Werewolf Fever

I am the Warden!!

Over the weekend, I received a very cool surprise: a signed DVD and poster for a horror movie called Werewolf Fever shot here in Renfrew. I'd heard about it right after moving here in 2010 and it never came up again until my buddy handed it to me on Sunday.

Last month, I was supposed to attend the Ottawa Comic Con and had to bail at the last minute due to car troubles (which was really ironic because I barely have access to a car for one to be busted). Turns out the cast and crew had a booth promoting the movie and my good, good, goodgood friend got them to sign a copy of the DVD and poster for Chelsea and I.

First off, it's by no means a great film. Or good. But it's not trying to be. It's just goofy horror fun. Almost 95% of the movie takes place at Odi's Kingburger, a drive-in burger joint just on the edge of Renfrew, and simply knowing where it was shot made it a kick to watch. Tell you the truth, I've actually watched the movie twice. And went to Odi's for a burger afterwards. This must be what people in Hollywood or New York feel like (if either city only had 8,500 people and no one ever wrote songs about them).

The premise is simple: the employees of a late night drive-in (possibly during the 50s; it's hard to tell with the Budget rental cars in the background) are besieged by a werewolf trying to tear them limb from rollerskate. The only things keeping them alive are their wits, some roses, and a magic back door. OK, maybe just some roses and a magic back door. The kicker is the actual drive-in is located right next to a police station, making it high-larious for us locals as the employees try and come up with a plan to call for help after the phone lines have been cut.

In true schlock horror style, the acting is bad and the werewolf costume is questionable (looking like Sylvester Stallone suited up like Gizmo run over by an 18-wheeler), leaving most of the budget for make-up effects and squishy SFX. But I still had a hoot watching it. After pushing myself through Thankskilling sober, this is the good kind of bad. Good enough that I hope to actually meet the cast and crew in person to shake their hands.

It's easy to forget there are passionate, aspiring filmmakers behind these movies busting their ass behind the camera while trying to hold down a "real job." Especially when it's something many of us could only go so far as dream. So kudos to the cast & crew of Werewolf Fever - you've made a great piece of crap!

Extreme Juggling

I am the Warden!!

A call came in today from the vocational counsellor set up by my insurance company. A really positive, upbeat woman who's been a tremendous help going through the process of choosing a new career, school, program, and everything else in between.

Let me clarify something important, dear readers. Tabletop game design and publishing IS my new career, but it's not a choice the insurance company considers "economically viable." (Anyone remember that Michael Douglas film, Falling Down, where those words played a part?) But an essential element to my goal is graphic design and that's where I'm headed. With the proper training and up-to-date software, my games will stand a much better shot in a small, crowded market. (I should point out I'll be taking online classes, regardless of how all the pieces fall into place.) Plus, it's still an acceptable back-up plan should BRG fail and remains related to my previous field - press operator - so those 5 years of training and experience aren't thrown out the window.

Right now, we've submitted two programs and it's once again time for the waiting game. Or maybe not. Apparently, their goal is to get me cracking as early as July. That's next month, people. With Killshot nearing completion - yet far from wrapping up as a product line - it's going to get hectic all up in here.

It'll be a test of two skills: willpower and concentration. The former is rock hard, I have no concerns there, but the latter lies in the opposite column. My concentration is... how shall I put this?... as solid as that pretty bird sitting in the tree and now it's flying away, look how fluffy those clouds are, boy is it ever hot outside today, oops, I was talking about something else then got off topic and now I can't remember what I was talking about. An unfortunate side effect of the traumatic brain injury, or TBI.

My bulletin board (AKA the back-up brain)
as it is when I wrote this post.

During these past few months, I've had the good fortune of having nothing on my plate for long periods of time, allowing me consecutive weeks to work uninterrupted on a single project. Even that's never been 100% smooth sailing, but it's been possible for two reasons. One, I'm passionate about my work. Two, I get to make stuff up. I'm not bogged down by having to remember things because I'm building something of my own creation. And I have a giant bulletin board covered with notes to keep me on track, as you can see in the photo provided somewhere around here.

This will change once I get cracking on whichever course is chosen. (Likely the cheapest.) While my intention should focus on the course, it will always want to drift back to my work because it always does. The entire reason I've chosen this course is to aid my publishing career. Therein lies the real challenge: battling myself.

There's a lot at stake aside from grades. When I have trouble concentrating, I get "fuzzy," resulting in migraines, mood swings, and overall mental absence. Left unchecked, I'll be standing in the middle of the room staring at the fridge wondering how it opens. Or why it opens. That won't help anyone.

With all these concerns, I'm looking forward to the challenge because it's a chance to test myself in a more real-world scenario. It's one step closer to returning to normal, or as close to normal as can be. It offers an opportunity to gauge my abilities before and after through a series of challenges within my control. In other words, progress. And I love progress.

Hey, what happened to that bird?

Announcement: The Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers

I am the Warden!!

This is the Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers!!

Last week, a couple of other game designers were talking about a local comic book shop opening up a table for people like us to introduce and promote our games when the idea of "banding together" on a social site like Google+ was thrown out. The idea has now become a reality and over the weekend, the Ottawa Tabletop Game Designers page was launched.

