The Call of the WILD

I've been a bit quiet and cagey about what I've been up to over the last few months, and I'm sorry I'm going to continue that caginess for now. But I've been busy, with a combination of work, writing, more work, not sleeping, stress and more. However, in amongst all that, when I'm actually trying to wind down, usually trying to get some sleep, my mind is drawn back by the call of the WILD. The WILD RPG I've been talking about and working on for the last three years...

Last night was no exception. There I was, trying to sleep after a long-assed day at the shop, and my mind started down a road. No. Not a road. A freaking rollercoaster.

It started with thinking about a Kickstarter. A friend of mine in games writing emailed me last week to see if I'd "be a stretch goal" - write just a few hundred words, only really a page, to contribute to his Kickstarter. I immediately said yes, not only because I thought the project sounded cool, but also because I've always liked this writer's work.

That got me thinking. I know a lot of people in the games industry. I could do the same thing! Offer to pay them (which would be fine if I Kickstarted the game) a little to write a few hundred words (if that) - maybe detailing a dream they'd had, and imagine how it would work as a scene or scenario that could inspired GMs to use it in their WILD game.

Then I started thinking, if the game did that well, I could package them all up in their own supplement at a certain stretch level.

So there's a supplement sorted. Though I'd always hoped if the game did well from a potential Kickstarter, that I'd split the section of the rules that dealt with card interpretation off into their own book, so it'd be easier to access for reference. So, that's two books after the core.

Cool.

And then there's the fiction. I don't know if it's any good, but the three books of fiction I had planned serves as a backstory to the game setting. Why and how the dreamshare technology exists in the real world. What's going on with the company that created it while the MD is "lost in the WILD". What happens to the real world once the technology becomes available.

So there's that.

And a Kickstarter would pay for some cool illustrations. Though part of me is such a control freak I'd want to to it all myself, but I'm just not gifted in the art department. And cool artists, like Eric Canete or David Despau, cost money. Lots of money because they are filled with so much talent!

But then, a cool and eye catching cover would sell the Kickstarter...

It's a never ending circle that one.

And I had ideas of making videos. A video a bit like the opening of the fiction, explaining where the tech came from and the nightmarish visions our heroine is trying to escape. And I had the urge to make a video that looked like a corporate instructional video from Apple or something, showing you how to use the dreamshare technology - how to put on the headset and program the machine, etc.

Then I started thinking about the graphic design for the books, and wanting it to have creative and interesting layout like 2nd Edition Kult or House of Leaves, but then I realised that I needed a better layout program than Pages on the Mac. Hell, I can't even do facing pages in that any more...

Then, of course, by the time I've gone through this cycle, I'm in a restless sleep, ready to start another day back to reality.

I'll find time to continue WILD somehow. It keeps calling me...