Year In Review

Last New Year's, I made a resolution to both complete and share some of my gaming projects in the coming year. While my output has certainly varied over the year, with the establishment of this blog and the numerous projects I've posted about thus far, I would definitely say I have succeeded. The end of the year being an excellent time for such things, I want to briefly look back over what I've done this year and look forward to next year's projects.

I started the year working on a small crafting mod for Skyrim (not yet featured on the blog). Released in February and updated in March, I then became caught up in completing my master's dissertation, moving back to the United States, and other complications, and stopped all game work including further updates to this mod until the fall. While my goal for this mod was to provide a minimalistic alternative to the other crafting mods out there, there definitely remains room for expansion and especially for improved compatibility with other mods.

My entry into A Sword For Hire's Here Be Monsters contest in September gave me the push to resume game design work, start this blog, and start seriously considering RPG freelancing. Since then, I've posted a variety of minor Pathfinder projects, entered Paizo's RPG Superstar contest, released an old Morrowind mod, and started work on major projects for Shogun 2: Total War and Reaper Miniature's futuristic wargame CAV 2.

I already have several projects in mind for next year. My first priority is to finish and release the CAV 2.M beta and VGI: Shogun Part 1. Later in the year, once I've received some feedback and had time to undertake additional testing myself, I would like to follow those with a final release of CAV 2.M and the release of the full VGI: Shogun. Of course, should I make it past the present round of RPG Superstar, that will dominate the early part of the year.

As far as new projects for 2015, there are two main contenders. Years ago, I started worked on a set of Vil's Game Improvements for Morrowind. I was quite happy with the overall direction of the mods, and with the continuing progress of the OpenMW project, I may have the motivation to complete VGI: Morrowind. Alternatively, I have for several years now attempted house-rule overhauls of varying degrees of the Pathfinder system, none of which ever reached a playable state. In general, my aim is to streamline the base rules while maintaining the wealth of options that makes Pathfinder so attractive. While at this point there are certainly products that attempt this, such as the Pathfinder Beginner Box and Sean K. Reynolds' upcoming Five Moons RPG, none of them quite capture what I'm aiming for.

Reflecting on my semi-regular update schedule over the past few months, I plan to adjust my posting slightly in the coming year. Major articles, detailing progress on or release of larger projects, will be posted every two weeks. On the alternate weeks, I will usually post smaller articles such as Pathfinder content, painted miniatures, reviews or recommendations, and the like. This should allow me to post more consistently while also making sure I have sufficient time to actually work on my projects.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!