Ada Lovelace Day 2010 - Join in!

Last year me and Alaric took part in Ada Lovelace Day, a day to celebrate women in technology and the sciences. We did various blog posts on inspiring women.

This year the event is back! March 24th will once again see me blogging away, come and join us - why is this important - why should women have a specific day? Because unfortunately their contributions are not always acknowledged to the degrees they should be and young girls need to see that there are other females in these areas and that it isn't just the realm of men.

It's about showing them people like themselves - I suppose positive role models

Gaming Update

Yesturday I spent the day making a cute web-badge for all those who had completed WoPoWriMo and because it involved just a bit more work I decided to get the first phase of my Monster Writing Game, lock loaded and ready to go!

So after about 6 hrs of faffing I am now awaiting a Moo order to see how the second generation prototype works! They are not going to be here until like the 17th but there is still alot more work to be done on the gaming concept.

Of course I have to make two web-sites with it - a Monster home page which I have been meaning to do for a good while now and some sort of e-shop type thing.

I have so far this month spent a grand total of 12 hours on the game And as I'm having my very own Game Design Month I only have another 17/18 hours to go! Of course the idea is that I will have a nice working stock before November

I have also started to think about outlets for the cards (other than me at festivals!) I'm thinking Indie book shops, stationers, comic book shops and the kitsche type tourist shops. Of course this involves that whole going and asking thing which is the bit where I fail due to be shy - but think I may have some people who would be happy to help me with such things!

Of course I don't actually have any money for initial outlay - I have used money back (not profit) from Wiggly Pet sales to pay for the batch of cards that is going to arrive. I can use the cards as business cards if the game doesn't work as well which is handy (I am way to persermistic here!).

I am happy though as I now have the graphics for subsequent card packs and for the website And these can also pretty much go straight onto t-shirts and the like.

Of course there is a board that can go with these cards which I have done some very rough designs of but it will take alot of fiddling to get things balanced and the artwork 'just so' but I will worry about that more once I have the card game up and running properlly.

Anyway better get back to doing stuff I suppose!

WoPoWriMo Web-badge :)

As a participant of WoPoWriMo I get a cute web-badge

(of course I made it so it's probably cheating to have it up on my websites but hey - I did the challenge too you know!)

I'm collecting quiet a few of these 'web-badges' ie NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo and I don't really want to fit them into the themes on my blogs so I'm planning to make a page of them all nestled together which I think will look really cool

It would sort of be like having a framed certificates on you wall

Wiggly Pet Sales :)

I went into Stuffed Nonsense in Cheltenham to check on the Wiggly Pets - I'd sold £20 worth of Wiggly Pets which means that I am about braking even This cheered me up though I am a little concerned that most of the revenue came from people I know going and buying them!

But at the end of the day they have only been in there for a month and so I can not really extrapolate weather or not this will be worth it or not :/

Game Design

I have decided that this month I am having my very own Game Design Month - this is really just me on my own maybe I'll set it up as something official next year but we'll have to see.

Basically thanks to WoPoWriMo I ended up making a game - it is the sort you can have add-ons too and simple or complex versions. So I am going to try and make at least the first phase of it an actuality this month.

The idea is that during this month I have to spend a minimum of 31 hours working on this game!

At the moment I have spent about 5 hrs so far sourcing things like egg/sand timers, boxes and dice!

I already had the design for the cards and need to get a move on in finalising them and getting a couple of sets printed. This will take up alot of time if I'm honest because it's all going to be faffing around with margins and the like!

Of course then there will have to be a website and the like! The most basic game will contain 20 cards, timer, two dice and a rules/games to play sheet. This will unfortunetly set you back £15 but I feel it would be a good investment - especially for writers who the games is aimed at. Hopefully it will be popular with students maybe as a drinking game or something (hoping I'm not now going to be sued or something for encouraging binge drinking) - you know the sort of fun party game that has you rolled up in hysterics

I suppose I'd best get on with it then hadn't I!