Labour
I think there's a lot of gamers out there who could say they do some things due to a fandom. Whether it be commission work for art, guide writing for the public, cosplay, spreading the word about the game, etc, there's a point in time it could be called a labour of love. I've personally partaken in a few of these, such as game guide writing for the games I genuinely enjoy, convincing others to try games I've spent considerable time playing, and crafting. Both Warframe and Guild Wars 1 and 2 consume a lot of my game time, and I've made written guides (a few video ones, too) for others to use. I try to make the guides as concise as possible, documenting my experiences for them so that it closely resembles what others may encounter. That takes a considerable amount of time and effort on my part, not because I need to, but because I want to. Heck, I've even 3D printed a Lex Prime (painted and assembled), 3D printed a CL4P-TP unit and put the audio in it for reasons (I adore the little robot, okay?), a Guild Wars 2 commander tag, and even have huge cardboard pieces behind my room door for an Eternity. These are my projects because I genuinely adore the crap out of these games.
But this isn't what I've been talking about for these past twenty-eight days. I've been talking about my own game and the journey I've been on. It brought me out of my post graduate slump of making games. True, it's been almost ten years since I completed that degree, but over that time, I've always dabbled in this game here and there, writing notes and ideas down on various pieces of paper. Eight months later, I've gotten a better idea of what I'm wanting and where I'm going. I've closed my Ko-fi shop down for the past two weeks while I redesign my PDFs that people can get for $1 USD. Then there's the editing of my previous posts over on Patreon and maybe Ko-fi (not sure about Ko-fi yet since those posts are generally solid and have stayed consistent). I originally didn't want to do any of this, but since I've got bigger plans for next year, I figured I should set my templates and standards for that. I'm usually one that likes to leave things as they are, showing the progression of my posts, but for Patreon and Ko-fi, I can't let it go. I need to redo them. The substance will still be there, just properly formatted into a standardized template that I've established. In total there are twenty-four posts per platform, so that is going to take a lot of time and effort to clean up. It's going to be worth it in the end, well for me anyways.
As for the remainder of this year, I've got like eighteen weeks left, meaning I've got 18 more creatures to create and share. My sketch artist (my sister) had to back out of this project due to real life circumstances. This setback leaves me without that nice addition to my posts. I really don't want to go down the route of using AI for the sketches, so I'll probably dust off my drawing tablet and have a go at them. My original goal was to have sketches and maybe some actual illustrations done by the end of the year, but due to losing my sister in this, that most likely won't happen. I'll still have creatures done and I'll start cataloguing them for a future release, just not when I originally hoped for. Next year has a new compendium on top of my bestiary, so that's exciting for me. I plan to have my TTRPG far more progressed than it is now by December. Thankfully September is almost here and I can go back to getting my playtesters to try things out, test out my modules and gameplay. My creatures are itching to see what my playtesters come up with, as am I.
This game is my labour of love.
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