PERSONAL DIARY (Jan 2020): A chaotic start to the next decade…

Posted on February 3, 2020 by @mangozoid

An Unreasonable Selection?

I started 2020 with just a couple of things on my ‘To Do’ list, none of which struck me as particularly unreasonable…

(1). Get Aliens Ate My Planet! published, or at least to get it prepped enough for a publisher to take it off my hands.

(2). Explore and find my way around a couple of Adobe/InDesign software alternatives, namely the Affinity suite: Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Photo; just so I don’t have to rely on InDesign for everything.

(3). Try and get my finances in a better state, just to ensure I’ve got something to fall back on when unexpected hiccups occur.

(4). To build on last year’s Kickstarter boycott, and try to limit how many new games I buy this year.

(5). More tabletop gaming would also be a good thing, of course…

Guess I should have probably known better…

It’s Not All Bad, Surely?

To be fair, a couple of unexpected additional gaming sessions with old friends has been a welcome aspect of this past month, as was a full-on 8+ hour session playing Angola. I did also make my first (and only) game purchase of the year thus far: Awkward Guests – a game I enthused about and included in my Top 5 Games of 2019 post (Angola got a mention in there, too). That said, gaming as a whole has taken something of a backseat for most of January, with annoying things like everyday life causing me no end of hassle, frankly.

In addition, I have managed to make some further progress with Aliens Ate My Planet! and even completed some early banner designs and a workable rulebook (finally – things need pruning and cleaning up, but at least they exist). I’ll also have a stand at AireCon 2020 (13-15th March, 2020 — stand E4 barring any last-minute changes), and am looking forward to demonstrating the game all weekend, with the hopeful surety that someone finds it worthy of publishing consideration…

early rulebook (temp artwork)

roller banner sample

early_sellsheet

Finance-wise, work is currently very quiet, with the resultant drop in income needling me more than it usually does, which might explain my current lack of positivity to be fair, but this hasn’t been helped by having lost my car for almost two weeks, which is particularly annoying, especially since it looks like I may need to shop around for a new one — anyone that has ever been in that position and lives in an area where public transport is pants (nigh-on non-existent) could tell you how disruptive this can be to a family that depends on these things to get around… Grrr! Ideally, a consistent graphic design position with an established publisher would be perfect just now, frankly.

And as for exploring those InDesign alternatives… Yeh, that’s not working out too well just now, either. Pfft.

January 2020 gaming stats: 19 games played (4 wins)