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what creative projects are you working on?
it's been a month since the last thread, so i think it's time for a new one of these. here you can share some of the projects that you're working on (of any kind, be they digital, physical, or whatever) that wouldn't really work as its own post.
I'm working on a narrative scifi puzzle game that I call Hexed Space. I have most of the 250 levels ready to go, in fact have had them for almost a year now, so I'm now concentrated on writing the somewhat branching "choose your own adventure" type story. This has been slower than I anticipated due to the number of variables that user choices can introduce, and also because of my general lack of time these past months.
But I've been working on the game for three years now (evenings and weekends mostly), so it's not like I'm in a rush or anything.
Windows, Android, and Linux? Not a fan of the Apple ecosystem, or?..
What type of gameplay does it offer? Is it a "connect three" type of a game, like Bejeweled?
Thanks for the interest!
Mac/iOS are definitely possibilities but I don't own a device that would allow me to convert the code and publish in the Apple store, or test the game for that matter.
I added a gif to the website to give you a very basic idea of the gameplay. Does it?
It does. Promises simple yet interesting gameplay, too.
Thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated!
D&D stuff! I've made a point of coming up with (on average) at least one magic item per day this year. :D I've also got a partner in this who's going to illustrate her favorites. If we both keep up with it, I want to make a PDF of 365 magic items and their illustrations out, and put it up for "sale." Quotation marks because I'm not sure what if anything I'd charge for it, or make it a pay-what-you-want deal.
Also, I'm working on way to give 5th edition and old-school feel without going overboard with pages of house rules. I plan on posting it on my blog when it's all done, with my thought process behind the decisions. Ideally I want it to be one page or less of rules modifications/options.
That sounds like a compendium of magical items to me. They sell those at quite a price, for a non-D&D player. Frankly, I wouldn't know where to look for one; Kickstarter had this particular project where they'd require a payment of $25 for access to the .PDF version.
I was thinking $5. I'm clearly underestimating the value of a dollar. But hey: I was raised a cheap-ass, and I'm paying for the good stuff I'm using. There's always gonna be someone who would pay the price you set.
One thing I've learned, though, is that if the set is good, make sure there is a price on it. When people see a well-priced item that appeals to them, they're going to enjoy using it. "Free" gets boring after a while, but when someone'd invested in the item, they did so because they wanted to enjoy it.
I was also thinking around $5 for a few reasons. It's cheap enough that people would be more willing to take a risk on it, it will probably hit the sweet spot of ~5-10¢ per page for a PDF, and (importantly) DriveThruRPG is a major hub for RPG material, and it would put me in the running for "Most Popular Under $5." If I do pretty well in that category, which is for obvious reasons less competitive, then I'd get quite a bit of free extra publicity. :p
Those are good reasons.
Still, don't cheapen out. If you aim to produce good stuff, eventually you should raise the bar. "You know we're good. You've seen our stuff. We deserve the price we put on the tags."
I have no opposition to being paid for my labor. :p And I fully know that paying someone in exposure is absolute bullshit, but as an independent creator, I kind of have to put out a portfolio of free stuff. After that, hook 'em with new titles, expanded titles, and hard copies!
That's a good point, but I wonder if it would still apply to me because I'm already going to publish stuff for free on the blog. So, if most of the content is free on the blog, then the PDF is kind of an upgrade to the free product, but compiled in one place, and probably a few bonus illustrations and expansions on the items.
Ah, well, I'll mull it over. Plenty of time before I'm done writing all these!
Yeah, I think it feels right for a bit of extra content. Maybe having ALL the items illustrated, plus some items being expanded with things like ways to use it in your game (plot hooks, variations, randomizers, etc).
If you want to see what I've got so far, here's a link! I know it's belated and in a blog that I'm slooowly reviving, but there you go. :p
And yeah, no focus on combat items, and only one sword because I thought it would be neat to have a cursed sword as a soul cursed to be a sword. I could expand that in a full version with, say, random tables for different spirits, or a minigame of trying to push or pull the sword towards a certain alignment. Just creating a cool longsword is relatively easy, IMO.
