazy money but it's one revenue stream. My other major revenue stream is self-published tabletop games. In 2017, on a lark, I crowdfunded a card game based on my web comic on Kickstarter, and it was surprisingly successful. I've made a few more games, all illustrated, designed or co-designed, and published by me, all crowdfunded on Kickstarter, and I've since quit my job to focus on that full time. I don't know what your definition of art is, but if board games and illustration for them counts, then I guess I do make a living off my own creative endeavours, directly to an audience of fans. I'm my own boss.

    But here's the first caveat: I wouldn't call it "uncompromising." I wear multiple hats, as a publisher, designer, illustrator, graphic designer, marketer, logistics manager, product developer, etc etc etc, and each of those roles are in communication with the other roles, so it's a give and take. There are compromises at every step of the way. My creative ideas are always being scrutinized by my publisher self, and vice versa. I do have a lot of freedom and I do only publish things I'm happy with, but my bar for satisfaction is not "great art," it's "a thing people will get excited about and buy and play and enjoy." Personally I quite like this about it; I find it much easier to be creative within those restrictions and requirements than having complete freedom to do absolutely anything and no external metric for success.

    The second caveat is, comics and games were never my dream or passion. I always wanted to be a film director, since I was a kid. I went to film school, I lived and worked in and around the film industry my entire life - until the comic started getting a somewhat serious following that eclipsed my film work, and especially after it started making me more money than my film work ever did. I love working in comics and games now, don't get me wrong - the industry is kinder, the stakes are lower, the pond is smaller and easier to be a big fish in - but it was entirely unexpected. I started the comic as a small thing for friends and family to read, and I published the game expecting to print 100 copies and that would be it. Instead, I got a bit of luck, and I took the chance to turn that luck into something more steady. In doing so, I effectively closed off the route to my true lifelong passion.

    So it's worth thinking of creative work like lightning rods: you want lightning to strike, so the more rods you put up into the air, the better chance you'll have. If you work really really hard on a single rod, the chances are lower than if you spend the same amount of time putting out many different rods. This is why in my experience, more prolific creators are more successful, and also why quality =/= success. But of course there's always the chance that NONE of them will be struck, and that's just the way it goes! And then, even if lightning does strike, you've got to be able to actually run a business, as well, which has vanishingly little to do with artistic craft and almost everything to do with understanding the marketplace. And even THEN, you've got to keep putting up rods. It's a neverending struggle to get hit again and again and again.

    But it's possible, and I gotta say, I wouldn't give it up for the world. Every day I'm grateful that I get to go down to my at-home office to draw my weird little drawings and dream up ways for people to play games. I'm living the dream :)

    17 votes

  4. Comment on An Israeli and a Palestinian discuss 7 October, Gaza – and the future in ~society

    mmrempen
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    I would love to play that board game.

    I would love to play that board game.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on Which board games have you been playing? (to 24th July) in ~games.tabletop

    mmrempen
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    This week was a family get together in the mountains, and as usual it fell to me to bring the games. I brought a bunch, mentally preparing for none of them to get played - and all but one did!...

    This week was a family get together in the mountains, and as usual it fell to me to bring the games. I brought a bunch, mentally preparing for none of them to get played - and all but one did! Thanks, rain.

    The only one I hadn’t played before was Ra, the new 25th Century Games edition of which was brought over by my brother from the US. It’s SUCH an amazing production. I especially like Ian O’Toole’s use of vibrant blues and turquoise in the artwork. So many ancient Egypt themed games just go with bland beige. This is the first one that looks like how hieroglyphics must have actually been painted. Or at least, how they were in my head! And of course the game is an absolute banger, but everyone knows that. Modern Art is one of my favs so I had a feeling this would be a winner as well. It was the only game my family requested playing multiple times.

    Others were Star Wars: Outer Rim (fun but I really need to get that expansion to ease some of its rough edges. Just can’t find it here in the EU right now!) and Pan Am (picked this up at UKGE this year, my mom worked for Pan Am toward the end of their reign and, as I was hoping, she had many fascinating anecdotes to share during our game. The game itself is pretty good, a nice TTR replacement, if punishing at 4 players with so few actions and so many opportunities for other players to waste yours). Lighter games that hit the table were Fantasy Realms, Cockroach Poker and Cat Crimes. All solid light family winners.

    The only one that didn’t see table time was The Quiet Year, which I’ve not tried but I’m very curious about. We didn’t find the time. Maybe later this week…