I've been working on this game, off and on, for over a year now. I was really careful when I started approaching this project. I knew that it was going to be about things that were important to me. Art, humanity, creativity, etc. Maybe dirtbag vampires don't quite seem like the vehicle for those themes, but I knew it was going to work. To make it work, I needed to know what this game was, all the way down to its core.
I'm bad at knowing what my work is. I figured out what Iron Edda is eventually. It took me three years of running at conventions and playing with my group ti really figure it out, though. Makes it hard to have confidence in my work when I know deep down that I'm not 100% sure what it's trying to say. That's the real work here with Vampire Martian Hunters: I want to know what I'm saying with this game by the time I really need to pitch it to people.
All of that is to say that I'm working on the game in earnest now. My locals playtests have gone well. I think the core mechanics are solid. And I was fortunate to have lunch with Vincent Baker and he said what he was in the game was cool. I felt pretty good about the game internally. Now I've got some very valuable external validation. It's time to do this thing.
That's the plan as of right now. A 32 page-ish zine-style printing that will get the core of the game written, laid out, and presented to the world. There'll probably be a small crowdfunder to accomplish that, one that can help me tie up some other loose ends too, hopefully.
I want this to be sustainable. Even if I end up having to get a full-time job once the kids are in school, I still want to make games. I think the smaller zine size gives me a lot of room to work with and it's a form factor I can comfortable write to. I want to keep doing this for a long time. I want to think about the future positively. For me, that goes hand in hand with being able to creatively express myself.
Semi-related, I really enjoy writing in this space like this. There's something about writing with HTML tags that reminds me of posting a friend's website back in the day. A throwback to the life my early 20s self was living. That's a nice little resonance. I've kind of always felt like I missed out because I didn't really start writing or creating until my late 20s or early 30s. But when I think back, I see myself writing what I'd now call blog posts. I'd review albums, write about new D&D expansions, and generally be the early 2000s version of terminally online. All of that did prepare me for now, though I couldn't see it for a long time.
We're writing directly in HTML and everything old is new again.
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