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!

Therizinosaur Time Capsule

Well I managed to get something in for the Therizinosaur Time Capsule on the Art Evolved website. My contribution does look like a Skeksis from the Dark Crystal :/ but never mind! (For those who haven't read the previous entries on this Therizinosaurs are dinosaurs and ART evolved is a site on palaeo-art).

This is the second one I have entered and I am still only getting around to giving them the planning sketches :/ Something I hope to solve with the next one which is why I already have the book pages marked out and have not put the art stuff away!

This time capsule also coincides with ART Evolves first birthday I am really happy to have found them before they cross that threshold - not sure why but it just feels important!

When I find my camera lead I will also complete the live blogging of the art work on Salaric Art and Craft - I have even made a palaeo-art section on there along with a my drawings/paintings.

WoPoWriMo is over - Victory

World Poetry Writing Month is over and have produced about twice as many poems as the target Of course I did go to one poetry workshop which produced one of the poems and alot of them were generated by the writing game I've been designing!

I found the whole process very rewarding even though I was running all the web-stuff for the project!

I now have so much material I'm not really sure were to go with it!

Anyway alot of it is already up on Turquoise Monster - though I can already see where I want to edit a few of them.

Alaric also managed his 28 hiakus some of which are so bueatiful Being Alaric they are on a thing meant for software development Git-Hub.

Mum also did 28 poems which can be seen on WoPoWriMo Poems.

Even Jeany has been writing poems which I'll try and get round to typing up :/ Though she did not do 28!

Over all the project has successful beyond what I was expecting

Dino-Art

I'm 'live-blogging' the process of produce my next piece of Palaeo-Art on Salaric Craft.

Van calamity

Last Sunday, we attempted to go to Cheltenham in the van, as Sarah had a WoPoWriMo launch meetup to attend.

We're used to having to deal with ice on the hills leading out of our valley, as water from the farm fields tends to run off into the road; so if it gets cold, it turns into sheets of ice. There were a few patches of ice on the way up, but nothing like what I've managed in the past, so imagine my surprise when I turned a sharp bend onto a sheet of ice that spanned the entire road. The van promptly lost traction, so I stopped and attempted to gently reverse back around the corner to try a different route.

Sadly, the steering had no effect, quickly followed by the brakes; the van began a slow, graceful, unstoppable pirouette until it ended up like this, with the nose wedged into the bank:

That's looking down the hill from above. As you can see, I'd already done a bit of salt-spreading by the time that photo was taken; before I spread the salt, the ice was so slick that I couldn't actually stay standing if I got out the driver's side, I had to climb across Jean and get out the other side.

Sarah had a deadline, so headed off on foot to try and catch a bus, leaving me with Jean to try and free the van. I could reverse it as the rear wheels just span, despite me shoving some road salt underneath. I tried letting the rear tyres down, in the hope that a larger surface area in contact with the ground would help me get traction, but no luck.

So I proceeded to salt the ice sheet; if I could find somebody with a tractor of a 4x4, perhaps they could pull the van from above and get it free of the bank, then I could complete the turn and head off down hill. The salt began to melt the ice, and then salty water started to flow underneath the ice sheet, creating pretty patterns; and allowing me to wack it with my folding shovel to break it, at which point I found out it was a good half inch thick, even after being partly dissolved from beneath:

But the one tractor-owner I knew the number of wasn't answering, and another that a passer-by knew couldn't help, so I continued to try and get it free myself. I gave up on being able to drive backwards, so I took the folding shovel (it's actually a military surplus trenching tool. Good job I carry a military surplus trenching tool in the van, isn't it?) and dug the bank away to release it.

After making sure the ice was well gritted. I didn't want to be downhill of a tonne of van, working away at the one thing holding it in place, while it was on a slick icy surface.

After much digging (indeed, it was now two hours after getting stuck in the first place), with the steering wheel on full lock to the left and the rear wheels spinning, I managed to get the van out forwards, and set off down the hill. Surprisingly, the front of the van wasn't ruined, as I'd thought it might be:

Jean was surprisingly patient for a four year old strapped into a stranded vehicle while I worked away; I figured she'd be safer strapped in than running around on the ice with me, even if another car came and hit the van.