As it is almost half-way through the year I thought it was high-time I gave a quick overview of what I have been up to. Every year seems to get busier and busier as I take on more responsibility at my day job, try to be a good dad and husband, and get some creative stuff done, too! The standout achievements have been varied so far this year, so let’s take a look at them:
Website overhaul(s)
If you’re here and reading this, then you may well have noticed this site has had a complete overhaul in terms of design. Cleaner, more modern and better organised. After more than eight years of blogging this site has amassed avery wide variety of articles, depending on whatever happened to be inspiring me at a particular time. As a consequence I found I had a HUGE list of categories (more than 50!) and everything was quite a jumble. I’ve amalgamated all those categories into core topics and presented each of those right on the front page. Now, it doesn’t matter whether you have arrived hear because you are interested in writing, wargaming, roleplaying or my own game designs, you should be able to find it relatively quickly.
You may not have noticed that Peril Planet, the brand that I publish my games under, has also received a redesign. It is very clean, well organised and easy to find my games. Check it out, too. 🙂
As a consequence of all this redesign stuff, some things have been moved around and there could be broken links (*gasp*). I know of some, particularly related to games on this site, but if you run across any broken links please let me know. I would really appreciate it.
Narrowed & Refined
Related to these overhauled websites is the way I have been posting articles. Stuff specifically related to the publication and promotion of my games has been posted on the Peril Planet site, and articles specifically about Freeform / Universal are now hosted on the official FU website. As a consequence it looks like all three websites are getting less love. This is not the case (!) but refining what I write and where I write it has made it much easier for fans to get exactly what they want. It has also made it easier for me to identify when one site or another needs a little more attention. Short story – expect more of everything!
Game Design
I have been designing games, just not finishing them (which is the real trick, isn’t it?). I am currently working on a new iteration of FU. This will have at its heart the cool stuff of the original but is shaping up to be a somewhat different beast. I also finished a playlets draft of my miniature car battle game Apocalypse Road. Now I just need playtesters!
I have a few other things in the works, too, though they are mostly tangentially related to FU and Apocalypse Road so I need to really get the ball rolling on them first.
As always I really appreciate the love and support you all show for my games.
Autism Family Travel
You may not know this, but two of my kids are autistic and that obviously has a huge impact on our everyday lives. We try not to let autism get in the way of the things we want to do, though, and we love to travel. We have discovered, though, that many families living with autism really struggle to get out and explore the world. My wife and I have therefore started a blog to share our experiences, ideas and enthusiasm for travel with other families with autism. If this affects you, or someone you know, you may want to check out our new website, Autism Family Travel. There are reviews of autism family travel destinations and we are adding plenty of advice on how to make travel with autism a success.
Other Random, Crazy Stuff
I helped to organise and run NewCon in March, which was a great success. This tabletop game convention, focusing on RPG’s and boardgames for gamers in Newcastle (Australia) is now in its second year and was once again well attended. There were not as many indie / story games as i would have liked to see, but that’s okay – there is always next year. 🙂
A lot of my time since Easter has been spent building a simpit. This was a crazy idea I got after visiting my brother and seeing his custom-built arcade console. It had nothing to do with trying to outshine him, but I am sure I have! 😀 This took a fair bit of my spare time, so there was a trade-off with my other hobbies and creative endeavours.
That about wraps it up for the moment. Thanks for sticking around, and thanks for all your support!
