Heya friendos! The second week of January came and went by in a blink of an eye. How are we feeling? What are we doing? What’s next on the docket? Let’s talk about it!

How Am I Doing?

I’m doing really good! I’ve been working a lot lately. I almost reached a full-time work week this week. That’s not something that’s neccesarily good or bad, but I’m quite excited about the work itself. I’ve been dipping my fingers into many little projects and all of them are interesting enough to follow up on in the future.

Apart from that, I’ve also been working out and doing my chores, so nothing essential is falling behind. The biggest chunk is taken out of leisure time, but as of yet I don’t feel like I’m missing out on it.

What Am I Doing?

So, what am I working on that’s got me so pumped? Well, for one, Rumorweaver is chugging along nicely. It looks like the end of January deadline is very much manageable. If you want to try out the latest (but still unfinished) build, join us over at Discord. We’re a small community of creative people hanging out over there, but it’s mostly me posting good morning GIFs. It’s not scary, I swear! If you want to try but don’t have a Discord account, send me an email over at contact@newtonarrative.com instead.

Now that the Rumorweaver vertical slice is nearing completion, I am getting some Feelings™ about the project. I still need to fully process what they are exactly. What’s clear, at least, is that I won’t be able to make the full game without a proper team, and I won’t be able to build a proper team without proper funding.

Memorygotchi

Other than that, I’ve started making a little memory training tool/game/toy-thingy. The older I get, the more forgetful I am, especially short-term memory. I’ve also found it hard to put something like DuoLingo or other brain training games in my daily routine. So I thought, what if I design a simple, playful, interactive thing that you can use while working?

The idea is that this guy will pop-up within 10 to 20 minutes and bother you. He will tell you something, and then after that time you need to repeat it back to him. In addition to that, he might change his outfit somewhat, so you’d need to keep an eye out for that as well. A true mind goblin.

Hopefully, this will help not only memorize stuff in your mind in paralel to doing other things, but also help deal with distractions during work. I lose a lot of time context switching whenever I get interrupted, so maybe having low-stakes, consistent exposure to it might build some kind of resistance. Also, if it works like I hope it does, it might help people learn languages, factoids or any other subject they’re interested in as well!

Then finally, I’ve got a chat about a potential partnership coming up with one of my favourite creative peers. We’re in the same boat when it comes to wanting to make a commercially succesful game, but other than that it’s a bit early to say anything meaningful about it. Just know that I’m excited anyway!

Why Am I Doing? (this)

I don’t want to jinx it, but the start of the year seems rife with potential. I’m energized, inspired and ready to tackle the next few months. Nothing concrete has crystalized yet, but I feel like whatever I’ll end up doing, I’ll be satisfied with both the process and the results. Hopefully we’ll manage to carve out a little home in the industry too!