Home of the Steam Highwayman
Inspiration comes from many directions and sometimes it comes direct from my readers. Acknowledgement is due here to Mr Alan Sennet and his fevered brain.
Today I passed another milestone – 1000 complete passages of Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West. It’ll be a great adventure, although wetter than the first three. No energy to say anything else – it’s been a 4000 word day.
I wrote the first part of this quest around seven years ago, in Steam Highwayman: Smog & Ambuscade. Did I then dream how long it would take me to write the conclusion? Far from it! The original plan was to write a book every six months and complete the series in three years…
I maintain that I could keep to that speed if I didn’t have to earn a living in other ways. Over those seven years, there have been periods of full-time teaching, part-time teaching and supply work at three different schools. Most recently, I’ve been working part-time for my church, as well as providing personal tutoring for 11+ and GCSE students locally. I was actually doing that in 2017 as well!
And what a lot of other water has flowed under the bridge of my life. In 2017 I was recently-married, but childless. Now my wife and I have a full house of noisy, needy youngsters aged 1, 3 and 5.
Yet I still dream of hidden treasure… There are a few people to blame for that: Robert Louis Stevenson, clearly, but also Enid Blyton, who wasn’t above stashing a box of jewels, coins or contraband in the occasional cave, ruin, castle, boat cabinet, hollow tree etc. This weekend my daughter began reading The Castle of Adventure and, besides the paternal pride of seeing my own child keen and able to read ‘chapter books’, I smelled the wind of a whole new mode of life… She is now old enough for book recommendations – and that means, for the shaping of her mind through stories she can read for herself.
I’m off to the bookshop.
Go on, Steam Highwayman. That’s what you’re all about.
Today I’ve been working on the main quests – more about those soon! But to fill up time I’ve just been ‘colouring in’ a few of the many ambushes in Princes of the West. There are so many rich people to rob and so many poor ones to help: sometimes, the simplest actions are the most Steam Highwayman-ish.
Today’s count: 901 passages complete (95525 words), 31 passages written today (4506 words), 2152 links in total so far.
A good mechanic – as everyone knows – is worth their weight in gold. For a while I’ve had this idea that the Steam Highwayman will need to carry liquor about on the back of the Ferguson, and even planned in the barrel panniers as another customisation. But rather than simply add them as a dryly purchasable option at some Freight Yard, I’ve made a little feature out of getting them fitted.
It was great to be at Fighting Fantasy Fest 5 at the weekend: there’s nothing so galvanising as spending time with fans of Steam Highwayman and other gamebook writers. My daughter is also back to school, so I’ve returned to my library-visiting schedule, which is the most productive writing pattern I’ve found for some time. And today, for some reason not entirely clear to me, I’ve latched onto the liquor smuggling system within Princes of the West.
This is one of several systems that are almost independent of the main quests, but could still prove to be quite a satisfying part of the gameplay. You’ll need to get some barrel panniers fitted to your velosteam (not sure where yet), and then source liquor, either directly from a hidden distillery, from smugglers bringing it ashore, or by smuggling it across the sea yourself. Maybe you’ll need a safe seaside cave to stash that in… But once you have a couple of firkins (that’s a nine-gallon barrel) strapped to the Ferguson, you should be able to find a willing customers. Cornwall will pay you a fair price, but should you manage to get it across the border into Devon, then you might have the beginnings of a very lucrative scheme. Just be cautious about whom you approach… The bounty on smugglers is worth more to some landlords than the potential profit of undutied brandy.
On Saturday 7th September, I’ll be running a stall at Fighting Fantasy Fest 5, in Ealing, West London. This’ll be my fourth attendance, and it’s something I really look forward to. At Fighting Fantasy Fest 2, I stalked ‘big fish’ in the gamebook community and sowed the seeds for my first Steam Highwayman kickstarter. By Fighting Fantasy Fest 3, I had gained some traction, even had a few fans of my own, and had a second volume to show off. By Fighting Fantasy Fest 4, I was pretty much a fixture. I had the third book to share and enjoyed meeting on a par with other independent gamebook writers.
