All posts in Creations

White Room

You are standing in the center of a small white room, featureless except for a speaker grille mounted high in one corner and a single blue button in the center of one wall.

> I NEED TO TAKE A BREAK FROM USING MY X-RAY VISION DREY

Command not understood. Perhaps there is another way to phrase that.

> CANT TALK— BOMBARDMENT BY KRYPTONITE

Command not understood. Perhaps there is another way to phrase that.

> EXAMINE WALL

Which wall? Please specify the north, south, west or east wall.

> EXAMINE EAST WALL

The wall is a smooth and featureless white.

> PRESS BLUE BUTTON

Click.

A burst of static precedes a man’s voice, coming from the speaker.

“What is your second question?”

> ASK “WHAT WAS MY FIRST QUESTION?”

“Your first question was, and I quote, ‘IS MY DAUGHTER SAFE?'”

“You have used your two questions. Good luck.”

The static swells momentarily and is gone.

> LOOKS DOWN TO EXAMINE ONESELF

You appear as you remember. You are whole and unharmed.

> LOOKS TO SEE IF ANYONE ELSE IS IN THE ROOM

You are alone in the room.

> LOOKS TO SEE IF WE HAVE ANY ITEMS WITH US

[Inventory]

You are carrying a Black Magic marker.

> DRAWS A DOORWAY ON THE WALL

Which wall? Please specify the north, south, west or east wall.

> DRAWS DOORWAY ON THE NORTH WALL

There is now a door in the north wall.

> ATTEMPTS TO OPEN THE DOORWAY

The door is now open. You see a red hallway to the north.

>DRAWS A DOORWAY ON THE SOUTH WALL, THEN EAST AND WEST WALLS

There is now a door in the south wall.

The ink from the marker is getting fainter.

There is now a door in the east wall.

The marker has run out of ink.

There is no ink left in the marker.

>ATTEMPTS TO OPEN DOORS

The east door is now open. You see a blue hallway to the east.

The south door is now open. You see a yellow hallway to the south.

> EXITS THROUGH THE NORTH DOORWAY

You are in a red hallway which meets an intersection to the north.

Static echoes through the hall as a voice emanates from a hidden speaker.

“Subject has exited the white room and is now moving into the red hall.”

> _

Instructions

The next post will make sense to the clever (and perhaps bored) reader. Use capital letters to indicate you understand. It will continue for as long as it has to.

A busy kingdom

It seems like there’s a flurry of activity in every facet of my life. If I were ruler of some mystical kingdom just beyond the Scintillating Sea, I might take a survey of my domain. I would discover the palace architects busy with a strange House that kept changing appearance and dimensions. The money counters are wringing their hands, suggesting we tax the peasants more, raid several neighboring kingdoms for gold, or at least beseech those that tread in heavenly realms for a boon. The royal chef is preparing strange foreign meals for the king’s whimsical diet. The High Dreamers awake daily to record detailed accounts of their journeys through the sliding seafoam beaches of silver worlds. New orders arrive regularly for the court artists, requests for portraits and windows that burn with cryptic sigils. The ambassador entertains queens visiting from faraway realms while the jester dances with the cats. The king stands in his empty bedchamber and stares out across the landscape, imagining a quiet cottage on a hill where none of the clocks work.

$13k

So I’m looking at about $13,000 to get 1000 units of House of Whack published. And it will take 3-4 months to print. Still waiting for another quote, but this gives me a good idea. I’ll also look into assembling the games myself with parts of the game supplied by different vendors. Might be cheaper, but then I’d have to assemble all the components for every game. Ack.

Manic Sunday

A manic day. Felt annoyance and even hatred for people I cared about. Cussed out a virtual stranger. Everything was overwhelming and full of possibility. Ideas unspooled from my mind, tangent upon tangent, a fractured window of possibility. Couldn’t ignore anything. Magazines unfolded the future, foretelling all manner of innovations. Couldn’t *not* think about it. Playtested the game again and things kept creeping in from the edges of the rooms, things that weren’t there, could never be there. Wine to take the edge off things. Drove home and chatted with new astonishlingly gorgeous neighbor. Sit in my apartment and sigh about distances measured in every possible way.

Happy New Year!

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I just like to believe in things enough to make them happen. So this year I think I’ll publish a game and fall in love and be more still and be more me.

Have a good one, everybody! Don’t die.

WarCon Logo

Ryan let me know that one of my logos appeared in a news story in the Montgomery Advertiser.

Carcassonne

Tonight at the Tuesday Night Gamers club, I played a game called St. Petersburg where you buy various cards that either give you more money or more points and only do so during certain rounds. Stavros and I had never played, so we got trounced by Alex and Jay, longtime players. As it turns out, Jay was one of the co-designers of the game, a fact he hadn’t mentioned. 😉

Then I got further schooled in Carcassonne, one of my favorite new games. I had been scoring the roads and cities incorrectly all this time. Jay publishes Carcassonne, so he’d know. He won that game too.

I gave him a portfolio of my artwork. Today I even mocked up a Carcassonne-esque set of tiles and put that in there. Thought it might amuse him. I’m not sure my style is a fit for Rio Grande Games, but we’ll see.

It is mine!

I won the PSP! I am SO excited! Thank you, Jason at Insomniaradio.net for picking my story! Can’t wait to play Lumines again.

Inside

It occurred to me recently that my dreams happen almost exclusively indoors. Malls, hotels, houses, vehicles, etc. All interior scenes. I never dream of being in the desert or the jungle or flying through the sky (even my flying dreams take place indoors). The one dreamlike place I used to visit that wasn’t indoors was a green hill. Now there is just a fountain of light where a tower used to be.

My stories often have many outdoor scenes involving travel and expansive locales. It seems there are two types of subconscious forces at play here: one that presents when I am passively seeking it (asleep) and one I dip into actively. There may be a balance in this, as one subconcious is aware of the other, seeking to pull it outside of its confines.