It feels very official to be getting contracts signed and payments underway for Tears of a Machine. The draft is in J. R. Blackwell’s care, Jennifer Rodgers and I are reviewing my notes on illustrations and planning the sketches. We’re also turning my crayon draft of the Preservation Force’s emblem into a patch, as per the Angel backer reward. I’ll be able to share more about that with you soon. But how about some background on the Preservation Force . . .
Defenders of Humanity
The Preservation Force was formed on the order of the Cloistered Research Council. When they revealed themselves as the authority on alien technology they insisted that it should not belong to any national power. The world was in dire straits already and their representative said it would be too easy for a still-powerful nation to abuse the new weapons, taking needed resources from a neighboring country or “walling” themselves in and leaving others to fend for themselves. If they would use this science, it would be a world-wide effort and the weapons would belong to no one group.
Beginning with UN forces, the CRC oversaw the organization of an international military force. Soldiers were uprooted and shuffled and their commanders complained about loss of combat effectiveness but the CRC were adamant. Organizing these armies into a collective was difficult but the need for a defense from the aliens drove the world to put aside differences and cooperate however they could. Meanwhile the CRC was pulling together resources to construct bases of operation for the new army. The Arx.
Virtuacon ’13
Jacob Wood has planned a presentation on accessible games for Virtuacon this October. He has invited me to join him and share my thoughts and plans on accessible text and audio books. If you’d like to see the presentation, you don’t have to go anywhere! Virtuacon is a weekend of gaming through Google Hangouts, organized by RPGGeek. You’ll be able to join and play or run games and attend panels all from the comfort of your internet connection. You can find the schedule of international time slots and a list of planned events on the RPG Geek site. And I’ll try to get some more Tears demos on that calendar too!
Thank you and May the SAInts preserve us.
Russell Collins
August 16, 2013
Messages have slowed down, payments have been made, and we’re ready to proceed. Before the text goes to the editor, I will make one last solo pass to look for any omissions or typos and to pluck out a few more needless words. The less work J. R. has to do, the faster the book turns around and it’s just poor manners to ask a professional to deal with my misspellings.
Reading Aloud
J. R. taught me an editing trick that I think everyone should know. In truth, it’s something I already knew myself, but didn’t think to apply before J. R. pointed it out to me. Read it aloud. Out loud. Mutter if you want to but don’t just silently mouth the words. You will be more focused when you engage your ears as well as your eyes and your attention is less likely to wander. Once you start using your voice you’ll quickly find passages with awkward wording or misspellings. That one-two punch of visual and auditory learning is the reason that having an audio-book format to accompany the text makes it easier to read, process, and internalize.
Presentation at Metatopia
On that subject; because of the impact that the accessibility plans had on funding Tears of a Machine, I’m preparing a presentation on the importance of accessibility for other designers. I’m planning to make the presentation at Metatopia in October. Metatopia is gaming convention focused on the designer with panels and mini-seminars about games of all types and a schedule of demos and playtests designed to find players for your game in progress. I highly recommend attending!
Social Media Sorting
Many of you have added me to your social media groups and I’ve done the same but in a haphazard way. I’m sorting out the Facebook groups and Google circles now. If you’d rather only receive information about Gaming in general, or Tears specifically, please let me know through their messaging channels and I’ll spare you my posts about the “really great pizza I had.”
There will be more progress reports ahead and I’ll be organizing more online chats and demos soon too. I expect that they will be on Wednesday evenings and weekends to fit my schedule but I also hope to get more of you involved, perhaps as early GMs for your own groups.
Thank you and may the SAInts preserve us.
The Tears of a Machine kickstarter campaign has been a success! We’re fully funded to get the game through editing, art, layout, and printing. Here’s the last update of the funding drive.
Offering the book in accessible format did a lot to help me find the support I needed. I’m going to make every effort to keep the level of quality just as high in creating the synchronized audio version of the text.
Thank you once more, to all my backers and supporters.