Ashley Newell
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Autobiographical Recap - The Road So Far

9/14/2024

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I intended to make a small self-promotion post on social media. I don't to them often because it feels pushy to me, but starting into my new journey on Threads, I figured I needed to introduce myself in some form. So I took this picture of my publications and started talking about them. And then my character count got very out of hand.

My paragraphs turned into pages, the lengths of which are far to much to ask anyone doom scrolling to endure. So why not stick it all here, in one safe place, and then? After all, I mostly use this space so that I can refer to my own history. What I wrote, when, and what happened to it -- my Dory brain just doesn't keep up. So this small part of my life story can live here too, parts that I don't want to forget.
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My first short story won Honourable Mention in the Tall Tales and Short Stories contest and was included in the published anthology Tall Tales and Short Stories Vol 2 in 2004. My story is called “Brother of All Brothers”, a story I wrote for grade 8 English. I had struggled with school for a lot of my elementary years, “illiterate in two languages” I tell people, but there were many factors for that. I was with the same group of peers the whole time I lived in my hometown, and this story marked the first time that I felt I had finally lived up to people who were always smarter, prettier, and more popular. I was suddenly getting good at something; my story was one of 2 that were read aloud in class by my teacher, Mr. Botton, as the top of the class. That’s the only reason I was confident enough to submit it to the contest in the first place. The story itself isn’t particularly amazing, I had no sense of period, mostly just an abundance of British dramas and Titanic books. But it was an accomplishment that I held onto for the next 10 years: “I’m going to be a writer!” 

I wrote A LOT. I wrote short stories. I wrote novels. I even wrote radio commercials, 3 of which were used and aired! I wrote the way most people write their first works: heavily influenced by the books and movies I was consuming, very loose plotlines, and motivation existing simply in the realm of “because!”. I thought my first full-length novel would have been literary gold as the new Tolkien (Hey, Lord of the Rings was VERY popular at the time!), and thank god a very nice publisher rejected me gently, “It still needs a bit more polishing, and I’m not sure that I’m capable of guiding you in the right direction with it at this time, but keep writing.” It didn’t smash my dreams, I just kept writing. Thanks Mr Van Bakel. That story was crap, we both know it, but parts of it lived on. 
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When I reached university, I had a plethora of fantasy stories under my belt, because I was going to be a fantasy author, of course! And yet I found myself with a vivid idea, stemming really from my own juggling of the art I wanted to make and the complex relationships I was starting to perceive differently. So I wrote about a movie director who just wanted things to be real. I wrote about a girl who was working really hard to get by, desperate to weigh what “was right” vs what felt right. And a former child actor who couldn’t live up to what was expected of him — until he could. I think this was the first novel I made where I wasn’t aiming to fit a genre or trope, I just about people. I had never written quite like that before, and it fit so well. I wasn’t forcing dragons and fancy-named new creatures, and medieval battles; it was just people. And so that was the one I felt was ready to publish. I spent years revising it. My development helpers and alpha readers were down to just giving me grammar notes instead of lists of questions. Self-publishing was the new craze, made so easy and partnered with the new novel writing challenge that doesn’t need to be named here. So I went that route, for better or for worse, who knows. And then I just kept writing. 

The fantasy writing? It never stopped. I got more detailed. I dove into character development and suddenly the complicated lists of creatures got cut away, the dragons hardly appeared at all. But it wasn’t ready yet. I’d written it out in full 3 times up ‘til then. Other than my closest confidants as readers, I knew it wasn’t ready yet. 
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I finished my undergraduate degree, ran away to England for a spell, and came back to Canada to take my Education degree. Stories aplenty floating in my head; some written, some not, few finished. I distinctly remember sitting in one of my Diversity in Education classes, led by a remarkable retired principal who worked in some of the hardest hit socio-economic demographic schools in our area.

Sometimes things change slowly like ripples, and sometimes they change like tsunamis. The course was created to give acknowledgement to the stories of under-represented youths, as many of us pre-service teachers came from privilege, and certainly some more than others. I’m from a northern community, and it was mind-boggling to me that I was sitting in a room of post-degree adults who were learning about Residential Schools for the first time – before the topic entered curriculum by force. We were learning about supports for students with Autism before the “classroom integration” model was enforced. And we learned about gender normative narratives, and that, my friends, was a bit of ignorant bias I didn’t realize I had – but it made perfect sense. This was before the pronoun debate entered schools, and we were still trying to give voice to student-run Gay-Straight Alliance groups. It was a simple concept. Dr. Burgess just said, “can you imagine the books and movies you see not being heteronormative?”

