Other Projects

I try to keep myself busy, I guess. In addition to the WRG-based game, I have other projects that keep me going.

One of them is improving my computer programming skills and working on a sandbox computer rpg with domain-level aspects. I intend to base the general idea of the interface on an old game called Darklands, which is pretty much my favorite computer game of all time. It was a precursor, in many ways, to Fallout, which was designed by the same studio. I'm also looking at Dwarf Fortress as a model, as it includes most of the ideas that I want to pursue, except that its world generation is not customizable in the ways that I want it to be. In addition, its tone is pretty well set at a particular kind of humor that, though I enjoy it, is not what I want for the game I am designing. I'm also looking at the pencil-and-paper game Flashing Blades for ideas on social structure. I've done a little bit of work on this, mostly laying out some general flowcharts.

Another project is a fantasy world that has been in my head for years. I have made some attempts to develop that world design in the past, but I am currently looking at developing it in play. Some of the important exceptions to that are the languages, which I want to develop as, at least, naming languages, if not the whole way to fully-fleshed-out conlangs.

I have an idea in the back of my head to design a game to deal with my ideas of spaceship SF, but I haven't done any work on it yet. It would include a vehicle/spaceship design system, domain-level ideas to cover colony campaigns, and such.

Another computer-based project I've thought about is a multiplayer online game of domain control. I'm still working out how I want to regulate the turn structure of this idea, but right now most of the ideas I have are really too complex for the sort of semi-casual audience I'd be targeting it at.

I've always wanted to write some supplements for Flashing Blades, covering other parts of the world, such as England and Ireland (and Wales, and Scotland), the Low Countries, Spain, Italy, North Africa, Russia, Germany, Poland, and such, even as far away as Japan. It could even be worth it to develop a magic system for it, on the GURPS Voodoo model, but that might be going too far.

Which of these would be most interesting, do you think?