I wanted to create items that aren't necessarily cool (though I hope some are!) but interesting, and maybe something the players could use as a tool to solve problems in a creative way.
I currently trying to learn Blender, because I have a new 3D printer with which I can print high enough resolution to be worth casting jewellery from. I currently suck quite a lot but I am getting there. Model a piece a day is my goal, and try as many different styles and techniques as I can until I'm not completely terrible at it. This was yesterday's sculpted/organic style ring.
Blender is hard.
This is actually something I'm quite interested in, now that I'm going to have time to get back to jewelry work! I won't have workshop space for a while, but wanted to start with the 3-D design packages, and maybe outsource the initial prototype manufacturing to Shapeways or the like.
So the startup cost in time/money for the print-to-metal workflow is pretty hefty. The only reason I'm doing it myself is that I like to work with materials that Shapeways don't offer (unusual alloys, electrum, shibuichi, corinthian bronze and so on). If I just used silver, gold, platinum etc then I'd 100% outsource the printing/casting. No workshop needed, you can design at home and sell directly on Shapeways.
That said, happy to talk about it if you'd like. When I eventually have my production process fully working I'll do a post about it because it is pretty interesting.
A while back, I'd invested in a small kiln for precious metal clay processing - a nice compromise on the costs of a full casting setup. PMC is a pleasingly sculptable nano-particulate metal and polymer material which can easily emulate most metal and ceramic fabrication methods (alloying, shibuichi and shakudo, cloisonne', stamping, photo-etching, etc.).
But PMC is a really vexing material if you're attempting to build precise architectural forms - it's a little too plastic and slumps, or dries too quickly and cracks. I haven't seen 3-D fabrication tools that can take advantage of the extrudable clay easily or in a cost-effective manner. So I'm looking at outsourcing the casting for the 3-D parts of what I have in mind, and hand-fabricating or PMC'ing the rest, with a benchtop oxyacetylene setup for the soldering.
for my part, most of my work in the past month has been in a bunch of really complicated spreadsheets, because it turns out made up electoral stuff is pretty hard to keep track of otherwise:
also working on some written stuff, but i've yet to transfer a bunch of these from notebooks:
Currently working on a website to help gaming groups organize their events and provide an easy means of voting on what to play.
I’ve had the site in alpha for a couple game groups I know personally for years now and finally decided to rebuild the site for public use.
This is my first public site (I usually build company web apps for local network use only) so upping my privacy / security game has been my major focus.
This will also be my first attempt at monetizing a site through direct sales / subscriptions so that’s gonna be interesting as well once I get to that point in development.
Writing an RTS game while I take a break from corporate america, finishing up the 2nd draft of my sci-fi screenplay, writing a 16-bit virtual machine for fun, and I'm learning how to draw!
It's always something for me.
I thought about starting a podcast for an underground, niche sport I'm involved in. My friend bought me a real microphone after hearing my first episode so apparently this is something I'm starting this summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsLNbrs8AsQ
I also bought a chest mount for my GoPro which means I may be making BMX videos with my friend again who moved back to LA from SF. I feel like it may be an interesting time to get back into action sports in one way or another. A bad time, to be sure, as the industry is failing and bleeding money left and right... But interesting, nonetheless.
Still plugging away at trashfire Magical Girl Webcomic. I think for now I'm going to go with Webtoon as a Platform for discoverablity and I sorted out what I want to do to combat the second act slump, at least until I change everything again because I have a problem and don't want to write, only to have written. But other than that, I'm doing great!
I've been writing a fantasy web serial with my sister! It's still in the early stages, but think The Magicians crossed with Ender's game, except with hard magic and a more rational bent.
I've had issues with deadlines in the past, so now I'm working on getting it all written/edited before I start posting. The pace has really picked up lately as I've hit a stride though, so feel pretty good about that.
I'm trying to learn Synthesizer-V and Logic Pro X- so one day I can make music!