Weeknote 23rd August 2021

Last week

• Continued thinking on a “mashup” game ( maybe manual, online, or megagame ) about the American War of Independence… but that has expanded to include a magic system
• Bought a copy of the Dune board game, I’m more interested in the mechanics than the lore. If you’re interested in the lore check out Nerd Cookies on YouTube.
• Discussion with a customer on running a megagame, I’ve some ideas already
• I attended an online meeting of the Foster community. They’ve some very interesting ideas around tokens, there was a great Q and A, and I’m really interested to see where this goes. I do, however, think failure is as likely as success - which considering the nature of the community, I ought to write up…
• My work laptop seems to handle video calls badly while doing something simultaneously, for example running OBS to obscure the background. It was useful to work through Smart Choices to determine the best way to fix the issue rather than just buy a more expensive problem. I’m not quite there yet though.
• This was further evidence of the “law of repulsion”, soon after wondering if I want to spend my working life fighting technology I received a great call out of the blue
• I played and enjoyed Monopoly Deal, it has an interesting mechanic, which led to a few game ideas; but similarly, some intriguing gaps in the simple rules when edge cases occur. Monopoly Bid is less good, but still an interesting game that’s quick to pick up and play.
• I watched a couple of good videos on the Vietnam War on YouTube, both intriguing and horrifying
• Read this short article on being an “Uncertainty Killer”, which explains what I want to achieve with my business, and why my approach needs refining

This week

• While realising how useful weeknotes are in seeing what I’ve achieved, also looking at the unchanged set of plans brings home how over-ambitious I am
• Still 90% done with a new layout for my company website, but still with what feels like 90% of the work left to do.
• Keep fighting software, mainly rdiff-backup I expect.
• Those work opportunities are still “hovering”, this is the best and worst aspect of freelancing.
• Condense the scribbled set of “to do” lists next to me into one list, preferably by doing some of the things on it
• Actually read a book, again
• Update that Inky game, make it a little easier: Lost Key