Tea in Another Place

Hello friends,

It’s May! Traditionally one of my favourite months because it’s sunny but not too hot, however I’m currently writing from my office and it’s 29 degrees Celsius (about 84f) and very humid. Oof.

Game Development News

I don’t generally mention my day job in this newsletter, but I do have one (and intend to keep it for now, despite the success of The Beekeeper’s Picnic making it feel a tiny bit more optional than it used to be!). I work in a digital/library services role in Higher Education. I think that the structure, security and perspective it offers me has been pretty much essential to my creative work, and I’ve always appreciated that it’s generally pretty chill. This month however, multiple confluences of world events buggering things up produced one of the most stressful months of my career!

Designing a Notebook

As a result, I put a pin in my plans to press on with programming a functioning wire-frame version of a prologue of The Museum of Everything (with placeholder art galore!) because I just wasn’t in the right headspace. Instead, I decided to give myself a fun, comparatively relaxing task. The kind of thing I could do on cosy evenings while listening to music or an audio drama.

The player character Madge has a sketchbook where she stores information she’s discovered about people in the form of drawings, so I completed sketches of all the main characters in the story.

Hell, any of them could have done it! Etc.

…And then using them to populate a notebook screen. As Madge meets new characters, they will be given a tab in the sketchbook.

In The Beekeeper’s Picnic, I sometimes felt that screens became very crowded and fussy, particularly when looking at characters to deduce information about them. This time around I want to make sure that all the screens in the game are sufficiently clutter-free and #aesthetic.

The notebook

Madge considers the particulars of her friend George.

Figuring Out Short Videos on Social Media

The other task I set myself this month was to do research into how I might promote my games better through short videos. I’ve always steered away from getting too embroiled in the auto-playing video side of social media (Instagram, YouTube shorts, TikTok, etc). For starters I have the kind of personality where I will absolutely get addicted to scrolling through them, and secondly it seemed like a fairly poor use of my time compared to just contacting existing gaming accounts and influencers — a bit like trying to build a bookshop to sell a book.

However, lately I got curious and thought I should do some experimenting. I’ve been trying to release a short video at least once a week. You can find my efforts over on Instagram and YouTube.

I’ve had some fun creating them, but I also found myself spending more time than I would like, and fixating a bit on the numbers and trying to please The Algorithm. I think I'm probably going to try scheduling them ahead of time as much as possible so that I don't have that little dopamine hit of posting and then getting absorbed in watching numbers go up (or not).

A follow on those platforms would be appreciated, though! I’m going to be interested to see which one gets to 1k followers first.

Other News

The Sherlock Showcase

It was finally time for the Sherlock Showcase, an event being run by the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. The day before, I went along to the Society’s tea at the House of Lords, which celebrated the Society’s 75th anniversary and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday. Getting inside the Palace of Westminster was like going through airport security, with the pleasant difference that everyone was exceedingly polite and calm. Looking out over the River Thames from a usually-inaccessibly location was a huge pinch-me moment.

Appropriately fancy table-wear, although I was sad that they didn’t have little tongs for the sugar.

An unusual view!

Then on Saturday I had a table at the Showcase itself, which was at Riverside Studios, the location where a lot of early Doctor Who was filmed. I was upstairs manning a table alongside an eclectic group of folks whose creative work is all connected by Sherlock Holmes - authors, board game designers, audio-drama creators and podcasters, etc.

There was an exciting programme of events on the stage downstairs, and I was sad I couldn’t split myself in two! When it came to the reunion of cast and crew from Granada Television’s The Naval Treaty episode of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (including Alison Skilbeck, who voiced Mrs Whitlock in The Beekeeper’s Picnic) I grabbed everything of value from my table and snuck into the auditorium anyway — totally worth it!

I need to give the Beekeeper’s Picnic fans who came along a giant thank-you. Events like this can be very intense and tiring, and meeting a friendly face was an excellent tonic which kept me going.

Mention in the Guardian

The Beekeeper’s Picnic got a very brief mention in the Guardian . Exciting!

Projects I Like

I’ve got a few things I’d like to highlight which are in the process of getting funding which you might be interested in.

First there’s The Lion and the Adder, an audiodrama which is in the last stages of a successful crowdfunding campaign, so be quick if you want to back it! It describes itself as “What if Lord Peter Wimsey was gay and also trans and he teamed up with a psychic lesbian to solve crimes involving demons?” which had me screeching to please just take my money.

Then there’s Mithra, a cultish mystery game which is launching its campaign soon. It describes itself as a 2D hand-drawn narrative mystery game where forgotten gods, urban labyrinths and conspiratorial puzzles collide. I was table-neighbours with the creators at an event a while ago, and thought it looked incredibly cool. You can sign up to be notified when their campaign starts.

The Monthly Malkin

This month Miss Malkin has been keeping hydrated by drinking from her drinking fountain, which is great because she didn’t use it for the first six months of its existence. She also stole a plastic bin bag (the kind which says ‘keep away from children and animals’ on it) and decided it was Hers and I couldn’t have it.

I think that’s about it for this month! This is usually the point in my newsletter where I lay out what I’m planning to do over the next month, but I’m probably going to take a bit of time to unwind after such a hectic time, so precisely what game dev stuff I’ll get done will be a surprise for both of us!

Best wishes,

Helen