As part of submitting our card game, warXorz, to Cards Against Humanity’s Tabletop Deathmatch competition—and in agreement with my co-creator, Charlie Ecenbarger—we have decided to publicly and freely release the printable prototype card sheets and the full rules document, along with a video tutorial!

Reading the rules text may initially make the game seem overly complicated, but as playtesting has proven, everyone has been able to understand the mechanics within their first game—and everyone has always asked for a rematch! To assist in quickly grasping the basic concepts of warXorz, I’ve put together a video tutorial to supplement the full rules document. We hope you’ll all play and enjoy our game; we spent a great amount of time trying to craft something that perfectly balances strategy, luck, simplicity, and fun!

Some of you may be aware that I’ve been working on a novel, My Best Friend with Wings, for (now) over two and a half years. What you might not know is, while I’m crunching to wrap up the last edits in order to (hopefully) release in August, I’ve recently launched a flexible funding campaign on Indiegogo. What that means is, unlike the unsuccessful Kickstarter I tried a few months ago, this time I’ll get to keep any funds raised regardless of reaching a goal or not! While this fund-raising campaign will not have a direct effect on the release of the book—it’s coming out this year, one way or another, and I’m trying my damnedest to hit August—supporting this campaign will help me immensely! Plus, I have come up with what I believe is an enticing reward for anyone truly interested in my story and willing to pledge $10; so check out the project’s campaign page, where you’ll be able to read both the first and second chapters of my novel, for free(!), and please contribute if interested. Thanks!

http://igg.me/at/mbfww

You can also read the first chapter below the “read more” jump on this post; hopefully you’ll enjoy it enough to want to read the second, for which you’ll have to go to the campaign page.

Also, please reblog this post if you’d like to show support, and share/tweet/spread the link for my Indiegogo campaign, thanks!

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I wrote this poem New Year’s Eve, 2011.

To Lie With
-
This life winds
towards love’s worth
Those looping words
tie loose wrists
The laughter’s weak
teasing listless welcome
Torturous longing wilts
tumultuous lust withers
Tempest’s looming wake
tomorrow’s lost wonder
There’s lightning within
these lonely walls
-

This is my Ludum Dare 24 game jam entry.

Unfortunately, since I stupidly used GameSalad once again, there are inexplicable problems that only appear after uploading and publishing to their Arcade site. These are the same sorts of issues I had with my NaGaDeMo game back in June. The game is playable, and maybe I can find a way to fix the smaller issues here, but this is absolutely the last time I’ll attempt something with GameSalad.

You can view a previously recorded livestream of me demoing the game, working essentially perfectly, then publishing the game and witnessing it break right before my eyes: http://www.twitch.tv/ryvvn/b/330175650

Click read more to play the game…

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Now that I’m a bit further removed from the efforts (and stress) of participating in the National Game Development Month, I wanted to collect my thoughts on what transpired throughout June, and look forward on what may come. This entry also serves the purpose of explicitly stating what I plan to do with my currently unfinished and unfinishable game, illume.

[Note: This entry was posted without heavy editing, I just want to get this out there already. If you notice any major grammatical errors or whatever, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct them.]

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This was my game development entry for NaGaDeMo 2012.

Catch the fireflies.

Move: left or right arrows. Catch: hold up arrow.

PLEASE NOTE: This version has removed the ability to catch the original firefly, thus preventing the player from capturing all ten and triggering the game’s true ending. This is because of discrepancies between GameSalad’s Windows Beta native preview and the uploaded game (which displays inexplicable errors). I will continue to work on the issue, but until it is solved, no one who plays this game will have the originally intended experience. Thanks GameSalad… thanks a lot.

[After playing, feel free to read my blog post covering my entire NaGaDeMo experience, as well as the true ending to illume: http://ryvvn.com/post/27071407596/nagademo]

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For those of you that don’t follow me on twitter (for whatever reason), you’ve missed something interesting that I went through recently. Some of you may know about the iPhone/iPad game Sword & Sworcery but I’m guessing most do not. The game itself is not what I’m going to discuss here but rather its experimental game mechanic of being able to tweet nearly every line of text that is shown to you, be it dialog or thought. I very quickly adopted the idea that I would tweet out lines that would construct a story of my own, an admission of feelings and thoughts that I’ve been having recently. I do not doubt that the timing of my play through influenced what lines had the greatest impact on me, but aside from a few linearity problems based on the order I saw the lines in, I’m pleased with what came out of this. I feel it is a great reflection on me and what I’m going through at this very moment. The best part is that I shaped it by consciously choosing what to tweet as opposed to latching on to someone else’s story as a whole and claiming relevance. I appreciate that the developers took a chance with this particular mechanic, and the game itself is great regardless. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a device that can play it. With that said, following the screen shot will be the complete string of tweets that tells my story. They are all transcribed exactly as the game tweeted them for me. The only change I made was shifting the order of some for better sense and flow. Also, since I played the game across the span of a few days, I will denote that so as to match my own pacing. I hope you enjoy.
[also, obvious spoiler warning]

