Despite my attempts to finish up all these other projects, I have a quick bit of design work and playtesting to finish up in the next week. Shreyas’ friend Elizabeth is organizing a zine called Catharsis, which is filled with creative works of an emotionally cleansing or fulfilling sort. She mentioned that she was looking for more submissions, so I threw out the possibility of including While You’re Far Away (a.k.a. “The Game for Josh’s Girlfriend”). She’s interested, which means I have to finish polishing it up and playtest it… in a week.

Luckily, now that Simon’s set up Snail’s Pace (where Dave and Simon are currently playing Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan actually), we’ve got a great place to playtest it. I figure I’ll see if Josh is interested in playtesting it with me, since he was the inspiration for the game, and then move on to other candidates if he passes. Assuming I can find someone who can post multiple times a day, we should be able to give the fairly minimal rules a good working over.

First thought: the text of the game needs to be more sad and beautiful, reflecting the themes of play. Right now it’s just cold and straight-forward, which helps the clarity without building the right mood.

Second, I’m not sure how much more complicated I want the rules to be. The game is intended to be a very general set of outlines for a freeform game, a much looser version of Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan. So I’ll have to think really hard about whether addition rules will necessarily add to the experience of play.

We are both settled in a little bit more now, so we are resuming updates. LET THE BATTLE BE REJOINED!