Mindfulness, playfulness, games, and words
Coming in early June, get ready for The Gentle Issue. Get calmly ready. No need to clap or stamp your feet. Just take a minute and envision it. Inhale and picture the email arriving in your inbox. Exhale and imagine opening the issue in your browser. The issue is soft, and the games are welcoming.
The Gentle Issue goes slowly and is full of self-compassion. The Gentle Issue takes breaks. The Gentle Issue knows when enough is enough and that it can’t do everything. The Gentle Issue forgives.
I released Orbits last week as part of The Friends Issue, and I love it. You should probably stop reading this blog post and just go play it instead, but since you’re here, let me tell you some reasons why I love Orbits so much.
I’m really excited to participate in #LD38 this weekend. Game jams are great opportunities to learn and try something new. They can also be huge invitations to get competitive, jealous, and overworked. Here is my advice won over multiple jams on how to maintain a balanced life while having a hugely successful game jam.
First, set some real goals.
I just released The Friends Issue this past Tuesday, and listen up: I LOVE IT. It’s great. It’s amazing. The games inside are some of my best work yet. Lemme tell y’all why I love it so.
🚨🚨 Announcing! A new game! 🚨🚨
This is a game about gratitude for good friends. About some folks who came and lightened my load when things were really heavy. They came in 12 hour car trips, and planes from New York, and in care packages from I don’t even know where, and this piece is saying thank you.
And what better way to say it than with inch worms?
It’s part of the upcoming Friends Issue, and you can look for it this coming April. If you want to say thank you to some friends yourself, maybe this is the inch-sized push you need.
Right after the election, I found comfort in Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones.” I find it beautiful and inspiring. The world is a terrible, messed up, fucked up place. And it’s also beautiful. And even more importantly, you get to decide how you live in it. You can make it beautiful. I shared this poem in a group chat with friends as a pick me up. My friend said he found it depressing.
Showed some games and the layout for the first issue last night at a playtesting event here in town and got some really useful feedback, some enthusiasm, and a whole foaming, frothing, overflowing mug full of doubt.
I’ve been working on the first issue for Wide Open Games the past few weeks, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s coming along. One game is 90% completed, 2 others are just under development, and still 2 more ideas are gestating in my brain and on my morning pages.
The first issue, fittingly enough, is The Start Issue. It’s all about trying something new and taking a risk. Or sometimes doing exactly not that. I don’t want to give too much away, but here are a few gifs of games in progress: