Lately, some folks have been asking for game updates. Sure, I write my devlog, but that’s tailored to a different, more technical audience. What about the old updates? How do I feel about what I’m doing? How does the broad schedule look? Where is this damned thing going?! I’m humbled by how many friends still read my scattered thoughts. Maybe not weekly. Maybe not monthly. But periodically, some of you devour a dozen blog posts like you’re all alone with a box of donuts. If that describes you, I can only give a meager “thanks!” — inadequate to show my gratitude, but the best I can do from all the way over here. I love that you’ve joined my adventure. If you’re reading this now — yes you, right now — please, reach out to me. Drop me a line through email or Facebook or Twitter. Do it. I’m serious! If I’ve affected your life to the point that you’re following this blog, it means that you’ve also impacted me. Keeping close friendships over great distances is a bitch. And, sometimes, my head is so firmly in the sand that I don’t connect with the people I like the most. Please, let’s chat! I want to know how you’re doing, too.
As for the game, I’m mercifully seeing a pinprick of light at the end of the long tunnel. I’m nowhere close to reaching it, and I must have been walking the wrong way for a long time, but finally I can do more than just feel my way through the dark. I have a broad outline for all my of stories and how they interconnect. I have a more precise draft of the first story. I’ve even written the very first scene! Which means I have a better estimate of when the game will be complete. But it’s also revealed a possible need: I may have to hire an artist. Not right away — definitely not before I get home in October. But, in order to get this thing finished by a reasonable deadline — including time for QA testing and touring the expo circuits — I might require outside help. There’s nothing definite now, but if you’re reading this and would like some details, shoot me a line and we’ll talk.
How am I otherwise? Happy. Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate, but today I woke up feeling like Robert Frost in his poem Birches. I realize that I’m doing exactly what I want to do. And if I were given the chance, I’d do it all over again. I’ll leave you with my favourite lines from the end of it. Have a good week!
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
Background image “Snowy Birches” by Corwinhee
Excerpt from Birches by Robert Frost
