I'm not stuck at home
This pandemic has hit fast hasn't it.
A month ago, we heard there was an illness but it was mostly confined to China, with a few outbreaks that generally seemed under control in other parts of the world. NOw, it's everywhere. Folks are self-quarantining, others are disappearing (hopefully they'll be back after a social media isolation period), people are hoarding, infrastructure is collapsing. As a teacher in the Australian state of New South Wales, I have been deemed an essential worker in the community, which means I'm not on self isolation but I feel for the folks who are.
It's really starting to feel like the opening scenes to either of the two game projects that I've been toying with for years.
Walkabout starts with an undisclosed apocalypse. It alludes to some environmental catastrophe, and implies a time of darkness and chaos when people turned on each other. That basically derives from the Mad Max movies more than anythng about nuclear holocaust, and it actually seems to be the way thngs are playing out at the moment... hoarding, exacerbation of wealth and social inequalty, people being left to fend for themselves. It hasn't degenerated into rioting "yet", but who knows what we aren't seeing in other parts of the world. Between the one-two punches of the fires and the virus, Australia is doing it tough.
Apocalypse Diaries chronicles the end of an age, from the perspective of a single person. It was intended to be a game for one person to play, guided by a book and some method of randomisation (probably cards). It was intended to be the kind of game someone could play once a day on their way to work, but now it's looking more like something to while away the hours in self-isolation. Now I really wish I'd gotten around to finshing it. Alas, while the people who might appreciate it are in self -isolation, and almost literally a captive audience for some "lonely fun", I'm here at work, on the front lines looking after the next generation and hoping I can give them the critical thinking tools necessary to avoid this sort of problem in the future... as long as we get through it.
Anyway... maybe it might be time to look at those projects again soon.
A month ago, we heard there was an illness but it was mostly confined to China, with a few outbreaks that generally seemed under control in other parts of the world. NOw, it's everywhere. Folks are self-quarantining, others are disappearing (hopefully they'll be back after a social media isolation period), people are hoarding, infrastructure is collapsing. As a teacher in the Australian state of New South Wales, I have been deemed an essential worker in the community, which means I'm not on self isolation but I feel for the folks who are.
It's really starting to feel like the opening scenes to either of the two game projects that I've been toying with for years.
Walkabout starts with an undisclosed apocalypse. It alludes to some environmental catastrophe, and implies a time of darkness and chaos when people turned on each other. That basically derives from the Mad Max movies more than anythng about nuclear holocaust, and it actually seems to be the way thngs are playing out at the moment... hoarding, exacerbation of wealth and social inequalty, people being left to fend for themselves. It hasn't degenerated into rioting "yet", but who knows what we aren't seeing in other parts of the world. Between the one-two punches of the fires and the virus, Australia is doing it tough.
Apocalypse Diaries chronicles the end of an age, from the perspective of a single person. It was intended to be a game for one person to play, guided by a book and some method of randomisation (probably cards). It was intended to be the kind of game someone could play once a day on their way to work, but now it's looking more like something to while away the hours in self-isolation. Now I really wish I'd gotten around to finshing it. Alas, while the people who might appreciate it are in self -isolation, and almost literally a captive audience for some "lonely fun", I'm here at work, on the front lines looking after the next generation and hoping I can give them the critical thinking tools necessary to avoid this sort of problem in the future... as long as we get through it.
Anyway... maybe it might be time to look at those projects again soon.
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