(this is a thing I used to do when I had an actual blog, where I'd talk about the progress I'd made on my writing, any issues I was working through, my process, etc. I think this is a good place to start that up again!)
so, earlier this spring, I decided to basically toss out my current draft of Before the Season Ends, because nothing it was doing was really capturing the tone I wanted, and I had sort of gone down a rabbit hole with one particular design path that ended up not being a good fit. all well and good, it happens. I made my little list of what I wanted to keep and, since I was going back to the drawing board, what I wanted to be at the core of it. IN HINDSIGHT, I don't know why I was EVER so focused on goals and achievement and advancement in a game about friendship and peer mentorship between young women, but, you know, sometimes you don't see the forest for the trees.
ever since then, I've just been at that drawing board, brainstorming about ways to mechanically represent the emotional journey I want to convey. and I really felt like I was beating my head up against this set of issues. to try to get out of that, I decided to take a bunch of games that I had bought at one point or another, because they seemed mechanically interesting, but that I hadn't actually played, and I read them through a mechanical lens, taking notes on how certain things were represented, different ways to accomplish similar things, etc.
and YESTERDAY, I had a bit of a breakthrough, while I was sat at the coffee shop intending to work on a different game entirely (also, while drinking the nastiest cappuccino I've ever had??? sincerely hope that was not a cause and effect here where gross drinks inspire good writing). and I think the very intentional reading of a wide variety of games really helped, because I feel like I know the exact seeds of where this breakthrough came from, even though it isn't directly from any one of them, which is cool!
so, that's really looking up, I just need to actually type it up (and start a fresh SRD doc since I'm tossing so much of what I did previously) to get it clear in a way that is not my chicken-scratch garbage notes in my notebook.
meanwhile I have also been working on figuring out the basic moves for Collegiate Gothic, brainstorming for Pax Deorum, and starting a simple layout for Life of the Party so that I can print up a quick playtest deck from DTRPG. I LEARNED from doing The Price of Coal, I do NOT have to do mock cards in google docs and cut them all out myself, as I did MANY times on that game. gonna set it up for POD, not make it public, and just print test decks for myself to use.
and here's what that looks like! when it comes to layout, I don't know shit about shit, but I'm having fun splashing things together in canva and seeing what looks nice. the goal was to capture "flyer or ad for a 2010s club night" and I looked at old facebook posts for local gay bars for inspiration. I'll never be "good" at layout, I don't have that kind of eye for it, but I can certainly create something functional enough for playtests, and working on this is a refreshing change of pace from beating my head on a brick wall labeled "but how does the token economy work"!
