Showers are the bane of productivity
I woke up this morning knowing I needed to get up and write. It’s a Monday, and I’ve been trying for the last three weeks to get out a blog post about the importance of prepositions in humor, around buying a car, events on the weekends, housework and the big brain-eating editing project I’ve been working on.
Surely this week I could bang it out and be done with it.
Trying to shake off the dreams from last night, I got in the shower.
That’s where the plan went right off the track.
Warning: may contain crazy ideas
In one of the other parts of my life, I’m part of a group of people who study and practice a somewhat esoteric and arcane art form that’s used in the support of a certain non-profit that I’m involved in. Like many esoteric and arcane art forms, it’s difficult to get folks interested in it, much less interested in learning the arcane parts … but we need to have new trained people before the old ones aren’t with us any longer.
No, I swear, this is not a cult.
I am totally fired up about how awesome this stuff is. It’s fascinating! It’s complex in all the ways that make my nerdy little heart happy! It’s fun! It’s pretty!
And I want to share it with everyone. I want to get everyone else fired up and excited about it. I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about how to make it more accessible and fun for everyone.
In the shower, I happened to think about flash cards.
Flash cards are boring. Booooooooooring.
But card games aren’t.
What if I could turn some of the basics of this into a game?
By the time I got out of the shower, I had the basic idea and the first draft of the rules in my head, including three alternate ways to play and two ways to handicap advanced folks.
The devil is in the details
Since I got out of the shower this morning, I have:
- Used some old business cards to make an initial prototype.
- Messaged a half dozen friends about this idea and how awesome this would be.
- Mentioned on some social media that I’m looking for a game designer and playtesters who can volunteer some time for this.
- Researched print on demand providers for playing cards.
- Had a comment on the social media post spawn a totally separate card game idea for the same group.
- Looked again at The Game Crafter, a Print On Demand site specifically for board, card, and dice games.
- Did more research and was reminded of Imagekind, which I should check out for art prints.
If this project gets off the ground, it’s not going to pay my rent or anything, but it may make some difference in this little corner of the world that loves heraldry.
I’ll blame the shower.
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