Posted by adamebell on Nov 11, 2024
In case this formatting is completely wild when I publish, here's a direct link to the newsletter
It's safe to say that I'm back
I went into October planning to do my game design work full-time, and it's been a good month for that. A lot of it is relatively mundane stuff -- organizing & counting stock of the games I have, making plans for what designs to focus on for the coming year, and reevaluating my marketing copy for each of the games and trying to figure out new ways to sell them.
That last one is the hardest one for me, but easily the most necessary for achieving any sort of long-term success doing this stuff. There are two wolves inside of me. One insists that I need to spend the majority of my time and energy getting my existing games into more stores and expanding whatever audience I might have through my existing but still relatively unknown games. The other shouts back that kickstarting & releasing a new game will make it easier to build that audience. Which one is correct? You tell me.
I haven't just been ruminating though, I've been having some fun and making stuff. Here are a few things I've been up to:
- Made a ton of progress on the Locked Room Murder Mystery Game
- Started the "Locked Room Dev Log" series on YouTube
- Started the "Publishing a Tabletop RPG" series on YouTube
- Continued my tiktok actual play series of Grasping Nettles
- Tabled at my local zine fair
- Created a new website to centralize the info & supplemental downloads of my games
Documenting the Locked Room
My next big game is the first edition of the Locked Room Murder Mystery Game, so a lot of my time goes into designing and writing it. It's shaping up into a really great game, so make sure to follow the Kickstarter to get notified when it goes live. A full announcement will be coming whenever I get the visual design a little closer to final, but that's the link!
Over on youtube, I started a pair of video series. In Publishing a Tabletop RPG I'm beginning to document all the steps I need to take to fully publish my game. In Locked Room Dev Log, I'm doing some live design and tuning up bits of my manuscript. Creating them has been a great exercise for me because the process of thinking out loud and explaining different concepts to the camera helps me approach them in a more focused & intentional way.
Both may be worth a watch if you want to see how this indie designer juggles all of the different hats involved in self-publishing, or if you want to get a peek into how I approach different design challenges in a late-stage design like this one. If you do like it, I've also been posting a few bonus episodes to my comradery page. Here are the first videos from each series:
Grasping Nettles Actual Play
I've been playing a single-player game of Grasping Nettles on Tiktok, one video for each turn. Yesterday I put together a summary video for Youtube & Instagram so I can start posting new episodes there as well. I hit a stride where I keep the videos short & engaging with some fun editing, so follow me wherever you prefer if you wanna see how this game is played!
The Pittsburgh Zine Fair
I tabled at the Pittsburgh Zine Fair again this year and had a great time selling some games. The zine fair is always an invigorating event because it's not game focused at all; there are only a handful of other people selling tabletop game related stuff. But yet I do just as well by the hour there as I have done at PAX Unplugged & Gen Con! It gives me hope that there's a ton of people out there that would like little roleplaying games like mine, they just need to hear about them!
Comradery Pledge Drive
My last newsletter was mainly about the pledge drive on my Comradery page I tried to run in October. It was a tremendous failure! Nobody new backed me there, which is absolutely one of the outcomes I was anticipating. I do plan to keep posting there, but it's not currently something that can be part of my financial reality. Maybe one day I'll try to push it again!
Until Next Time
You'll be hearing from me soon about The Locked Room Murder Mystery Game! I'm hoping to spend the last bit of this year playtesting the hell out of it and getting ready for that kickstarter. Stay tuned & tell your friends!