This year Jon Green has invited me back, so I’ll be selling the three volumes of Steam Highwayman, some nice unbleached cotton tote bags, lots of maps, and spreading the word about volume IV – or possibly explaining why it hasn’t been published yet. Tonight I’ve actually been looking at my stock, pricing it up and generally preparing my stall.
Long-time player unsure if you’ve done all you can do as the Steam Highwayman? First-timer looking for a little help in finding an adventure? Stuck and unable to find a key item to complete a quest?
This new list of achievements (also available to print as a pdf) might help you if you’re looking for more.
Looking through the entire volume to create this hint / achievement list has been pretty fun: it reminds me of the feeling of writing Smog & Ambuscade for the very first time. There are some great adventures in there.
I’ve been thinking about how someone meets Steam Highwayman. It’s not through a suggestion on Kickstarter anymore: it’s by reading or watching about it online through a blog like Dave Morris’s Fabled Lands or the recent playthrough video by Lone Adventurer. When I was personally recommending the adventure, there was a simplicity about promising people a particular kind of experience – but the problem was, that the experience I wanted to share was my own solo roleplaying adventure from my very specific experience and knowledge.
For example, the map of Smog & Ambuscade is burnt into my cortex: I can draw it by heart, and know exactly which direction to turn at any junction. The other day I took my family for a summer evening drive through Steam Highwayman Country: Handy Cross (second, minor, exit on the roundabout when driving west on the M40), down to Marlow, across the Thames, through Bisham, up through Inkydown Wood, past Furze Platt, into Maidenhead and, actually, on to Windsor, all by memory and without reference to a real-world map, satnav or even my printed book map. It helps that I rode these roads on my Yamaha back in 2008-2012 – the road to Windsor particularly for my continuing teacher training frequently hosted there.
But the map I first provided in Smog & Ambuscade proved harder to use than I hoped. That was one serious reason for drawing the big A2 maps that I sell as part of the Touring Guide: clearer, larger-scale mapping with better labels.
Yet even armed with a good map, I realise that it is quite possible to explore Smog & Ambuscade for some time and not feel that you’ve got stuck into an adventure. Yes, it is an open-world gamebook, populated largely with shorter quests, and yes, it’s a roleplaying experience, in which the imaginative adventure of experiencing the world is a big part of the payoff, but when people have complained that there isn’t enough to do, I have to listen. It’s a tension in the design and planning that I’ve tried to deal with in the following volumes, but it’s not simple. And Smog & Ambuscade was the first time I did anything like this – someone charitably described my writing as ‘improving in game design’ over the course of the first three volumes.
That’s why I’m working on a hint sheet – or achievement list – or something between the two. A prompt of all the adventures that are hidden inside the relatively slim volume of Smog & Ambuscade, to whet the appetites of the newer reader and perhaps even to challenge the veteran. I don’t mean to provide full solutions or complete spoilers, but light walk-through or directions, to provide work-arounds to compensate for an unintentionally challenging level of difficulty.
Another option I’ve considered is to make a full revision of Smog & Ambuscade – correcting all known errors, of course, but also improving the gameplay with better signposting, eliminating loops, deepening quests and updating mechanics to stay in line with the newer volumes. But since I’m still working on The Princes of the West and will have two more to write after that, I think it might be premature. Instead I wonder about completing the series and then creating a fully-revised and expanded version of Smog & Ambuscade – and perhaps even revising the other books – before publishing a limited run as a collector’s hardback edition, as well as updating the standard print-on-demand paperbacks.
I wonder what my most-faithful readers think. Some are more aware of the problems and issues within my writing than anyone else – and yet are gracious enough to focus on the good points and encourage me to keep going. But, honestly speaking, is the first book a poor spokesperson for the entire team? I’ve been re-reading Smog recently and feel that it has some of my freshest, most original writing in it, although it is probably the book that needs the most patience.
