Projects Update, April 2016

Just after I released Oddpool in September, I wrote a short post about the various projects that were on my to-do list stuck on the wall next to my desk. Following something that I had seen Warren Ellis do in his regular mailing list email, I had decided to give them "cute" or "vague" names, descriptors that might only be tangentially related. Over the last six or so months my priorities and interests have changed, so here's my updated list of names and where I am now:

• Project STUDIO3: this is Issue 3 of A Random Encounter, where the focus is Vandel J. Arden. I've interviewed Vandel already, and now that Issue 2 is out, I'm starting the transcription process. This is on track for a mid-June release.
• Project STUDIO4: Issue 4 of A Random Encounter. I did the interview for this yesterday, and I'm aiming for mid-August for this one.
• Project OORT: I'm working on Into The Oort slow and steady; I didn't have the time or focus until recently to put the hours into this, but I'm getting there. It's taking longer than I thought, but it's coming...
• Project ESCAPE2: this will be the updated version of the print extra that came with Issue 2 of A Random Encounter. It's a little A5 micro-game. I had a lot of fun playing it recently, and I've heard from others who are going to give it a go soon. I think it's pretty good, but as part of another project (TBA) I'm interested in making this as slick and well-presented as possible.
• Project SHADES: this has morphed from what I had envisaged originally, but I still see this as a near-future, gritty, Cyberpunk-y sort of thing. Expect to see something of this over the coming months.
• Project JAGD: a recent idea for a one-shot game. It has phases that I'm trying to link together, but is sort-of random, sort-of procedurally generated. Like so many things in life and games, it's about the journey. Expect to see something of this over the coming months.

These are the things in my head at the current time, and I think my wife and I are going to also be working together on the writing for Project SOLO, which I mentioned in the last post. You'll hear more about STUDIO3, STUDIO4 and OORT in due course: out of the others mentioned here, which do you want to hear more about?

Codenames

I mentioned yesterday that I have a sheet of paper stuck on the wall next to my desk. It lists the various projects that have floated through my mind and made it as far as "huh, that might work..." Some of these are things that readers of the blog (before the longish hiatuses) might recognise, and some people from G+ might recognise one or two others. Some, I think, you will not recognise or guess at all. Here are my project codenames with some brief teasers:

• Project PARRISH: a really random encounter, a game within a game.
• Project ALMANAC: mentioned this on the blog... Now thinking this might be best as a crowdsourced thing.
• Project SOLO: started thinking about this after Dave and I played some choose-your-own-adventure books on A Gaming Podcast About Nothing.
• Project VINGT: a regular zine idea that just never quite came together in my head. But maybe it's time to look at it again...
• Project SANTA: putting together the very first D&Dish thing I created and ran, a Christmas themed adventure. My wife thinks I should focus on getting this finished by the middle of November and released.
• Project SHADES: half an idea for a system-and-setting wide hack of LotFP. Good old fashioned OSR-y mechanics, in a not-too-distant-future...
• Project OORT: if you've read this blog before you'll know what this is!
• Project STUDIO1: something I'm working on now, which has a real working title but I'm not quite settled yet. Expect an announcement in the next couple of weeks.
• Project POOL: Oddpool. So that's one done!
• Project BANK: a microgame, just trying to get the mechanics right, but the core idea has been unchanged for about two years...
• Project HOBOES: a hack of a two player game that I like, but a radically different setting. Needs work, but I have a general map that is about 80% solid.

And that's everything on the wall at the moment. Am hopeful that Project STUDIO1 will be finished by Christmas, and am very tempted to check my notes and materials for Project SANTA, see how far I got. I need to settle on something for Project BANK and just try the damn thing, see if I like it at least. And Project OORT... I'll try to start blogging more of that soon!

More importantly: time to pick one or two small projects, do them, learn something and carry on.