Big Life Stuff

In my hemisphere of the world it's officially the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! You can decide for yourselves whether I'm quoting celebrating poet John Keats, or whether I'm quoting PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster quoting Jeeves quoting John Keats.

The Museum of Everything

My progress on The Museum of Everything this month has mostly involved lots of drawing, inking and colouring as I replace all of my placeholder artwork for the prologue.

I find with a lot of projects (whether we're talking painting, needlework, putting together an IKEA bookshelf...), there comes a point somewhere between two thirds and three quarters completion where everything feels like a complete mess. You've got something substantial in front of you, but it still feels a long way from the perfect polished vision you had in your mind when you started. You begin to wonder if you'll ever get there. All you can do in that moment is give up, or trust the process and see it through.

I was feeling like that for the past few months with the prologue.

To give you another analogy, I’ve been having a reread of the Hobbit this month, and I’m just on the bit where Bilbo and the dwarves are stumbling blindly through Mirkwood, unsure of their path but clearly heading somewhere. Having reassuring chunks of the game where there’s nothing obviously visually incomplete feels like glimpses of light peeking through the trees on my journey, letting me know that there’s something beyond the darkness. I just need to keep going.

Mirkwood. © The estate of Tove Jansson

Basically - It’s taken a whole year, but I’m beginning to have something that looks like a game!

Future Plans

I'm going to be going to AdventureX in London in November, as an attendee rather than speaking or tabling, but I think it'll be a good deadline for myself to make sure I've updated the trailer and screenshots in the Steam page to reflect the new look of the game.

Beyond that I'm not going to set myself any big goals for the remainder of the year, for reasons that will become clear when I get to...

Life Stuff

Treading the Boards...

I've been aware for a while that my '9-5', my '5-9', and most of my hobbies all broadly involve staring at screens and not talking to people very much, so I've been on a bit of a campaign to find things I enjoy which are also a bit social.

The process of recording all the voice acting for Beekeeper's Picnic reminded me that acting is very fun, and I miss it. When I was a teenager and a student I loved doing drama (I apparently peaked when I, quote, "got one of the top ten results for GCSE drama from the Edexcel Exam Board", which I'm still sceptical about) but I think like a lot of people, I didn't keep up with it after leaving education.

(Who needs a BAFTA?)

I thought that it would probably take me a while to be cast in anything, but I managed to get some beginner's luck! I'm excited to say that I'm going to be in Cresent Theatre's production of A Christmas Carol this December! We're going to be doing a slightly eye-watering 18 performances, and if you're Birmingham adjacent, you can buy tickets now!

Long time followers will know I'm a tiny bit unhinged about A Christmas Carol, so it feels like the perfect show for me. I know the text really well, because I read it every year and I made a comic to serve as a sequel to the story called The Reclamation of Timothy Cratchett, which (improbably) ended up on display in the British Library as part of an exhibition about British indie comics.

Oh, and you're probably wondering who I'm playing. The Ghost of Christmas Present! Yes, that's the one who is generally a giant, beardy man! HUZZAH!

Buying a House

As if becoming a thespian wasn't enough of a major life change, I've also ended up beginning the process of buying a house.

I've been enjoying thinking about all the cool Arts and Crafts era wallpaper I'm going to put everywhere (having finally escaped the beige clutches of the landlords) but alongside the excitement, it is also quote a stressful and time consuming process. In fact I've heard it said that buying a house is one of the most stressful big life events, up there with getting married, starting a new job or having a child (I'm going to add "releasing a videogame" to that list).

So, I’m trying to be mindful of that fact, and cut myself a little slack. I'm hopeful to keep on working on the game (because it is genuinely something I love to do!) but perhaps with less time and intensity as usual.

I'm hunkering down into Stressful Life Event mode for a while.

The Monthly Malkin

Here’s Miss Malkin, reminding me that it’s ok to have a quick snooze once in a while. May we all learn from her wisdom!