​I wasn’t planning on doing anything author-related with that information, but as a brain exercise I dug up one of my discarded ideas – The Hunger Games were very popular at the time, and I had a vague notion of a love-triangle story that took place in a dystopian prison-like-setting, but the characters weren’t people to me yet, they had no personalities, and no purpose. It was a low-risk opportunity to play around with an idea that I was still growing comfortable with (I’d like to think I’ve made some progress in this department!). I took my lack-of-personality young heroine and made her a boy. The moment I did that, the characters revealed themselves to me! They had names, they had faces, they had strong, passionate desires. Jos was fiercely protective of the younger, more naive Dotan, and Dotan passed that nurturing compassion onto his flat of roommates, earning him the nickname “Blanky” as he stayed up at night cradling Blue during his medical fits. It’s a full male cast, and I had no further agenda when writing it other than to tell their love story. 

It was only afterwards, looking back, that I took any notice of the flip against what we now call “toxic masculinity” (it wasn’t a catch-phrase at the time). When I went on to write the sequel, it was one of my readers who’d bought my books at the local Expo, who came to praise me about flipping the narrative. “You never see boy characters deal with depression through cutting in books, it’s only ever girls. Thank you for showing that boys suffer in secret too.” It wasn’t a mission of mine, it’s just what Dotan had to do. Maybe because he started in the body of a girl he ended up with some form of twin-spiritness, or maybe that’s just how he is. He was always just Dotan to me. I never tried to make him more feminine or masculine. I just tried to make him real. And while there are things about that story I would probably write differently these days, those three characters and how they cared for each other, I’d never tamper with. That was who they needed to be, and how they are forever.

And this is where things come to a halt. Children. I did what I could. I participated in writing challenges after another. More re-writing of that epic fantasy story that I still couldn’t quite get right. Maybe write the prequel? Maybe that will help me figure out the missing pieces? It hasn’t gone well. And between 9 years of teaching and having 3 babies of my own, I admitted to myself that I wasn’t a novelist anymore. I just couldn’t do it. 


 Life sometimes makes you shift focus. It feels like failure in the moment, but these lessons have a way of coming back around when you don’t catch it the first time. As I recently said to a complete stranger facing their own writing hurdles: the magic isn’t gone forever, it just sprinkles itself around in the places it needs us to discover. I won’t go into the years of feeling like I’d lost myself; because in truth I’m not sure I’ve ever fully come out of that, but I did find some easier ways to get some of that magic back. Games. 
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I’d been designing games with my friends almost as long as I’d been making-up stories, but I didn’t really consider publishing one. Opportunity comes in strange places sometimes. My husband, also a teacher, wanted to make a game that could be used as an educational resource to help with math skills, but as an actual game, not a fancy flashcard set. As us being board gamers, we tested his design for the “fun”. It was a game first and foremost. And it worked wonders for math skills, too! He took the game seriously enough to pursue developing it professionally, but it’s a strange market to make an educational game, not a lot of people know what to do with such a thing and even fewer are looking to offer a publishing contract for one. So he made it himself. Hired a local artist and got himself a business license to make his own company. And that opened up a new outlet for me. I designed games. I have dozens of designs sitting in their paper forms in this house, and have consulted on all of his designs too. 

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Then he got a crazy idea. What if we could make a game based on something popular? And I LOVE a good challenge. Within 24 hours I had a game concept to propose to him, and within the week I had a playable prototype. He knew nothing about the show or the books, so he played the game, and loved it. And then we took it to other gamers who knew nothing about the books or the show, and they gave their stamp of approval for the game. So the next natural step was to find out if it was worthy of a license. We didn’t think they’d say yes. We’re a kitchen table company. But they said yes. The license is expired now, the games out of print, but for a brief moment in time, I felt like I was attached to something impossible. Little ol’ me, still chasing those stamps of approval, and somehow it worked.

That was the next confidence boost I needed. My tired and broken mom-brain, my piles and piles of unfinished and abandoned story projects, and yet, I made the magic work. So what else could I do?


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​    I wrote small. Flash fiction pieces for contests and challenges. Just enough to keep me eager to solve another puzzle like with my board game design; how do I fit these unlikely themes into something cohesive? So when a submission came along for short story entries, I felt armed and ready. And that brings me to now. I’m still navigating what my heart wants to work on and what my brain feels ready for, but I think I’m riding smooth enough now that I’m not worried about my next stamp of approval. I just need to keep writing, or creating, or playing, or living. The magic knows where to find me. When it calls, I know I’ll answer. 

