A bottleneck and a small announcement
Adventure games, GDC and Surmount...
Hi pal!
A premise of Indie Notebook is that I will give you sneak peaks and early access to some of my projects. Read the end of this newsletter for an early announcement.
As you might have seen in an earlier issue of Indie Notebook, I have a method for staying consistent with my writing. But in fact, I’m so consistent with the writing that I can’t keep up with illustrating what I finish.
I have about 5 finished pieces right now. But the main reason I haven’t published them is because I don’t have any kind of commitment towards making those drawings. It’s quite a bottleneck. Is drawing the pictures the same as writing?
I don’t know yet.
But this bottleneck might actually have some benefits. It makes me take a long pause from the article as I keep writing or drawing for another one. I get to come back to each one with fresh eyes.
For now I’m happy to take it as it comes. I don’t have any hard deadlines with this, I’m just having fun.
New this week
📝 Blog post - What makes a great adventure game?
You might remember that I wrote a little bit about my thoughts on adventure games a few weeks ago. Now I’ve turned those thoughts into this blog post!
“Lots of video games call themselves adventure games, but it’s quite rare that they actually make me feel adventurous.”
🎉 Event - Surmount at GDC
Last year we went to showcase Surmount in San Fransisco at Day Of The Devs. Now we’ve been invited to SF again, but as part of GDC!
If you’re there, you will be able to play our demo and chat with Jasper. (you’ll also be able to pick up one of these sticky guys)
📙 Book - Math Without Numbers
It’s been a long time since I finished a book so quickly.
When I was a kid I really liked math, but during high school I lost the thread and gave up on it. Now that I do programming it has actually become useful and very interesting. So out of cheer curiosity I started to build up my foundations.
Seriously one of the best books I’ve read in a while. The author does a great job at showing why math is magical. I think removing the numbers really helps you focus on the exciting parts of what he’s trying to say. Maybe because a number in itself does’t mean all that much?
So for the early announcement…
As you might know I’ve been working on a game called Surmount for the past two years with my friend Jasper Oprel. For most of this time we’ve been adding features and content. But now most of that is in place and we’re transitioning into the next phase, OPTIMIZING FOR FUN and MAKING SURE IT WORKS.
Which means we’ve decided to get more serious about testing it. If climbing a procedural mountain sounds like your jam, let me know and I’ll set you up with a Steam key! It works on both PC and Mac. You will need a gamepad though.
I might make a more official announcement about this in a future newsletter or on social media.
Thank you as always for reading! Have a creative week.
Congrats on the progress with your game and for the OPTIMIZING FOR FUN!! (the most important part maybe probably)