I want each text adventure I write to have a unique flavor. Mechanics aside, the story behind it should be fresh, typically built from a single idea, and the more I write the more my mind recognizes these singular bits of inspiration. One thought or phrase is typically enough for me to build a world from: sitting down with a thought, then branching out from the initial point in whatever way my mind flows. I’m going to discuss how this process worked for each of the four text adventures I’ve written and released so far, and try to dissect what I learned in the process. In the next post, I’ll focus more on the thought process (or lack thereof) that went into developing some of the game mechanics around these ideas.
Continue reading “Text Adventures Part 2: The Idea”Text Adventures Part 1: Why I Write Them
I’ve written several in-person text adventures modeled after Parsely games over the past couple of years. Through persistent effort, I’ve managed to improve them and recently began to notice a particular style develop. Since I’m finally pleased with where they are headed, I figured I would document my journey in writing them: Why I write them, how I find ideas, how I develop those ideas, and the actual mechanisms of making a document as reference. This whole set of posts will probably be four parts over the next month. So we start off at the beginning: Why did I start writing these, and why am I still writing these?
Continue reading “Text Adventures Part 1: Why I Write Them”Tommyball Princess
I really enjoy the Unmade Podcast with Brady Haran and Tim Hein. They generate some wonderful ideas, and the fact that it’s two old friends hanging out reminds me of the conversations (and podcasts) I have with my own friends.
One particular bit that has been ongoing in special episodes is Tommyball. It’s a fictional sport with no clear rules (it’s essentially Calvinball), and in these special episodes it’s Brady interviewing Tim, who plays the role of a conceited former player, and current commentator, of Tommyball. The most recent episode has Tim reading the audiobook of his recently released autobiography.
Tickled by this general idea, I decided I would write my own few chapters of a biography for Tim. It was a fun evening making it, and I figured it would be good to post here. You can download the PDF below.
The Last Question RPG
I mentioned in my previous post about creativity during quarantine that I was working on writing a new game. I’ve been interested in trying to write something that moved away from text adventures and went into open-world RPGs. I’ve been inspired both by the Republic Commandos game run by Mikhail on an episode of OHAC (and in-person during college), as well as the Campaign Podcast he recently got me into.
Continue reading “The Last Question RPG”Creative Quarantine
Maybe artists and writers of centuries past had it right, that isolation and odd situations gives a creative surge. Being cooped up at home more than usual has led me to seek out more novelty, and with that has come a desire to create that novelty myself. Over the past weekend I messed around more with Garageband on my iPad, and wrote a small RPG (which I’ll post about once I play it this weekend.)
Having a hectic schedule due to work has also caused things to move around in my head. I’ve lost my routine for a while, and though I’m eager to reestablish it this upcoming week, having things shaken up has given me a lot to think about. Of course, implicit in all this is that I’m in a privileged position that allows me to take advantage of the current situation, and other people are not so lucky. But I am still happy to count the creative outcomes of this situation among my blessings.
Won and Done?
I officially “won” NaNoWriMo as of writing this post on November 23.
Fighting Through Burnout
As I mentioned last week, I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month. As of writing this blog post I’ve reached 37,000 words in my novel, which I’m quite happy about. I found the first week or so pretty easy to manage, and I consistently went above the official daily word goal.
The last week has been a bit tougher. I set a personal daily goal of 2000 words, and I have managed to hit it every day so far. But it’s been tough at times. Many nights I’ll have only written 800 words or so, and think about just calling it for the day since I’m ahead of the official mark. But part of this month is being disciplined on my own; the official goals aren’t that meaningful, they are just a guide. I want to do this with internal motivation, that’s the real challenge.
One trick, or probably more of a strange placebo, that I have found works is using an app like Forest (or really, just some count-down timer) to do what cool writers call “word sprints”. I’ve found fifteen minutes is the sweet spot for me. I get locked into trying to write as much as I can in fifteen minutes, which is really the length of a YouTube video that’s a bit longer than average. It’s a unit of time I can easily wrap my head around. And in each sprint I tend to get at least 500 words. I then take a short break, and repeat again. I’m not sure why it works, but it doesn’t leave me feeling burned out; I tend to feel more energized in my writing after accomplishing one.
I don’t have much else to say (I’m in the middle of one of those days where I’m at about 1200 words and it’s 9:30 pm) except try playing around with ideas for avoiding burnout. I find that setting up systems to avoid short-term fatigue can be incredibly beneficial in staving off long-term issues as well.
National Novel Writing Month
November is National Novel Writing Month, referred to as NaNoWriMo by the cool kids. The official goal of the event is to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel. More loosely, it’s to write 50,000 of some novel (perhaps you’re finishing last year’s, or revising your current one.) Or if you’re not in the novel game, maybe just write 50,000 words. Or write a graphic novel with some constraint. In reality, it’s an event designed to get people writing and to build the habit of writing every day. The word goal is just to encourage you to silence your inner editor for a while, and let your brain throw crap on paper.
That’s exactly what I’m doing. You can keep track of my progress by going to the NaNoWriMo page (linked in the sidebar menu). There you will find a PDF of my work updated each night. I don’t have any cool live word-counter (the updates on the website require you to have an account to view), but I suppose if you really cared you could copy and paste from the PDF and check.
As of writing this post (the evening of 11/9) I’m at around 20,500 words, which is a bit ahead of pace. I’m aiming to be done around November 20 if possible, to avoid needing to do anything while traveling around Thanksgiving. If all goes according to plan, I’ll have at least another 2,000 words by the time this is posted on Monday morning, and maybe even be halfway done by Monday night.
I’m sure this is not something most people are interested in, but it can be good to have an excuse to let your creativity flow a bit more than you may allow it to, or may allow time to. For me, I’m spending most of my free time that I would normally spend on podcasts or other media just writing. It’s been fun so far, and I hope to keep up the pace.