Prepare to be drowned in content! It’s been a while, so there’s lots to talk about.
I’ve slowed down my con appearances a little bit as I’ve taken on more work in other sectors of my life. And by slowed down, I mean attending 5 or 6 in a year, rather than 11 or 12 : P
I’ve also waded much deeper into the video game industry, and the work I’ve been doing there is very rewarding. It’s mostly been in the areas of writing and narrative design, and I hope that continues. But in addition I’ve been doing some consulting on diversity and inclusion, and for funding for companies outside the U.S.
Upcoming guest of honor appearances:
GaymerX – GaymerX Boss of Honor, woo!
OrcaCon – Special Guest
Upcoming panels:
PaizoCon
Right now I’m slated for three panels at PaizoCon. One on mythology and games, and several on diversity, inclusion, and community. It’s coming up real fast, so if you’re in the area stop by!
I recently attended The Game Developers conference. GDC Was awesome. I applied for and was accepted into two competitive initiatives for GDC. The first was the Amplifying New Voices leadership bootcamp sponsored by Oculus. They put upcoming leaders together with veterans in the field for professional mentoring. The free Oculus swag was neat, but sitting down with people like Caryl Shaw and Brian Sharp was very special.
I was also an #INeedDiverseGames Scholar. Through #INeedDiverseGames I got to connect with other minority folks in the game industry, share experiences, and build my network. I felt honored to be counted among so many talented people.
The highlight of GDC for me was the Narrative Summit. Yes, all of the Narrative Summit! It was like I had come home. It has very strong programming, and I hope that the rest of the organization can slowly get on board with the way the Narrative Summit does things. It’s good, good stuff.
We’re going in reverse chronological order here, so next up is Hive. Hive is a highly selective global leadership program for visionaries, entrepreneurs, etc. who are committed to positive global change. With all the brouhaha I kick up over myth and play, I figured I’d give it a shot. Several thousand people ended up applying for about 150 spots, and I was selected. Hive was four days of being surrounded by amazing people, and all of us working together to figure out what comes next.
I started a new adventure in the world of Twitch! The showrunner of Geek & Sundry recently moved up to Seattle to try his hand at a new channel in partnership with Harebrained Schemes. The channel is Hyper Rabbit Power Go! (or Hyper RPG). I started off hosting two shows for Hyper RPG, but found I didn’t have enough time. Now I’m solely dedicated to Weekly Affirmations, which is MY show, utterly. On Weekly Affirmations I run indie and freeform RPGs, talk about feelings and emotional safety, host local game designers, and generally just have a freaking good time. It’s my ship to run, so all the content and programming is my choice. It makes me very happy.
I’m involved with other parts of the channel too. I sometimes guest on Death From Above, a Battletech show, or Trivia Hops, in which I was forced to wear a unicorn onesie and answer questions about the Justice League. Hyper RPG is good people, and I’m glad to be associated with the studio.
My Death From Above Character, with awesome fanart from Stephzorz.
Weekly Affirmations!
This is a video from Honesty Hour on Hyper RPG, where we talk about real stuff and I can put my hosting personality aside for a hot minute. Honesty Hour got very involved, and ended up being Honesty Three Hours instead, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. We talked about some really interesting stuff.
Here is also the latest video from Weekly Affirmations! We played Our Radios Are Dying by Caitlynn Belle, which is a freeform game about lesbians hiding a forbidden love dying in space together. So many #GameFeelz!
The entire youtube playist of all Weekly Affirmation episodes to date is HERE. So far we’ve featured Fall of Magic, The Warren, Dread, Our Radios Are Dying, and now Monsterhearts.
My viewers have made so rad fanart too. Shout outs to Voidsmoker, JPBeltran, Tonniecat, and BobTGoldfish.
Bluebeard’s Bride is in its final stages before release. We’re writing the copy and commissioning art. So THE BOOK IS REALLY HAPPENING OMG. If you want to get the down-low on Bluebeard’s Bride, join the Google+ community, follow on Twitter at BluebeardsBride, and check out the official page through our publisher, Magpie Games.
We have a bunch of actual play recordings now too. Be advised, all actual play content is considered to be 18+ and not safe for work. Trigger warnings for sexual violence, body horror, and other spooky stuff.
Oneshot Podcast Actual Play of Bluebeard’s Bride:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Jankcast Actual Play of Bluebeard’s Bride:
Part One
Part Two
I’ve also been doing some voice acting for a recurrent role on The Voice of Free Planet X, a sci-fi podcast. This has been a lot of fun as the character evolves, and the creator of the podcast has informed me that there will be more coming up for this character. You should take a listen to the whole thing, but the episodes I’m in are linked below:
Episode 17: City of Sleep
Episode 15: Son of Planet X
Let’s see, what else? I think I’ve mentioned the consulting I’ve been doing with video game companies on diversity and inclusion. On the whole, I think it’s been going pretty well, and with some of them I’ve seen the needle move a lot. I was a Special Guest at Big Bad Con down in San Francisco. I ran Bluebeard’s Bride and successfully made a player cry. In a good way! It’s how I know the game is really shaping up.
I was a judge again for this year’s Golden Cobra Challenge. Golden Cobra is a freefrom game design competition, and this is its second year running. year one produced some stellar games that are still being played all over the world. We had some fantastic games come through the door this year as well. The full anthology of this year’s games is here (warning, large PDF). The highlights for me were A Crow Funeral by Timothy Hutchings and The Other Place by Banana Chan. Look em’ up!
SandCon happened. Geek Girl Con Happened. They were both wonderful and I’ll be doing them again, I’m sure. SanCon is where I got to play The Warren for the first time, incidentally. At Geek Girl Con I got to hang out with some hard hitting ladies!
I was also prominently featured in a divsersity in table top games documentary made by John Sheldon. It’s very eye opening.
Here is the documentary:
Here is my full interview:
I spoke with John about the overall tone of the documentary, because it leaves the viewers hanging with a lot of questions. How do we change these things? What steps do we take? John told me that this first film is meant to establish a solid foundation for defining the issues around diversity and inclusion in tabletop. He felt we needed that piece first. He’d like to go on to make a second piece that details how we can affect a sea change. I really hope he does, and in my own interview we do get to talking about these things.
I was on a Virtucon panel about fostering local RPG communites. This one got a lot of views and comments, and people reached out to me privatly for months after it came out. I think it’s worth the watch also.
Finally, finally, we’re nearly at the end! Touching base on the game writing I’ve been doing for digital and analogue games, I’m afraid I can’t say much. I’m tied up with a lot of NDAs these days. However, I’m still writing for Undead Labs, who are the folks that made State of Decay. I’m on two big projects for Onyx Path, one for Storium, and I’m working on a handful of indie games. I think I’ll wait on listing specifics until I have something to point you to. My Warren playset Baliganapalli Fields is done and available at Bully Pulpit. My Urban Shadows Los Angeles playset is available to backers. You know who you are. Just waiting for a lot of these other games that I’ve written for to come out!
Okay, I think I’ve linked enough media to keep someone busy for literally a week, so I’ll stop here. I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of things. I’ll try to not go so long between updates next time.
