Update - 03/11/2025
Hello, and welcome to another update! Patreon has changed things a bit and it's allowing me to make this more like a newsletter, which is cool! I'll be exploring its features, for now we get a cool image header for these weekly updates (and looking at it, it really makes me want to work on more Salvage & Sorcery, haha).
I hope you all had a great weekend, mine was a bit of a waste of time, from a work perspective, haha. I did get to work on Saturday and Sunday morning, but on Saturday I went out with friends for an early dinner that stretched out late into the night, and Sunday I went to have lunch with my father and brother. I did get some work done, as I said, but not as much as I like. I suppose I need to do human things now and then too, socializing and such. It's not that I don't enjoy doing so, I'm just a real workaholic and I love what I do, so anything else is a waste of time, haha.
I'm working hard on playtesting Warlord Ascendant 2e, and so far it's been so much fun! I am making adjustments to a lot of things, though, and it does look like the overall Vigor of all creatures is a little bit too high, which is making combat last way too long. Sure, it's a combat-first game, but I hate having HP bloat in games, it's unnecessary.
Other than that, last week I worked hard on getting Apocrypha done (the Choir of Flesh zine), which is turning out really good, and the Ker Nethalas big update, which I'm calling the Gravebound Edition. I've ended up deciding on a big change for it: the Damage Dealt table is gone. This has always been a controversial aspect of the game, but one that I felt necessary in order to properly balance it. Instead, I came up with a pretty elegant solution, if I may say so myself: only the highest result rolled counts, regardless of how many dice you roll. I spent Thursday two hours doing simulations and tests, rolling hundreds of dice and making tables to make sure it would be a proper substitution, and it does seem like it's going to work. I do have to increase the Health values of most creatures, but I was already doing another balancing pass anyway, so it's not a big deal. Overall, I'm really happy with this decision, and it should make the game more accessible (I hope).
Today I'm nervous because even though my dog healed great and they said the tumors weren't dangerous (fantastic news), yesterday night we discovered a new, larger bump in a completely different area, so I'm not happy about it. I don't know how the vet didn't spot it while he was operating her... I'm going to the vet later today to see what they thing. It feel playing whack-a-mole with cancer, if I'm being honest. On top of that, for the last 2 weeks my other dog refuses to sleep during the night, he just spends them walking around the apartment and not letting us sleep. If I usually get around 4-5 hours of sleep daily, these last weeks it's been more like 2-3 hours, and I'm honestly exhausted. Let's see if they tell us what's going on.
This week I'll continue with the same: working on Apocrypha, playtesting Warlord Ascendant 2e, and working on the Gravebound Edition for Ker Nethalas. Definitely enough to keep me busy!
Hope you all have a great week!
Comments (6)
Glad you can have some personal time. Spending time with loved ones is a great way to recharge and refocus your energy. On the dog front, we have a senior dog who would wander around at night and just be a nuisance. (He also has a type of doggy dementia.) So we kenneled him and he sleeps through the night. I think he just gets anxious at night and would keep doing his daytime routines. Im so excited to read more into the Warlord Ascendant. It looks great! Thanks for all your diligence and work.
We've talked about buying a kennel for him, yes. If it continues, we'll have to do it... Fortunately tonight he was calm and I slept a whole 5 hours, haha. Thank you for your advice and support!
Don't underestimate social gatherings, cleansing the head is great for creativity, and sometimes you get cool nuggets to develop from the most unexpected places. Let you subconscius process those talks and you might be surprised what you get.
I totally agree! We're social creatures and it's definitely necessary. It always helps me want to get back to work with renewed energy, too!
Hope you get good news for your puppy Alex, that does sound very exhausting!
Thank you! I'll go later today, fingers crossed! I hope it's just me being paranoid...