A Quick Update
Hi everyone! Thanks for being patient during what turned out to be a long hiatus. In the month of April I found myself lost amongst about ten different projects. Now that I’m mostly out of the woods, I can finally show you some of the stuff I’ve been working on!
The Faceless City
I was honoured to be selected this year as a jammer for the Comics X Games segment of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, organized by the Hand Eye Society. Over the course, I jammed a game - The Faceless City - with artist Erica Lee. (For those unaware, a game jam is a fixed period of time in which you quickly make a game.) I’ve never participated in a game jam as a programmer before, so this was an excellent learning experience!
We kicked off the design process for The Faceless City with a worldbuilding session, and the results were really interesting. I’m working on a post-mortem about designing games through worldbuilding, which I will post here when I’m finished - but until then, here is a link to the game!
Writing for The Conversation
Thinking through alternatives to life under capitalism, the vestiges of colonialism or the catastrophic impacts of climate change is hard but necessary work. But could it also be play?
I also wrote an article for The Conversation on worldbuilding games! I wrote about how the emerging genre of worldbuilding games helps us imagine worlds beyond capitalism, colonialism and patriarchal gender norms. If you read these newsletters then you’re probably familiar with my thinking on this, but I hope you’ll find it interesting anyways! Here is a link to the article.
Other Projects to Look Out For
I finished a few other projects that aren’t yet publicly available. I’ll give you some updates as they start to come out, but for the time being here are some little teasers:
If you live in Toronto and find yourself at the Bentway this Summer, you may be able to play something of mine …
I participated in DMG’s first (but not last) TTRPG Zine Jam! I’ll be posting more about this when the zine is closer to release - but until then, you can pre-order here …
I’m getting more involved with a Toronto-based community group for game makers called Gamma Space. We have some really exciting stuff in the pipeline, so stay tuned …
I hope that was enough ellipses for you!
I don’t want to keep you too long, so this post will just be updates for now. But now that I have a lot more free time on my hands, I’ll be sending more frequent posts in the coming weeks. Here are some topics to look forward to:
What worldbuilding game should I play? A fun guide / flowchart
Worldbuilding-led Game Design: How to use worldbuilding to imagine new kinds of games
Neighbourhood Games: Designing games for specific locations
… and more! See you next time :)