The hint sheet looks like it’s going to be a large piece of work in its own right, though. I’ve only got through about 30 passages of the book and I’ve had to write three pages of notes… Here’s a taster:
Have you…
Built a hideout in High Wood or Windsor Wood?
Earnt some coins playing the piano?
Exacted vengeance on a rich playboy at Boulter’s Lock Hotel? (requiring all 3 published volumes)
Won the Spenser Cup? (A Great Deed)
Spared a mysterious Coal Board official?
Encountered Mistress DeFancy?
Shown charity to a poor haulier?
Been rescued by a nameless old woman?
Found Hard-to-Find Farm?
Gained a smattering of Legal Knowledge?
Crossed Cookham Weir?
Repaired a riverside skiff?
Befriended Madame Juste?
Sabotaged the railway?
Followed a rainbow to its end?
Broken into Cliveden greenhouses?
Travelled a narrow way through Boyn Hill woods?
Defended a road convoy departing the Golden Ball?
Befriended Wellesley Garman?
Taught some tax collectors a lesson?
Hunted deer in Heath Wood?
Robbed Coulters Bank?
How was that for a clickbait title? Did I do it right? Ridiculous headlines are everywhere now – A Peaceful Town Just 1hr 30mins from London Where Every House is Grade II Listed. Are these generated for us? Do the ones you get suggested look anything like that? Similar grammatical structure and differing content?
I saw a meme the other day that contrasted Google, the search engine of the noughties, which presented the contents of the internet, with the modern Google experience, that offers you some sponsored content, some where-to-purchase options, a ‘personalised’ suggestion and then finally what can actually be found out here on the internet. And it has contributed to a feeling I have that the internet is like this generation’s Tower of Babel… An almighty achievement of humanity striving to be like gods, communicating effortlessly together to do business and build to great heights.
But you know how that story ended. And I wonder if we’re on the cusp of something catastrophic, when all that we have begun to take for granted – functional supply lines, and a network of energy and information and commerce – gets tangled up by the complexity of the very system we have collectively created. The internet is chaotic and all the systems of distribution and communication that depend on it are efforts to impose order where there is no real underlying order. Like waves on a vast ocean – patterns that exist when you look for them, but overlaid on a mass of movement in a thousand directions.
But that wasn’t what the title of this post led you to think about, was it? That was merely my slightly gloomy musings on late-stage capitalism expressed. Because I also have to admit that the internet makes my career as a writer possible. Clearly, I can write and publish on a website and you can read this – and remote print-on-demand and storefront services get my books manifested from digital to physical and in your hands. But also in the actual writing stage. It looks a bit like this.
Here’s Roward’s Quay, just north of Chapel Point, south of St Austell on the south Cornish Coast. Months and months ago, when I was building a coastal map that would allow the diversification of the Steam Highwayman’s portfolio to include smuggling, I came across this tiny inlet with an intriguing name on the 1892-1914 OS 25inch series published by the National Library of Scotland. If you’re a regular reader, you know how much I love these. So I thought, yes, why not? Most of my interaction are small towns and fishing ports, but I’m going to need some interesting coves and cliffs for putting illegal cargo ashore. Roward’s Quay is in!
Fast forward to today, when I’ve been writing in East Ham Library and set myself the theoretical target of completing Barnstaple – the town in north Devon I’ve been populating with quests, sub-locations and so on. But something drew me to fill in a gap as I scrolled through my draft – this happens a lot – and I decided I’d visit Roward’s Quay.
The power of the internet is that not only can I access vintage maps, but modern ones – including satellite imagery like this drawn from Google. There are houses on Roward’s Point now – but you can see that little rectangular cove there still, isolated and perfect for a small boat putting contraband ashore. I wonder if anyone has posted any photographs?
