This will be an introspective post, fair warning to any readers- although that’s my first question, why would people (you) read this? I know why I wanted to write it: I was thinking of self-publishing a game, and wanted to write about it. Additionally, all* advice is about putting yourself out there to make connections etc. However, there’s that nagging feeling- what have I got to offer? Why will people want to read what I write? Especially when I have no real experience in games publishing. Designing, a small amount. Pitching to publishers, a tiny amount. But this’ll only be a success story (or klaxxon-filled warning!) in retrospective, not now.
I’ve written about cons I’ve been to, which was fun but not really the plans for this blog, and I’ve been thinking about writing reviews- which would then give people a reason to read, but that feels like a trick to get people interested in my games. I could write about teaching maths (hmmm….). Nope, I want to write about my experiences designing and self-publishing and just hope that anybody who reads it gets something from it.
So the plan! A few months ago after quite a bit of playtesting I realised my other game wasn’t ready. So rather than push ahead with it, I went back, worked on another design, playtested it to the point I was extremely happy with it, and I’m going to try publishing it. Which is incredibly intimidating, frightening even. But the only thing I have to fear is the failure to fulfill. Which is nothing, really. Yet the whole thing is still fearsome, which is the thing with trying new challenges- you (I) have to push past that fear of failure.
And this blog will now become a designer diary for Forks. Stuff that’s happened in the past, stuff that’s happening now. Why some choices are the way they are, lessons learned and lets just see how it all falls.