Jack Blair's games newsletter - Issue #2

Kia Ora! How was y'alls week? Because mine was a mixed bag.

Once again most of the work I did constitutes spoilers for the upcoming return of Qomrades (and I have a feeling that'll be a common refrain). But I did manage to do some other things.

You may have noticed a change to my stream schedule, which I'll link the details of below. The TL:DR is however that I'll be switching from 3 streams a week to 4, and eliminating the "sims for game designers vs Sims for Simmers" dichotomy that wasn't doing me any favours. I'm also thinking about starting a drive for twitch affiliate, so if you're not already following me on there, I'd really appreciate you hitting the follow button.

Tomorrow's my first recording for Crip Hit, by the way! If you haven't seen already, I'm part of an all disabled stream called Crip Hit that will be coming out soon. Larime, who is the organiser and GM for the project uploaded a mission statement this week. Give it a look, and expect me to be hyping Crip Hit as we go forward as well.

As for other things I've been doing, I've just started a handful of media, and I'm beginning to formulate thoughts about it, though I don't know that I have anything particularly compelling to say just yet.

• I'm reading Nona the Ninth

• I'm watching Revolutionary Girl Utena

• Off stream, I'm playing Graveyard Keeper and Sunless Seas (and Animal Crossing, of course)

Graveyard Keeper is probably what has me turning over the most gears in my head. Something about that game's action loop has me in a chokehold. If I start playing it, I keep playing until my focus is broken by something, and I have trouble stopping otherwise. For a game with a not particularly compelling story, characters without much to say, and endless repetition of tasks, for some reason, hooks me, and has me thinking about game design.

A player wanting to play endlessly isn't something that I think about in designing gameplay. But should it be? Arguably, you could say that D&D has that instinct. What everyone wants is the campaign that lasts years and goes to level 20 right? And that's not something that people achieve often. Scheduling is the enemy of any game. But what about it makes people go "I want to play this game every saturday for the next three to thirty years"? Most campaign length games I know give characters a much shorter shelf life than that. In my own games, I recommend playing out one character arc. Probably around 10 levels at longest against D&D's 20. Obviously from the business side of things, players who will be still playing the same campaign 2 years from now, and will be ready to buy the next set of adventure prompts when that campaign ends, is something you want. Especially if you're also selling character keepers, miniatures, dice, merchandise... But what creates that expectation other than just slapping a "max" sign on a level. Is a campaign length that long an achievable goal for an indie? What's the longest campaign you've been part of? What were you playing?

Anyway, gameplay loops. What makes 'em tick? Much to think about.

I think that's it from me for today. Keep an eye out for Crip Hit, and thanks for subscribing!