Tuesday, November 26, 2019

WILD Times Ahead at DRAGONMEET?

Look out for the bald guy wearing this t-shirt!
It's less than a week until Dragonmeet in London. As I mentioned last post, this time last year I was frantically getting the pitch for my RPG, WILD, printed up and ready to give to a couple of publishers to see if they'd like to collaborate on a potential Kickstarter in the near future.



As I also mentioned last post, there was some interest but it has gone very quiet about it over the months and I need that drive - that "THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN" to keep me working on it. I've redesigned the game system, tested it, and it's going great. I just need that "THIS IS GOING TO HAPPEN" to keep me motivated to get it finished.

Anyway - there are plans, and solutions. But we'll see.

The main reason for this post is Dragonmeet. It's this Saturday (30th November) at the Novotel Hotel in London. I hope to be there for a lot of the day, and take in the seminars that Cubicle 7 and Modiphius have planned in the afternoon, but the trains are being awkward (coach replacements for part of it - uggg). I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes okay.

If you see me there - you can spot me easily, I'll be the bald guy wearing the black WILD t-shirt (see the photo at the top) - say hi! Remind me who you are if I look confused - I do talk to a lot of people online and rarely see them face to face, so I may be forgetful.

Say hello. Happy to talk about anything, so if you need a quick filler on your podcast or anything, just ask.

Above all, if you're going to Dragonmeet - have fun and stay safe.

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

WILD Dev Diary 3 - Pages and Pages

It's WILD Wednesday again, and first a little update.

This time last year I was building up to Dragonmeet. My idea was to print a pitch book that I could take with me to the convention and show to prospective publishers to show what I had in mind, to see if I could convince someone to help with a Kickstarter or other such launch. To put some money into the project to pay for some cool artwork (always a major selling point) and to help with the business end of the game's development and publication.

While my art skills are not great, I thought the book itself came out pretty well.
Within the book's pages was a summary of what the game setting was like, how I hoped the game would work, and how I envisioned the line developing and progressing - supplements and additional books, etc.

I also provided a sample from one of the chapters (character creation) so you could see how the book was structured, and how it was worded - explaining everything with parallel narratives.

Some of the sample text from within the pitch book
I thought it looked cool, and I talked to a couple of people about it at Dragonmeet. Some parties were interested, but we'll see if anything comes from that.

I talk about WILD a lot on this blog, so I figured I'd take some of the text from this pitch and place it in an easily accessible place. The buttons at the top of the page take you to my Facebook, Twitter, etc. There's a button for the Harry Potter pitch, and there's one for the WILD RPG. That takes you to a static page that I'll keep updating and expanding upon which is basically the text from the pitch book. I've put the setting information on there to start with, while I finish off the rules. Head over there and check it out if you like. I hope it gets you interested and keen to explore the WILD world a little deeper.

Who knows what this year's Dragonmeet will bring?

-

Meanwhile, my usual WILD Wednesday post is to look through the old Dev Diary that I've been carrying around for the last 7+ years.



We're still quite near the beginning, so a lot of this has changed, but it does seem like my love of square books was already showing only a few pages in. With the idea of a square book within a normal RPG sized box, which gives you space at the top for the cards/dice/etc. Of course, this is back when I was thinking of dice...

Opposite that are some early sketches of devices I'd seen in movies that read brainwaves. Looks like I was doodling the Squid device from the fantastic Strangedays movie. Ralph Fiennes was frakking amazing in that one.


Next few pages, I seem to have made some notes about Objects and Locations as Metaphors. Must remember that...

After a discussion of what happens to injuries over levels of dreaming, I made a few notes while sitting in the local library on my lunch hours. Looking at dream research and scribbling some bits about recording information from a sleeper using EEG, EOG and EMG.


This continues for a bit looking at the parts of the brain that are active during dreaming. This eventually lead to me changing how the tech looked to become a headband with elements that went behind the ears to stimulate the right parts of the frontal lobes, and the hippocampus at the core. Of course, I'm not a scientist so a lot of this is lost on me. If there are any neuroscientists out there who want to chip in, feel free.

Okay, that's enough waffling from me for a week. Until next time, dream big.