Friday 1 January 2016

Looking Back And Preparing For Awesome



    Time to look back on what went last year and what plans are ahead in 2016. 

    It may not have been a year where I finished any projects but it was certainly a year where I revealed things to come and also decided to cut down all those wonderful ideas I had to just two projects, one an ongoing books series and the other a digital card game.

    So come with me now as I reflect on what went and what is to come, along with a peek behind the curtain of my mind.



Last Mask Gets Revealing

      My Last Mask novels are still awaiting the sequel to the first book but back in February I showed some new concept art for characters appearing in the series. All female and all individually strong characters that I am sure will add greatly to the series.

  I said the show would continue in 2015 and it did, but not in the form of a finished book yet. The world and the stories constantly develop in my head. I work on the structure now and then, adding to the flowchart of chapters, putting in new ideas and refining others. I also write in scenes when I get a strong idea for then and you should see some of them, the second book is going to be epic and it will be published along with the third, so I will have the finished trilogy before I put another book out. And there are also a couple of extra bits to add into the first book.
    
    So the trilogy will be finished as a whole before I release anything more into the wilds, and then it will just be the matter of the next part in the story.




Dawn’s Early Light

    Moving on to the later part of the year I then revealed the game I have been working on for the last couple of years, Siberian Dawn. This is a big project and this year I got to grips with the art of the game producing a large amount of art for the characters in the game, which I then started to show on Facebook. I had kept the project quiet for a while as I didn’t want to start showing things until I felt I had enough, but it was at a point that I felt it was time to share. It was featured in the news of ImagineFX magazine and a couple of game site, but as usual with little feedback from social media.



    There is now a game video up for the project and I decided to push the game completion back until 2016 as there were still a few additions I wanted to make to bring the game to what I envisioned it can be. There will no doubt be a lot more I have to do to promote it ahead of release but I am sure I can make a game the will be one of the best single player deckbuilders out there.



Grindle Goes Underground

  Amazon started their Kindle Underground scheme this year where games are free and the developer gets paid by Amazon for the time people play the game, so I submitted my puzzle game Grindle Oni A to it and now seem to be getting a regular payment of a couple of pennies each month from them. It will never make me rich but if you want to play the puzzle game for free head over there and give it a go.



Discovered Treasures

  Moving away from my projects I just wanted to cover some TV discoveries I have enjoyed this year, recommendations if you are of a similar taste. Looking back at the TV I watched this year I think there were two series that were new to me that stood out from the crowd.

    I finished watching Sons of Anarchy last year and looking for another series that had that dark tone mixed with comedy and character decided to get around to watching Black Sails. It hooked me from the first episode and I quickly made my way through both series and now eagerly wait for series 3 this year. It is one of those series with that edge of uncertainty, where you are never certain if your favourite characters are going to make it to the next, and I like pirates so that helps.

    The other series that stood out this year was Z Nation but this was one that grew as I watched it. The first episode was very Zombie budget movie compared to the introspective Walking Dead but as you watched it the humour was obvious and there have been some crazy moments in the two series so far which have made it fun to watch. Every series doesn’t have to make you depressed about life.



Finally...

    So with cutting my projects down to two, I will just keep any extra projects a secret, I aim to complete them this year and make them the most awesome projects they can be. The Last Mask has some strong characters coming up and what I hope are really memorable moments. Siberian Dawn is coming together and I believe it has the potential to be a really exciting project that adds a number of new ideas to the deckbuilding genre.

    I hope you continue to watch their development and that your 2016 is also an awesome year.

Winterflood


Links to the projects