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Almost forgot one.  I had to add it seperately because I've been bad and haven't ordered my author copies yet: "Days Beyond Ragnarok" published by Worldsmyths in the Written in the Wind anthology, 2024. 20 years exactly from my first short story publication to my most recent. Now that's some magic, isn't?

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GameCon Canada - Cool Finds (Part 2)

7/7/2023

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To follow-up with my last post where I felt my little game geek girl heart ignite, I share with you now the game that unexpectedly lit up my teacher heart!
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Pimohtewin, the Métis educational board game by Michif Media. This was described to me as a Monopoly meets Cataan game, intended to be accessible to families, and to immerse them in the history of Métis culture during the period of the settlement of the Red River area. 

I was immediately impressed by the passion and dedication to the theme of their game, wanting showcase authentic representations. Every component in this display was made by them, from the 3D printed log cabin box to the hand-made pewter molds for their (hefty!) playing pieces. Every inch - nay, millimeter, of this game has been poured over with love and it shows!
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I'll be honest, a Monopoly/Cataan hybrid probably wouldn't make it to the table for a regular game night at my house, but as a teacher, my little heart exploded and I probably took up at least 50 minutes of their time imagining how to honour this game and bring it to life in the classroom, beyond the classroom, to get a whole school involved and sharing the fun and learning. 

Again, I haven't done a full playtest of this game, and therefore I cannot speak to the completeness of the mechanics  and game play, but it is one of those games that's just so damn beautiful, and the conversations that could (and should!) emerge from unpacking each component would be so worthwhile!​

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I love what this is, and what it represents. Monopoly/Cataan is a great gateway, and I can't wait to see how this could evolve for Michif Media. My game geek girl heart is exploding with all of the future possibilities of them (and other under-represented nations) taking this rich content into more intense gaming realms - could you imagine a My Father's Work flush with real  history and lore?!?!? 

I wish nothing but the best to this group of designers who clearly had a vision and compromised none of it. My game designer heart is in awe of their ambition and dedication, and my teacher heart overflows with imagining how many lives this could touch, not just to bring friends and families together around a game table, but to heal some ties and fill-in some blanks, and above all, inspire so many to see the Past, Present, and Future that is written in their own voice. 

Having taught some students who have been disconnected from their culture, or were reluctant to share it, I can't wait to see this generation use something like this to springboard a whole life's worth of ambition; because this game is so much more than how it plays, how it looks, or even the bits of facts embedded into it; this game is a triumph, it is what pride and passion can build, and THAT means EVERYTHING!
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For more information, please visit michifmedia.com and find out how you can support the up-coming Kickstarter for this unique resource!

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GameCon Canada - Cool Finds (Part 1)

6/29/2023

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This last weekend we set up at the first ever GameCon Canada inaugural event. Unsure of what to expect at a convention that would cater to both the video game audience and the table top gamers, it was an adventure for exhibiters and attendees alike!

I was pleasantly surprised at the flow and ease of this convention, the helpful staff, the friendly table neighbours, and the depth of the conversation had with everyone who stopped by our table, as well as the tables we were able to venture out to visit. 
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The whole family came, and we left with some great souvenirs, fun memories, and some new friends!

What I love most about being able to get out to the convention is the rekindling of inspiration. Being a room filled with creative, fun-loving people, re-visiting my own creative projects and remembering why I loved them in the first place, and meeting with people who make you want to make your next piece even better than the last (and RIGHT NOW!!!). As a full-time mom who came from full-time teaching, that spark can feel so lost under the weight of everything else that needs to get done TODAY, and while convention days are long and busy, they are also a chance to spend some time with that part of myself that I'm pleasantly surprised to find isn't lost at all. 

So it might just be a little party sparkler right now, waiting to ignite into something greater, but for this post I'd like to raise my little sparkler to a couple of up-coming board games and their design teams for daring to pour their heart into something new.


Unscrewed by Mean Hyena Games 
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90's Cartoon Throwdown Mayhem (in a Box)

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When I first walked by this booth, my eye immediately fell to the crude and absurd (but in a good way!) cartoon standees. The box only confirmed my impression, and designer Chris Cooke was more than happy to walk me through this up-and-coming game. 

