Cats Out of Bags: Discussing Releases
Starting next week, we’ll start talking a bit more in-depth about where things are in the production schedule. I’ve had a tendency to be rather close-mouthed about things due to various factors, the least of which is not layout. We’re sitting on a lot of material folks. Material I’m sure you’d rather be eyeballing than hearing about. It’s time to rev up our engines and start talking specifics.
The direction I’d like to take things is on our forums, so they can serve as they were originally intended–a central repository for all Blurry things, be they Savage Worlds, Fantasy Craft, True 20, or even for systems we’ve not yet start yapping about.
We’re in a good place. We’ve been building up our base properties for a number of years when, maybe, we should have been supporting them each more robustly, but its been a tough call, and there is no looking back now. It’s easy to second guess yourself, but at the end of the day, we have to do what makes us happy both creatively and economically. At this point, we have a slew of settings out in the wild, and some new ones (which we’ve talked about) inching ever closer to completion, such as Agents of Oblivion.
Hopefully, you’ll be cool hearing me talking about the realities of what will be and the speculations of what we’d like to do, such as finally getting into the fiction market, something we’ve been planning to do from the outset back in ’04. Wow. Has it really been seven years?! Some of these things won’t happen overnight, but moving to release a number of items which have been lying dormant is a good first step. Creators like to create. Certainly. One of the biggest obstacles is the difficult choice I’ve had to make between creating new materials versus doing layout. My time had been better spent working on the nuts and bolts of setting creation, rules design, and establishing the properties in accordance to my visions. One of the problems I encountered was trying to emulate the visual presentation styles of the established norms in the industry, but with the trend moving more and more towards a cleaner visual style, I can return to what best serves my personal aesthetic where content is king. I’ve learned a lot along this journey, some from traveling the road alone, some from those wiser and more seasoned than myself, from the fans, from reviewers, and some from the school of hard knocks. There is no secret formula for success or sustainability. You have to have confidence, competence, and a stubbornness to persevere in the face of ennui, entropy, and economically tough times.
I tend to be a bit cagey with things, but I’m coming around. As you can tell with many of these reports, I’ve been growing a lot more open. It’s an evolutionary process, and one I think shall benefit all of us in the long run. I’ll go ahead and confess why I’ve been a bit close-mouthed in the past. It’s rooted in eternal optimism. I’ve hoped some projects would develop quicker than they have, but the realities have been contraindicative. The team in place has contributed a large part to increased productivity, along with my own discipline and drive. I write better than I did when I started–much faster, much more concisely–and I have materials from which to build. Tools we have spent years crafting and developing, as well as more finely tuned sense of design. Please don’t take this as hubris on my part. I’m every bit as critical of my work as I have been from the outset, and I’d love to go back and improve some things, but that’s always the case. As men much wiser than me have stated on more than one occasion, “products are never finished, they are released”. We have to strike a happy balance, a pleasant accord, wherein we can encapsulate the setting soundly with rules and trappings in a manner where you can then make them your own.
The future looks bright. We do the best we can, taking each day as a gift to create more imaginary vistas, and explore the nooks and crannies of beloved, familiar places, like ScatterPoint, with you.
Until next time, I bid you, dear reader, adieu!
