yuletide
A short letter this month, as I'm on vacation for the rest of the year. I've made good on the desire to travel again by driving to Florida to spend the holiday with my family, and while I'm glad to see them - and the friends I got to visit along the way - I'm utterly sick and tired of the long, boring stretch down Interstate 10. Pullo's joined me for this trip, and I'm glad to have him here, but it's all air travel all the time, from now on. I'm saving my road trip energy for more scenic views.
Still slow going on FATHOM: both Matthew and I have had other obligations to attend to before the end of the year, which has made it hard to do the heavy lifting necessary for this next update. Substantially more to say on FATHOM next month.
... that said, Matthew and I have managed some real good playtests for the OTHER game we've been cooking up - a competitive game of two teams of thieves, each trying to steal the same fabulous prize and get away clean. It's been very gratifying to see the mechanics light up - and move along briskly - in other players' hands! I think it will really come to life even more once I get to designing the rulebook.
Sean McCoy of MOTHERSHIP has spurred a project called #Dungeon23 - make a megadungeon in a journal, one room per day, in 2023. Naturally, I'm raring to go. I'm planning on making something old and scrungly. A real dark, doomed sort of crypt of a thing. Expect weekly updates on that on my cohost.
Finally, Austin Ramsay of BEAM SABER has announced CalazCon! , an absolutely massive actual play with more than a couple of dozen people playing Beam Saber in an interconnected game world, with mission results impacting the broader situation. I'll be playing a LEGISLATOR. I'll bringing my roleplaying chops to bear as I lobby for the aims of my particular squad. I'm extremely excited to be as wretched and legislative as I can be.
📺 - I spent about a week absolutely obsessed with ULTIMATE COWBOY SHOWDOWN.
📽️ - THE MENU was very good: a well-constructed haunted house of a movie, filled with dread, jump scares, and dark comedy. My movie of the month was a late showing of MOONAGE DAYDREAM, a spectacular Bowie biopic.
🎮 - Finally started GOD OF WAR: RAGNAROK and it's very good. Some outstanding performances.
🎲 - Not much board gaming before the break, but I managed to squeak out a win in TERRAFORMING MARS, thanks to the power of mining and corporate corruption (this sounds bad, but at least I wasn't using nukes.)
📚 - I'm not reading much at the moment as I'm spending every waking moment binging BLOWBACK- a fabulous podcast about American imperialism.0
And that's it!! See you next year!