I'll be honest, this game does not speak to my personal aesthetic, however, I happen to have married a board game geek who enjoyed the 90's classics far more than I did (it helps that he's also a little bit older than I am and probably remembers it better than I do anyway). 

I instantly saw images that made me think of Ren & Stimpy and Rocco's Modern Life, cartoons that hubs and I reminisced about recently as our sons discovered Spongebob Squarepants for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. Hubs remembers these shows with great fondness. I myself have vague recollections at best, and yet somehow have the Log Song firmly planted in my brain -- ironically enough hubs did not remember the Log Song at all!
It was of no shock to me when Chris Cooke mentioned those shows specifically as inspiration for his game design, that with a little Warner Bros Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote action of using anything and everything ACME has to offer for offing the guy next to you, which is exactly what this game is going to immerse you into. You aren't just a grotesque 90's cartoon reject, you are the BEST grotesque 90's cartoon reject, and By Golly, when there's only room on the time slot for one of y'all, well, thank goodness you're just a cartoon or this would RRREEEAAAALLLY hurt!
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Each player begins on a small grid board. A variety of boards are available for playing with, each with it's own unique assortment of mayhem-inducing obstacles and strategic(ish) game-changers. I say strategic(ish) because the mayhem will most likely override any well-laid plans you've made. Pictured here are Oil Slicks to send your opponent shooting off, "X" of where the over-sized Anvils are going to drop (as soon as a target is in place, of course!), and some portals which could either save you or push you off to somewhere you do NOT want to be. 
Each player is given a unique attack power, so not only are you "goin' huntin' fur wabbit" with your own strength, but are going to use the terrain to knock or squash every opponent in your way. Yes, this is Last Man Standing, but it's even more chaotic than that! 
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These frames descend between rounds to shrink the size of the playing board. If you've pushed an opponent to the outer edge of the board, they will automatically be killed as the new frame descends upon them! Now as you continue to play, you can push your opponents into the new ring of hazard, which will only grow into new rings of hazards as you continue to play new rounds. If you've survived this long, it's a bloody miracle (and yes, I mean BLOODY, as you can slip on the blood splatter of your fallen foes!). BUT IT GETS EVEN MORE CHAOTIC THAN THAT!!!

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Each player pre-plans 3 turn movements. You get 2 Direction cards and 1 Improvise card which gives you a one-time action. You get to choose which of your 3 cards you are going to use over your 3 turns, but they have to be decided BEFORE the round begins, and every player places their choices FACEDOWN so you have NO IDEA where your character is going to be on the board and what they will be up against once other players have done their turn. You just have to cross your fingers and hope that the cards you picked will still work in your favour when your next turn comes around, though you have have inadvertently just thrown yourself into peril or certain death!

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This is NOT the game to play if you are a Type A Strategist who has to win. Prepare to lose, and lose in the stupidest way imaginable. This is a game for people who want to laugh at themselves and make memories with friends who can embody the ridiculousness of the game in front of them. 

Is this a game I would be drawn to if I were single and just playing with my current collection of girlfriends? No, probably not. But did I jump excitedly and run back to my hubs about this game because I know HE would love it? Absolutely! And I am adding this game to our "must-have" list because I can already picture it on our table, me cynically trying my darndest to pulverize my husband all of his friends, while probably sliding uncontrollably into a lava pit with no time to relish in my victories. 

We have such fond memories of playing chaos games like Dragon & Flagon, where you stumble around sometimes one turn too late to punch someone who isn't there anymore, only to get hit by a flying chair you didn't see coming.

Quick rounds mean that player elimination doesn't make for dead space, it makes for a couple of minutes to watch your so-called friends meet their inevitable demise (VENDETTA! VENDETTA!) and then everyone has a good laugh before pouring another round and playing the next game. 

I wasn't able to sit down and play a full game at this event, but Chris Cooke humored me into walking through as much of a game as he could while still needing to answer questions of other passers-by. 

Unscrewed is a game for 3-5 players, plays for around 30 minutes (or less!) and is waiting anxiously to launch on Kickstarter! For more details (and probably far more accurate details) check out their official website: 
https://www.meanhyenagames.com/ or any of their socials for MeanHyenaGames. And while I cannot yet give a detailed review of gameplay, I'm confident enough to declare that this game is "BETTER THAN BAD, IT'S GOOD!"
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End Phase One - Game Design Update

3/3/2023

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Since the previous update, we played The Black Cauldron again, switching roles, and implementing all of those changes we made note of before. This time, even with a few disruptions from the children, we had a seamlessly flowing game that was very close to either of us potentially being the victor, and all within one hour!
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I think it's safe to say that the mechanics work. The interactions are more meaningful, the progression (while definitely NOT a meta-progression game) feels intuitive, and (THANK GOODNESS) we've eliminated all of the start-and-stop setup so each Deck unlocks with everything it needs already pre-loaded before the start of the game; all that the players need to do is shuffle Hen Wen into the newly unlocked Deck and then keep the game going. 

