Hello everyone–

I’m wishing you a pleasant start to the New Year…! I have a couple quick announcements to share. A few people have reached out to me recently, and even while not releasing new projects people are still checking out my work, so I want to show that I honor your attention with some new developments.

I took most of 2021 off from making new projects. Believe it or not, I make games (both tabletop and video games) for my day job, and considering my other interests this left me little time to design and release games “just for fun.” It seems like there are already plenty of garage games coming out every day, so it’s not like one designer falling off the wagon for a while is a great loss.

Things will soon be evolving on that front, and I’ll be finding myself not necessarily more time and energy for game design, but perhaps less of an opportunity. So as I see it, now is the time to delve into some of the personal projects I’d held in my mind for the longest time, both with video games and with tabletop game design.

Regarding Video Game Design: My First Video Game Obsession
For nearly two decades now, I’ve had one unfulfilled, nagging idea calling out to me from the back of my mind. I began to wonder if it would be possible to remake a game called Space Dungeon, which I first played as a child in 1982 or so (does anyone else out there know the Atari 5200 console…?). As a child of 7 or 8 years old, I became -obsessed- with exploring all the dungeon chambers, and seeing if I’d be able to collect all the treasures from every single stage.

For a time, this seemed far beyond my league. I have not attended any formal schooling in video game design, and most of the time I use a fantastic tool - Clickteam Fusion - to make games while not knowing a lick of programming language. However, with growing skills, curiosity, confidence, and actual technical solutions - most-recently realized in 2020’s Spidarena - I managed to create a twin-stick engine for a top-down arcade game.

I’ll be creating my remake of Space Dungeon with this engine, modified to accommodate other features of the original, such as smooth scrolling to additional chambers in the dungeon: another technical hurdle that I see as a step up from the original.

In any case, the early part of 2022 will be occupied with my efforts to release my love letter to Space Dungeon. At this time, it’s unclear if I will have time to release much else in terms of video games.

Regarding Video Game Design: Roll n’ Write In My Future
Since the mid-‘00s I’d developed a preoccupation with tabletop game design. After over 20 years as a player and then referee/DM of AD&D role-playing games, I shifted my attention to smaller-scale board and card games I could play with family and friends. I met a tremendous number of curious, interesting, and intelligent, good-hearted people in the game design world, and I’m still friends with many of them today.

Even after the pandemic essentially shut down in-person game design meet-ups and conventions, I was still able to keep my interest and ability for game design alive. I also became aware of a sub-genre of games, called “roll n’ write,” where players use cards or dice to create that measure of randomness to set the stage for the player, and then the player tries to make some decent lemonade from the lemons that fate had dealt to them. :)

The best and I feel strongest feature of the genre, however, is that most of the time, the primary components of roll n’ write games are a sheet of paper and something to write with: a pen or pencil. Personally, I feel there is still plenty of strategy, surprise, and good times to be had without spending money and other resources on fanciful plastic components and matte-finished chipboard tokens.

It’s with this in mind that I’ve decided that I will release Coal N’ Write, a game about prospecting in the Wild West in the late 1800s: digging up rich stuff, fending off bandits, and hauling it back to the Boom Town to make a name for yourself. This has been in development for several years, and represents the culmination of what I’ve learned so far in terms of game design, as well as the value of collaboration with other designers: both in-person as well as virtual environments.

CNW is also a game that supports games with large groups (the largest playtest group on record was 11 people at once) all the way down to a solo game - another personal favourite genre of mine. Being able to have a captivating game experience for groups of nearly any size is also a priority I hold dear. Sometimes you want to play on your own, while sometimes you’re hanging out with your friends and family, and want to throw some dice around.

I intend to release Coal N’ Write in early 2022, likely in time for my birthday in mid-February. The initial version will have my own artwork, while any money generated by contributions through itch.io will be invested into hiring a legit graphic designer to create art assets that are several steps ahead of my own capabilities. It’s a way to increase the value of an already affordable, accessible game with an even better visual package.

So that’s all for now! These are two significant projects on the horizon for me in 2022. If you’ve read this far, know that I appreciate the time you’ve spent to make it here. :)

Should you have any suggestions or words of wisdom, I’m all ears for it. Take care, and make the most of what the New Year deals out to you.