Here’s Chapel Point from the South-West path, just north of Roward’s Quay. Hmm. Enchance 203 to 608.
Aha. Deckard, eat your heart out. Mr Darren Walden posted this image of seals hauled out on the shingle in February this year – 2024. Quite a fresh picture by Google Photos’ standard. And not only can I see the cove and better imagine exactly what it might be like to come ashore at the dark of the moon, but also I’ve got a brand new piece of information: seals like to haul out here! I think these might be Grey seals – but I am far from an expert. They look like nice content. Perhaps their barking could give you away to the Constables? Perhaps you could hunt them for their skins… Or is that simply a leftover piece of Saga I feel compelled to include.
Hang on. I’ve actually got two sea maps to write for Princes of the West. One on the surface and one… underwater. I’m unsure if this is going to make it into the final edit and I might actually hold it back as a stretch goal for the Kickstarter. But steampunk = submarines and has ever since Monsieur Verne… I recently gave Nemo’s Fury a read and was certainly prompted to try my own version of a submarine – or ‘nethundical’ adventure.
So what will you do at Roward’s Quay underwater… Imagining that the sea is clear enough to see through. I’d better include two new items (oh no! Not more items!): a diving suit and a harpoon. Excellent.
Perhaps this is classic feature creep, but I’ve also learned over the process of writing Steam Highwayman that I have to indulge my imagination at times: these can be some of the most fun-to-write and most original sections in my gamebooks. Readers like the random stuff – I had feedback a while ago about someone enjoying becoming a sky-high sous-chef in Highways & Holloways. And I need to write it, not simply the mechanical stuff that is more about balanced gameplay, to ensure I still enjoy myself doing this.
So I’m thinking that the undersea section of Princes of the West might total around 200 passages and they have some neat mechanics just for them. That makes about 25 pages or 20,000 words, which . A gamebook of 1522 passages or 276 pages (like The Reeking Metropolis) costs £6.46 to print at present. 1722 passages or just under 300 pages increases the print cost by 5.9% to £6.84 – but not shipping or handling fees. Seems like a classic case of increasing the core product’s value to all backers – something that good crowdfunding campaigns need to focus on, rather than adding on extras that only work to sap energy from the main outcome.
What do you think? Risky? Perhaps I’ll write a few underwater passages, plan a network and leave most blank. Then backers can also suggest content, if they really want to get deeply involved. I can think of at least one who would – Mr Sennet? Or is this a distraction?
Current progress is around 700 passages completed, by the way.
Oh dear. It’s got me bad. I must go down to the sea again – to the lonely sea and the sky. Here I am, simply wondering about creating a rich adventure for my Steam Highwayman readers, so that they don’t feel short-changed while exploring a Cornwall that never was… and the overflowing gameplay of taking your adventure to sea is causing serious feature creep.
And I’m just going to go for it! If I had an editor, perhaps they’d tell me to reel myself in and complete the main adventure of Princes of the West before going mad with new content and new gameplay. But that’s the joy of being my own publisher: no killjoy editors between me and my readership.
Perhaps this will be a dead end. I don’t know – like the large airship layer I wanted to include in Highways & Holloways, but couldn’t fit within a sensibly-sized volume. Perhaps this will have to be a stretch goal in an eventual Kickstarter. One thing’s for sure – the fun I had creating a crew and boats and weather and cargo in my stalled Saga project is still sloshing around in my imagination, looking for an outlet… together with pieces of Sid Meier’s Pirates! Gold, Das Boot, Aces of the Deep and any number of nautical dreams…
Torpedoes? Very steampunk. A wide variety of fish to catch? Why not? Open-world means open-world. Nice peaceful fishing… not smuggling at all. Submersibles? Maybe secretly… Or not-so-secretly, as they’re just too fantastic and central to the genre. What else? Squids? Sharks? Whales?! Underwater wrecks??!?!
You see the problem.