Previously it felt like a lot of killing time and waiting. Now, each player can focus on whatever it is they want to achieve WHEN they feel ready to. The Horned King can begin his search for the Black Cauldron in the first turn if he wants to, or Taran can race ahead to try to beat him too it (wouldn't recommend that, myself, but the fact is HE COULD!)

We have more ways of cards moving in and out of play, and more strategy as to what and WHEN a player may choose to Equip a card. Before hand the Horned King could just sit on the cards Taran needed and make the game endless if Taran sat on the Black Cauldron in a complete stalemate. But with two ways of utilizing your Deception, it makes growing your Cunning even more powerful, and the cards hidden away in your hand aren't safe at all!

Things feel more balanced. Decisions feel more meaningful. And now time is of the essence as both players race to gather everything they need to win.

It wasn't the game I initially set-out to make, but it's a far more worthy game than the disjointed mess it would have been if I tried to beat it into a mechanic-type. So cross off Meta-Progression from my design resume. Whatever THIS is, it's the game I was meant to make. 

Next steps are:
- updating the rulebook
- updating the card text and printing replacement cards
- maybe even loading up a Tabletop Simulator version

It's not necessary, but I do want to still try to make this a 1 player game that flows just as well as 2. I have some thoughts about how to do it, but I want to lock-in this 2 player version first. After that, I enter the adventure of re-skinning it in a way that still feels purposely designed. I have some ideas for that, too!
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The Horned King Rises Again! - Game Design Update

2/25/2023

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In my last post I mentioned my doubts about this Black Cauldron game doing what I needed it to do. Well shortly after publishing the post and wondering if I would just scrap the whole thing, I scribbled down a small game board. This game will NOT be scrapped, though the Meta-Progression probably is. 
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It sounds a bit silly, and trust me, it even feels a bit silly to me when I think about it, but the simple act of putting the card decks I already made and placing them on the board suddenly opened up a lot more opportunities to explore different possibilities. Rather than keeping these "Chapter Decks" out of sight until the current Chapter concludes, I now have the ability to Activate the next Chapter by shuffling Hen Wen in at random, rather than always being in a concluding end of the deck. Hen Wen still initiates the opening of the next Chapter, but now players can go forward CHOOSING which decks to draw from, with each having their own advantages and disadvantages. 

I have also replicated the source material a little bit more closely by recreated the Morva Cauldrons, the seemingly infinite number of black cauldrons that make it near impossible to find the one actual magic Black Cauldron. Unlike the film, where only Taran and his friends learn about the location of the Cauldron through the Fair Folk, I have given the Horned King a fair shot at finding the Cauldron should he choose to engage in the near-impossible task of sorting through a deck of black cauldrons. In this way, the Horned King could dedicate his actions to digging for the Cauldron BEFORE the Chapter 4 deck has even been Activated, which could give him the advantage over Taran who needs the Chapter 4 deck to find and equip the Sacrifice card - after all, true to the source material, even if Taran has the Cauldron, he can't do anything with it until the Sacrifice is made. 

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So I just finished playtesting it with the new board, and I am happy to report that my anxiety about the repetitive direction my original design was taking was squashed! Rather than waiting to move on to a Chapter, we are able to push ahead and double-back as needed, both players can race to achieve the game goal or target different decks to complete different objectives along the way. We did still have to readjust a few things as we went; obviously the decks I made were meant for the original game setup, and a lot of the mechanics we adjusted to the first time now needed to be adjusted back to fit the new format. 

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Even after playing, we did some discussing about things, component-wise, that this new version of the game would need, since, as  I am sure you can see in the picture above, there are a LOT of cards to keep track of as you go! So I whipped up a couple of makeshift player trackers (on scrap paper because that's what prototypes at this stage look like!), and we'll try it out again on another day with the new changes and see if it feels smoother.