Day 1:

We are profoundly grateful that you have chosen to participate in this experimental treatment for acute soul-sickness. #sworcery

Still we definitely got the feeling that he wasn’t super jazzed about this. #sworcery

We spied the solitary grave at the edge of The Perilous Precipice & we wondered what was up with that. #sworcery

We had bridged the chasm & we felt super smart. #sworcery

We sensed a gathering thunderstorm & yet a little song began in our heart. #sworcery

Day 2:

Silencing the storm will require some familiarity with psionics, cryptozoology & miracles… #sworcery

Confused? Excellent. Keep calm & carry on. #sworcery

We think of wakefulness & the mythopoetic psychocosmology of dreams as separate states, however they interoperate in curious ways. #sworcery

This whole storm thing has really been getting me down. It has been sooo gloomy. #sworcery

The dark haired girl known as Girl was feeling the woe. #woe #sworcery

She spoke of faint rainbows at the edge of The Perilous Precipice. #sworcery

The rain has started to ease & the sky seems to be brightening… is it a time of miracles? I sure hope so. I love miracles. #sworcery

Miraculously the sinister storm has lifted & glorious sunlight has returned to the realm so that’s totally awesome. #sworcery

Day 3:

Be advised that henceforth we will be monitoring your inputs in relative silence. #sworcery

We groggily awoke from a super deep sleep with no firm recollection of what had happened. #sworcery

“Also I just want you to know that I am not deliberately trying to spook you by looking so awesome like I do.” #sworcery

“I don’t really want to go into it right now if you don’t mind.” #sworcery

I’ve had this little song in my head for ages… just a few little notes that loop over and over. I wonder what that’s about? #sworcery

Every night since the storm lifted I’ve had that same dream where I’m wandering in the woods in the hour before dawn. #sworcery

Even in a well-worn dream space there are new places to explore & new connections to consider… if you continue to believe. #sworcery

So yeah, that’s awesome & we love love you for it. #sworcery

I’m kinda feeling like maybe the cosmos just skipped a beat & now everything is just a little bit… off. #sworcery

I’ve got this song in my head… a happy & sad little song that fills me with a weirdly beautiful dread. #sworcery

We got that peculiar feeling that it was maybe just maybe a time of miracles. #miracles #sworcery

We’ve been quietly monitoring your actions & we’d like to point out that the longer the hesitation, the smaller the celebration. #sworcery

We were tempted to maybe just stop with the whole woeful errand thing but there was just something so attractive about martyrdom. #sworcery

Day 4:

I know that you know what I know & I want you to know that you’re 100% right. #sworcery

Only the end of your woeful errand will bring peace back to all our lives. #sworcery

The girl said our dream-encounter sounded really cool & she wished she could’ve been there. #lies #sworcery

We got the peculiar feeling that it was maybe a time of miracles - where my miracles at? #miracles #sworcery

Did you ever notice that sometimes words just sound like noise but other times noise makes the prettiest sound? #sworcery

We were feeling a little worse for wear… it was probably something to do with all those cosmic laser bolts. #sworcery

So now the question is… what’s next? Remember that social support networks play a role in the outcome of this experiment. #sworcery

At a rock show we spied the dark-haired girl & we thought maybe she said fire walk with me. #sworcery

You are special & that is exactly why I love you so much. #sworcery

Seriously we owe you one. #sworcery

Take heart - the end is near! #sworcery

Day 5:

Press play if you’re ready to bear witness to the awful torment of martyrdom. #sworcery

He looked at the nearby pedestal & he thanked us in advance for the whole martyrdom thing. #sworcery

Where am I? What happened? The last thing I remember I was dream-walking in the woods when I saw an eerie pink light. #sworcery

* * * ALSO * * * #sworcery

* * * WE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU * * * #sworcery

* * * PROCESS * * * #sworcery

So what happens next with all of this? And what’s that crazy transmission all about? What does the future hold? #sworcery

Now we are cosmic friends forever, ok? #sworcery

* * * IT’S OVER * * * #sworcery