June was a complicated sea of emotion, struggle, and fighting for voices to be heard. In some ways I was a part of that, in others I was secluded to my own little corner, making the noise I could but otherwise remaining consistent with what we’ve worked on. It was a month of setting personal foundations but understanding that not all projects are here to stay.
June’s focus was twofold: Lay the groundwork for the August short story and continue to grow the stream.
The August Short Story
The cycle of world-building is one that I can get dragged into easily. Gods, magic systems, regions, cultures, names, languages; they are all important for making a complicated living world, but they are also not time spent writing a story. Which is why I’m glad I started working on the next short as early as I did, because while I had lofty ideas for where I was in the post-apocalyptic post-Victorian era fantasy setting, the setting was too married to the RPG system it had originally been crafted for. No longer. The deities are freed, the races reborn, and the world once again torn asunder by scheming forces, but the likes of a d20 no longer tethers the setting’s* freedom.
*That is not to say, that the setting couldn’t still work with a certain d20 based system. It’s just not conjoined to it anymore. If the story drives a reader to that direction of play, let me know. I can always gather some numbers for you.
With that in mind, the outline is underway for the story. I’ll be sharing aspects of the premise next week on the Patreon.
Growing the Stream
We’ve had the privilege of adding 11 new followers since the last post, and a few new subscribers. In that time frame we missed a single stream, but that was in solidarity with an ideal rather than a day off. In fact, we’ve ended up on streams even on the days we’re supposed to have off to help lift up some of the amazing folks who are growing as we grow. That’s huge. We’ve been raided by lovely people like OpticalVex, KD Boom, Skallora, Cantaloupia, and Ririten over the past month, and have gotten to raid some interesting folks over the month. And, well those connections are what make this growth happen.
At the end of May/start off June, we launched into Hollow Knight. Ya’ll, I got to tell you, if I keep finding favorite game after favorite game, I’m going to end up completely overwriting my top ten. Hollow Knight is special. It’s a metroidvania from a developer team that understands what the subgenre means and how to flex the tropes of it while forging a place within the niche to call its own. It ramps slowly in difficulty at first but once it’s sure you’ve got the balance you need to peddle, it takes the training wheels off and lets you soar into the lovely give and take of pattern driven battle. Admittedly, however, I did not accept the notion of obeying the fights. Instead I found the means of magic to abuse and conquer foes from afar, like any talented mage should. There are many mysteries yet to discover in Hollow Knight, but I didn’t let us linger in the halls of Hollownest. I’m already eager to revisit that gothic realm, but I want to save a revisit until we’re closer to the release of Silk Song. I’ll be tossing up the review later this week.
We started two new games in the middle of June. First has been our co-op focused title, Satisfactory, a lovely resource and logistics management game set on a distant alien world. Enthnal has been eager for us to get into this title, and I’m enjoying my time enough that I’m starting to use it as my time filler game between waking up and starting work. Don’t worry, I’m not doing anything production goal orientated off stream. Just building outlines and setting things up so there’s less busy work while we’re on the clock.
The other game has been Stardew Valley. Look. This game is a drug.
Ethan has joined us in it as we move to the valley, build up our farm, and just have a heck of a wonderful time with this first playthrough. We’ll be at this for a bit during what’s normally our single-player nights, but I gotta say it’ll be hard to pull us away from this.
We’ve got some intermediate nights planned for the coming weeks though. Some folks want to play We Were Here, which will take up some of our nights coming up, and there’s talk of a certain Secret Lab that might show up on stream. We’ll see who bites at that bait.
July is about continuing to grow, continuing to act, and see what sticks with some of the work we’re putting in. Stay tuned for more Patreon posts, join the Discord, and keep an eye on public announcements via Twitter, Facebook, and Twitch for more updates.
Otherwise, I hope your summer’s going well. See you in August with a brand-new short story to share. Enjoy the month!