While it's just starting up and features are on the light-to-nonexistent side right now, my plan is to feature many of the numerous aspiring and successful tabletop game designers in the Ottawa area as well as local artists, editors, and other freelancers plying their trade. Plus highlight stores and conventions where you can find these games as a kind of cross-promotion effort. With all the recent growth in gaming development and culture in Ottawa over the last couple of years, I've been surprised with the number of designers and publishers and would love to see this area become recognized for tabletop game production in the same way Montreal has become synonymous with video games.

So if you live in Ottawa or the surrounding valley, be sure to check out the page and follow away. Once we have an initial membership up and running, I'm looking to set up a Twitter feed and work on setting up contact with various retailers and conventions in the area.

Hello? Is This Thing On?

I am the Warden!!

I said... I am the Warden!!!

Anybody? Hello?

As much as I like to think I'm an independent person, there's that human need for acceptance and participation. Online, that means having followers and people posting comments on your blog, responding to emails, and inundating you with replies upon replies upon replies. When you're developing a new game, reading these text-based representations of human contact can be a huge boost to both your work and your confidence.

But it's been really quite around here. Especially with the backers.

(Before going any further, I want to make something perfectly clear. My intent is not to throw a tantrum, but to express and verbalize in an effort to gain an understanding and clarity on the topic, much in the same way blogging about game design issues gives me greater vision to tackle the task and complete it.)

Just over half of the Director-level backers for the Kickstarter project have responded with details - vague or in depth - for their marks and not a single one has sent in any legitimate playtest comments other than "looks good after a quick read-through." The deadline for playtest comments has come and gone and there's less than a week left until the deadline for the Director's submissions. (Note: This deadline is more of a request rather than an absolute so I can have a leg up on the workload ahead.) Now that Killshot has entered its last three months of production before the scheduled release in August, this has become a huge concern for me.

Website or Blog?

I am the Warden!!

After a long weekend plus an extra day away from work to handle the pain of a long weekend trying to do stuff you're not supposed to do, I'm back at getting ready for Killshot's release in August. After making some updates to the Broken Ruler's blog and the Killshot page in particular, I'm looking at purchasing a domain name for Broken Ruler Games to step things up a notch.

I'm left wondering which direction I should take the Ruler. Using a simple blog has been effective and saved me time and energy keeping an online profile and there's no reason to ditch it for an actual website at the moment, yet there's nothing a blog can provide in the way of a website's flexibility. But it also comes down to cost. A lot of independent game publishers start off with blogs to keep their costs low - why spend money on a website unless you have the traffic to make it worth the effort? Right now, I'm literally on the fence for this one, so I'm turning to all of you for advice.

What do you think? Blog or website?

Hope Is Paralyzing

I am the Warden!!

Before I begin, I want to make something perfectly clear. Looking at the title of today's post, you'd think I was about to get all dark and depressing, wouldn't you? Far from it. What you'll read today is actually my own inspiring tale of rising up to overcome oppression and the tribulations of life.

We have a little saying in my house: Hope is paralyzing. It's something my fiancee uses a lot and it's one I've come to agree with, though I've turned it into something a little more positive than her original version. As many of you know, we're going through a rough patch in many regards. The accident was just the catalyst sending it all into a spiraling black hole threatening to break us apart into nothing more than atoms in space. As the readership on this blog can be a bit scattered (some of you are friends, others are backers of my work, and a small percentage are random people stumbling onto this blog because you did a search on the Matrix and started clicking around from there), I'll give a little back story helpful to my overall point.

My fiancee has epilepsy. A rather severe form in that it's brought on by stress, plus some mild reactions to florescent lighting typical in many work places. Despite her best efforts, she has been unable to maintain any employment for any significant amount of time. When my accident happened, the stress of dealing with this compounded her condition and sent her into a near nervous breakdown - she's in her mid-20s. So the two of us are at home: while I'm yet physically unable to meet the demands of my previous occupation - press operator - and still overcoming certain cognitive issues and internal demons, she's been put on indefinite medical leave by her doctors in fear any additional stress could either induce a massive grand mal seizure capable of putting her in a coma or killing her. In the words of Albert Einstein, I shit you not.

As you can imagine, we could certain use a healthy dose of hope right about now. (Or any time within the past 18 months, actually.) But while this time has not exactly been a piece of cake, not all of it has been spent wallowing in tears and brooding over what could have been. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely days like that and one of them befell us recently, hence the reason for today's post. I'd say the majority of the time is spent holding each other up to stand and face whatever comes our way.

Probability Can Suck It!

I am the Warden!!

Seeing as this is a roleplaying blog, I don't have to get into explaining probability and how much it factors in game design, right? (I have talked about it before.) This time, I'm talking about the perception of probability in real life with an emphasis on the word "perception."

During my numerous therapy sessions last year - brought about from the trauma caused by the accident - I heard a lot about probability and traffic accidents. "Do you know what I mean when I say 'probability?'" my therapist asked me. I chuckled and gave a quick explanation on how it's gospel when it comes to RPG design.

From there, she attempted to break down the odds of the average person being involved in a serious accident based on frequency on the road, speed, time spent on highways, and a few others I can't remember. When she came to her conclusion, she proclaimed there was only a 0.0001% chance of the average person being in a car accident and the odds of the same person getting into another astronomically increased to 1 in a million.

I chuckled again. This wasn't the first time I'd heard this argument and the funny - nigh, hilarious - aspect about it was I had just been knee deep in reading forums and engaging in personal discussions with the mathematically inclined on probability in roleplaying games. The answer I gave was an off-shoot of my reply to those points.