Pain progress report 8/2021

 

 

Things are getting better for the game. I took an over 2-months break from working on the game (here I explained how I managed to get back on track) but now I enjoy designing new stuff even more than before.

GENERAL PROGRESS

• I rearranged the entire rulebook. In my previous vision, almost all lore about the game world was packed into one huge chapter, the Book of Keys. It was fun design-wise but I realized it would be a totall mess to find particular information there, despite being sorted alphabetically.
• I can't speak for other designers, but when I rearrange the old stuff in the project I'm working on, I always come up with some new ideas and re-evaluate the ones that already exist. Thus, I completely removed the descriptions of three locations (or maybe four), as I found them being too shitty. I mean, they weren't bad per se - but they were noticeably weaker than the rest. Also...
• ...I realized that I can't describe all places shown on the map. It always pissed me off in some products (I'm looking at you, World of Darkness) that everything was already fully described, leaving no place for my own ideas. Moreover - for me, things that exist only on the map and not in the world description add more mystery to the whole picture.
• So, as I kicked out three locations, I've already added two more! The Obsidian Maelstrom (for the sake of things described in the previous point, I'll leave you with the name only.... for now) is already described, the Shrines of Vortex still await being fleshed out.
• I... rather dislike detailed encumbrance rules, I always stuck with common sense. But I know that many folks prefer at least some description of how much junk can characters carry, so I added literally three sentences about it to the rules section.
• The Emblems were born - short lists of random items and quotes (mixed together) for almost each aspect of the setting. I need to make almost 500 of them, so far I have slightly over 100.
• More quotes. There will be almost no typical descriptions of the game world - everything will be presented in form of quotes. Lots of them. I managed to write about 15 new ones. I have no ideas how many quotes are already made - probably hundreds.

And all of this within one week! Which brings us to the second part of the report, which is...

THE PACING

I enjoy working on this game alot. But I enjoyed it before - and burned out. Now I must keep the right tempo and not strain myself too much. Now I try to create something new every day - but not too much. Also, I don't push myself. Right now I'm not bound by any deadlines - so I exploit this fact, haha!

Quick advice to all of you - IF YOU EVER COME UP WITH AN IDEA TO CREATE A D666 TABLE WITH AT LEAST TWO SENTENCE DESCRIPTIONS FOR EACH ENTRY - DON'T TRY TO FINISH IT IN ONE MONTH!

 

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