The game designers / writers / artists alliance
Let me brief: We, are all a bunch of creative people, but we all have our shortcomings; either if it is lack of time, little experience, artistic skill (or lack of), typesetting skills, writing, just pick yours. I as a Spaniard who lives in Spain may have a few more with my English and my ability to attend conventions or launch anything on kickstarter. We are in the long tail of a small market, and we can hardly produce a game a year at great personal cost; and let me not get started about marketing. A labour of love, yes, we do it because we love doing it, but What if we cooperate in a...
Read MoreWhy I am not using rpgnow to publish my game
I am happy rpgnow.com customer. I believe they provide a great service to gamers and I wish them well. But I am not using their services as a publisher. Instead, I am going to let you download the game and then donate to Love’s Bridge. Or not, it’s up to you. This is why. No red tape I’m a Spaniard, and establishing a business here means a lot of administrative hassle. And it gets worse for me, as I am supposed to work exclusively for the Spanish state, for most everything else I need a special permission. Taxes, fees, queues and some headaches would pave me the way to...
Read MoreWhy I created Newsies & Bootblacks
As many role-players, I had dreamed about creating my game, any game. My first idea was about explorers and traders in the high seas. It was meant as an expansion for a little game that went belly-up before I could finish mine. Then I created an introductory game that had a nice review in Líder –the Spanish role-playing fanzine–, but back then I knew next to nothing about the Internet beyond some basic browsing and emailing. A few years later… I watched Children’s Underground, a long documentary about street children in Romania. It moved me enough to work as a...
Read MoreI am going to trust in you
And I hope that you will trust in me. One year ago a famous Spanish writer was challenged by a representative of the record industry to upload his book, “if he had the guts”. He had the guts. He uploaded his book, shared it with everyone, and created a movement. Unlibrouneuro.com (One book, one euro) lets you download a selection of Spanish bestsellers. All they ask is that you donate 1€ or more to Save the Children. No safeguards, they go by the honor system, and it is working. OK, I’m not famous, but I choose to trust in you. Big news! Newsies & Bootblacks will...
Read MoreNewsies & Bootblacks Update
So I have solved all most of the issues I wrote you about last week. Links show in blue, now; and not in an awful reddish pink that for some reason, somebody thought it should be the standard for LaTeX. It is not so hard, once you know how to do it. They tricky part about LaTeX and LyX is to find precisely the information you need. Text seems alright now. I have even included drop caps at the first paragraph of every chapter. Not that it was truly necessary, but it just looks smart. In LyX you need to download a module called lettrine. You do that through MikTeX, which is a separate...
Read MoreNewsies & Bootblacks final draft is finished
This is how you spend your weekend if you are publishing a role-playing game on your own: correcting typos —and yet knowing it won’t be 100% perfect. And then you wake on Monday at 5:00 AM so you can tell the world you still have work to do. But it is great to have the game finished and complete; or at least the first edition of it. I still need to fix a few issues and add a couple of features, which I hope to have solved soon. Yeah, I say soon, I have learned the hard way that on your first attempt to publish anything you should not promise any deadlines. Basically because you...
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