 So far we have been switching back and forth each time we play, one person as Taran, the other as the Horned King, that way we get both perspectives about how each character is balanced against the other. We only played through this one once, mostly because up until now we've only played through 1 or 2 Chapters. Add some frequent disruptions from children and some game adjusting along the way, and I think this play-through took us about 2 hours. We'll see how it goes with the new changes from the start, and while I can't predict that the children will be less disruptive the next time, at least we shouldn't need to start, stop and reset a turn quite so often if all goes well. 

Fingers crossed that I have a winner here. Not for the Game Crafter contest, obviously. Not only am I abandoning any thought of making it Meta-Progressive, but this design is 100% based on copyrighted materials that I have ZERO license for (yet!). 

If it works, my next steps are figuring out that solo player possibility (no idea if it even is possible anymore, but only one way to find out!), and then exploring re-masking options if the Black Cauldron element is unobtainable. 
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The Slightly Darkish Cauldron - Game Design Update

2/18/2023

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So I've plugged away up to what I think is the final Chapter (or Round) of the Meta-Progression game inspired by The Black Cauldron. We've had some fairly successful playtesting of the first few Chapters, but now that I've reached that final climax, the revealing of the Black Cauldron, I'm becoming more aware of this design's faults. It's not a style that I am particularly drawn to, and now it just feels like several rounds of sameness. 

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I'll keep playing with it to see if it's coming across as off as I predict, and maybe it will help highlight some areas to fix up. We've already been discussing options to re-mask it, and part of me feels that not being so closely connected to an established plotline might give me more wriggle room. But I think if I want a game style like this to work for me, I need to make some significant modifications to what progressions actually happen in each round. I want it to feel like you're campaigning towards something that gets more epic as you go. 

So not a very hopeful update, unfortunately. I'm not admitting defeat just yet, but am well aware that if this doesn't meet my standards for the game table, that it won't get the final polish to stay there.

Things are still rolling nicely for Mamas, and I have delayed Flip Yer Kilts far longer than I would have liked, though it is still on my goal for the month to get that rulebook set. A little over a week left. Plenty of time!
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Another Day, Another Challenge, Another Game.

2/5/2023

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Only a few short days ago I submitted a prototype to my first board game contest. (See previous post about Mamas). The idea of even finding board game design contests was pretty foreign to me until this past September. And while I am not making games for the purpose of appeasing contests, I have found the mere existence of such things to ignite the impish spark inside myself to puzzle together a way to fit inside a set of criteria. Just as I had a streak of entering short story contests through NYC Midnight, which gave be strict parameters to compose in, so do some of the board game design challenges. 

Initially, I was only looking into these contests to see if anything hubs and I already have could just fit somewhere while we're waiting on his next pending release. But now that I'm not bogged down with teacher stress, my little Dory brain flocks to a new challenge like mosquitos flock to my pasty summer legs. So when we did a quick check-in last night to see what The Game Crafter has brewed-up for their next challenge, well, I somehow made another game baby. 
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Now let me preface this by saying that the term "Meta-Progession" meant absolutely NOTHING to me. Hubs chimed in, "It's like a Legacy game," so naturally I responded, "Well, I'm out!"

I don't make campaign-style games. I don't really play campaign-style games. There is no way in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that I am EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER going to come up with a design for -- Hello, here is my 1-2 Player, Chapter sequence, Race-to-Win design.
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I think I live in that thin line that separates gift from curse. 

So within a few minutes of arguing that I have nothing to bother with this contest for, I started jotting down in a notebook (as all of my ideas start). Within an hour I was re-watching Disney's The Black Cauldron, and by the end of the  movie I had mapped that film into the barebones of a card-based Meta-Progression game of Good vs. Evil. 
Already you have probably noticed that I STILL won't be entering the contest. Even if I make this game, it belongs to an IP that's no joke. Even the novels from which it is inspired are a long way from being public domain. So what I have here is 100% ineligible for this little contest. 

But I've come this far, so you know I'm going to make this game, even if just for my household as a little fan-made homage to one of Disney's most obscure classics. 
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So add The Black Cauldron to my list of "in-progress" projects. As if I didn't already have a long enough list to work through. Don't you just hate it when someone jumps the queue?!?! 

To-Do Lists So Far:

  • Large Group playtest "Mamas"
  • Large Group playtest "Flip Yer Kilt"
  • TTS "Flip Yer Kilt"
  • Math-check token count for "Locke & Key" 
  • Begin notebook design plan for "Krampus Game"
  • Begin notebook design plan for "Ghost Asylum Game"
  • ​Make "The Black Cauldron"
That should keep me busy for a few months, shouldn't it?
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2 Years and So Much Has Changed

2/3/2023

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Since my last post, I've lost a parent to cancer, given birth to a baby girl, quit my teaching job, took up witchcraft (no, seriously), and have admitted temporary defeat in most of my writing endeavors (which I hope to change, but one project at a time), and have gone full force in table top game design. 

