Biplanes and Weird Basket Cats

What-ho, everyone!

Thank you for joining me in this new newsletter venture. A few years ago I used to fastidiously write a newsletter every month on a platform called Revue and I'd built up a subscriber list of about 200 people, but then a certain Elon Musk bought it along with Twitter and... well, uh, that was the end of that, it was suddenly closed down with very little warning.

I'm planning to use this newsletter to share creative stuff I'm up to - hence the name 'The Wonder Room,' it's like those historical collections of oddities, and I'm taking you on a little tour every month.

Domenico Remps, Cabinet of Curiosities, 1690, Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence, Italy.

Making Stuff

I'm currently stuck in the very very early ideation phase of making a new game, which I always find a bit emotionally taxing. Once you have a vague idea where a story is going, you can feel reassured that there's a formula which goes something like:

Time + Energy = More Of The Thing

When I was well underway making the Beekeeper's Picnic, I knew that if I put more hours into making sprites or writing dialogue, more of the game would come into being. I might choose the particular task depending on how much energy I had on any given day, but there was always a task to be done.

Scribbling in a notebook, trying to think of ideas…

The initial ideation phase isn't like that. There are various activities you can do (mind maps, character profiles, etc) but you can't say "I have lots of time today, I'll sit down for six hours and rattle off a chunk of ideation", at least I can't. I find that after a few really good ideas my brain shuts down. "You've had your lot of the day, come back tomorrow!"

I think that this initial pre-production phase feels a bit like one of those old fashioned biplanes bouncing on the runway. I'm confident that eventually everything will coalesce and I'll be able to begin production, but for now I haven't quite managed to take off, I keep bumping back down onto the runway.

1915 stereograph 'Orville Wright inspecting his airplane before a flight in Fort Myer, VA. Library of Congress

It's also really difficult to share anything. I'm really hesitant to give any details in case anything ends up drastically changing. Let's say at this stage I mentioned that the vital thrust of this story I'm devising involves a duck called Professor Quackster (it doesn't), and then six months from now I decide that the good professor needs to go for the good of the story. When the game releases I wouldn't want my most loyal followers, the people who have been there from the start, to lament the loss of Professor Quackster!

So for now all I'll tell you is that I'm quite excited about the project, which I think is a good sign.

Media Recommendations

This month I've been reading Disney Adults Exploring (And Falling In Love With) A Magical Subculture by AJ Wolfe.

The "falling in love with" in the title correctly indicates that this isn't a hard-line examination of the horrific monopoly that is the Walt Disney Company and its grip on global culture, but a more soft touch examination of the fandom which surrounds it. While it does consider the hold which Disney can have on its fans critically, I felt that its message was ultimately that community and a love of stories will win out in the end, over the machinations of The Mouse.

It also made me feel that going to a fancy dinner and pretending a fictional detective is real from time to time doesn't register on the obsessive fandom scale as much as I thought it did.

If any of you use Storygraph, feel free to connect with me on there.

See you next month!

I guess that's it for my first newsletter in a while! Feel free to share with anyone you might think will appreciate future issues, and I'll see you in September!

🐝 Jabbage