I was previously posting about the release of my first game publication, Outlander: The Series - the Boardgame. It was a project I thoroughly enjoyed making, and even more so, felt like I was contributing to helping my hubs along with his business. What we've discovered is that this is something I'm good at, and compared to novel writing, I'm quick. The downside being that I have created numerous games that I've handed off and, thanks to my lovely Dory brain, have next-to-no recollection of. So I have to be quick and I have to be focused.

​This past year I've been taking the lessons learned from my Outlander journey and putting that into my new projects. And while I have no intention of going into competition with hubs, or taking on another self-pub branch myself, I am looking to see myself less of an idea supplier and more of a creator. 


So instead of creating a wall of ideas to collect dust, I am using this new-found opportunity of being home to push forward as far as I can. And so, I present to you MY work-in-progress prototype:

This is Mamas: A Regency Gossip Game. Currently unpublished, but I hope to change that within the year or so. 

​Backstory

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This idea began as all of my ideas do: "What if?"

And so was while throwing myself into the Bridgerton tv drama sensation that a conversation sparked: Wouldn't it be funny if someone took this idea of the debutant match-making cattle-auction and turned into some sort of property game where you were trying to invest in selling-off your sons and daughters to the "right" people?

Well, I didn't make Bridgerton Monopoly (sad face), so that idea is still up for grabs should you want to cash in on that and whoever owns Monopoly trademark (teehee, monopoly on Monopoly). 

It did take me about a year to get the linch-pin to the idea that was brewing. Without reason or warning, I realized that centerpiece the whole affair was the Mama. The Mamas of the Ton control the social world and will stop at nothing to boost their children, or at least that's what every Regency-based book and film has ever taught me since Jane Austen (
It is a truth universally acknowledged!). And so I had my raison-d'etre, to pit a ton of Ton mamas against each other! What fun would that be?!?! Snide gossip! Throwing a young person's social status through the moral paper-shredder just because they came in with the wrong shoes! Well, the idea was golden and a game was whipped up!

That's not to say that I got everything right on the first try, adjustments are always being made.

​Phase One

I had the idea, social slander, and I had the objectives, get your favourites matched and beat the other Mamas. So next I had to get my objectives to link up in a way that made sense on the tabletop - not only sense, but had to be a fun and memorable experience to boot!

This introduced the idea of votes, gaining points for your social gambling. Then I had to think of all of the ways we could disrupt another Mama from obtaining their goals. And so the rather large collection of the Social Deck began, adding Anytime cards to change-up the Gossip and Goals. 

​The trickiest part in Phase One was timing. How do we keep the game snappy but interesting? 
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Well this silly thing ended up being the next linch-pin into the mix. Originally I had two different trackers, one for turns and one for rounds... needless to say, that was A LOT! And completely unnecessary. 

The more we played the more we were able to refine just what a turn should look like. It actually turned the Anytime cards into ANYTIME cards instead of just a generic Action card. So rather than dictating how many cards total a person could play per turn, we let the chaos evolve for itself. And it was MARVELOUS! 

Players were still restricted to playing 1 Gossip card, but now could mix and rearrange the Lords and Ladies, could steal and undo actions from their opponents, and as long as they had the cards to do it, they could stir up all sorts of trouble! Or, alternatively, fix-up the trouble someone else caused them!

This was a lengthy course of trial and error playtests, always looking for balance. 


​Phase Two

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Opinions. Liking trying to edit your own work in anything, your brain overrides things it doesn't like. From typos to sequences, using your own brain for too long is a BAD idea. So we brought Mamas out to a few people at a time. Their feedback was vital. And it challenged me to think about how to combine something that they wanted with what I wanted the game to be. 

A word of advice, NEVER cater 100% to all of the feedback, your project will never get made because it will never be perfect. It will also no longer be the game you wanted to make. Yet, NEVER dismiss feedback. People may not always know what they want, and so their suggestions are not always the exact solution, but will point you towards a potential problem in your design. 

And thus I had to face my next BIG obstacle. The winning conditions. At the time, the mechanics places only 1 Lord and Lady on the Dance Floor at a time. I knew that I didn't want it to be inevitable that everyone would be able to successfully match-make their Couples, but what I had done was make it so unlikely that even having a Couple goal card was near redundant. 

How to fix this? I didn't want to remove the vote casting. I didn't want all of us aiming for the same goals. So we tried it with 3 Lords and Ladies. It increased the odds, made you more selective in which Gossip you played and who you played it on, and it meant that you could probably gain control over at least one Couple without controlling ALL Couples. 

Now that we solved that, I had to make sure that the mechanics and sequences kept up.

Phase Three

Connecting the dots!

Now that I had 3 Couples, there was so many more ways to interrupt the Dance Floor. And what about the timings? How many turns could you have? How long did the Round last? How many Rounds did you play?!?!

So the targeted playtests continued. And what I discovered is that when you use 3 couples at a time, your Lords and Ladies thin out much more quickly. This was good, because now I didn't have to come up with an arbitrary reason for the game to end, it would take care of itself. There just won't be enough couples to continue on for more rounds. It was perfect!

So that eliminated my second tracker (thank goodness!), and then left me the question of what to do with the turns. Originally my Clock hand moved after EVERY turn and the Round ended at the 12. And then I had to account for adjustments depending on how many players were at the table -- I wanted the game to be snappy, but still fair. With how the game was currently running, the answer was simple (the answer is always simple once you've discovered it): Use the Clock as the First Player marker (eliminates another component), and when the turn sequence gets back to that Player, they move the Clock hand. One Round, One Clock Movement. 

I know, I know, why didn't I just do that in the first place?!?! IT'S A PROCESS!!! At least I got there in the end.

​Phase Four

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I'm hesitant to say that the game is now complete, but it IS as close to complete as it has ever been. I still need to play through with all sorts of player combinations, just to make sure that I haven't overlooked something that slows the game down or shifts the balance. 

But luckily I know that I have something that works and works as I intended. Everyone who has played has walked away with tears in their eyes, belly-laughing from the down-right dirty insinuations tossed at these fictional caricatures of gentry. It's fun. It's memorable. And it's mine, from start to finish!

Needless to say, I'm starting 2023 off with my game face on! 

And, yes, my next one is following close behind! I don't know how many slightly off-colour card games I'm going to spew out, but no one's going to stop me just yet!

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My Look at "The Adventures of Tennessee James"

8/9/2021

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I did a thing, in a car, because that's the only place I have privacy where I'd want to set up a camera...

So here is my preview/overview for Variable Outcomes' new Kickstarter: The Adventures of Tennessee James.

I didn't design this one, but I have been watching the game grow and change over the past year, so I do feel part of it as it's getting ready to enter the world all on its own. 
For the record, I only caught my kids running around outside unsupervised twice in the filming of this video. 

They had a father around somewhere, I think...

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Outlander Game Box Sneak-Peek!

8/6/2021

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Things are busy over at Variable Outcomes with their Tennessee James game on Kickstarter (link here), so I get to be the first to announce the new developments for Outlander: The Series -- The Board Game. 
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The digital files for Outlander have been approved, and it has been a number of back and forths trying to account for any possible mishaps that could occur during the final printing of the game at the manufacturers. 

The following images are what were sent to us from the manufacturer, as they printed their first edition of Outlander: The Series -- The Board Game. 

The picture quality is a little fuzzy, but it is our first glimpse of how things look on their end. Next, of course, is sending us a completely packaged copy for us to hold in our hands and approve.

You'll notice that the components here are just the printed ones: from the box to the cards. What's missing are the non-printed parts, specifically the Meeples and Wit cubes. Apparently there has been some difficulty colour matching my precious Wee Jamie. I can't be surprised by that. All of my Meeples that we've been using for our home-printed prototype were hand-painted by me. I had to play around with a few blends to get the bronzed effect I wanted. And I'm quite fond of Wee Jamie as he is, so I am going to be watching very closely to see how he looks when he pops off the assembly line. Fingers crossed that he is as bronzed and beautiful as I have dared to imagine him. 

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One of the things I am very excited to see here are the Victory Tokens and the 1st Player marker, seen here as the Clan Fraser Sigil. Those are components we haven't printed out ourselves and have used convenient substitutes during our playtests and demos. It's starting to look like a real game, and I want to unwrap and punch-out so badly right now.

The countdown is on for the physical prototype, and you can bet that I'll be posting the HELL out of that unboxing!
In the meantime, I will continue to annoy everyone on social media about both games, and pursue my crush on Jamie Fraser -- the Wee Jamie, of course... Sorry, Mr. Heughan ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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