Tag: life

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Kickstarter Update 9: A Busy Start to September

Whoops!  I missed my schedule and didn’t post last night – funny, since I’ve had a draft of this update for almost the full fortnight…  

And it’s been a good one.  I’ve managed 4.5 days on the project, so progress looks like this:

  • I completed the Quest Survey!  Princes of the West contains 167 quests and encounters, ranging from the mighty Quest 1 to the diminutive fleeting encounter with a Welsh Druid.
  • I worked for several hours on the Codeword chart, and trimmed 3 unnecessary codewords.  Yes!
  • I completed the Room Survey,  and then standardised the options you have when staying in pubs, out-of-the-way farms, country houses and caves.  Rooms are crucial to the model of rob-flee-rest, and not every room gets the same options…
  • I spent quite a bit of time thinking about baths – one of the new systems I added into The Reeking Metropolis, but never really tidied up, meaning that it is quite possible that your character may still stink (GAL-2) after 5 years… There are now plenty of places to bathe in the west…
  • Seeing a gap in the far west, I created a new room in St Ives, which might yet get a spin-off quest (168?)…  As I re-wrote the pub, I joined up the passages with a sequence governed by the key codeword Dictatorial – you’ll remember this one.  It was one of the first modules I wrote for Princes of the West, almost two years ago (October 2023), and the smoothness of the narrative flow made me laugh aloud in glee.  You probably won’t notice a seam in the story, but there is an enforcer and friends who seem to move across Cornwall even faster than you…
  • I worked on the Shop Survey, which showed me I need to be very careful, as this risks becoming repetitive, wasteful and even broken!  There are more than 300 items in Steam Highwayman, and exactly where and how you can buy and sell them is crucial.  So I am considering some new buying and selling rules, including suspicious items*, item classes and an item gazette printed in the rear of the book.
  • This meant I had to look at the Item Survey, so I updated my master spreadsheet to reference all the current instances of items.  This is crucial to standardising their spellings, stats and prices…  But it can also be a creative process, as it prompts me to consider which items are currently under-utilised…  Perhaps that auto-rifle prototype you created for the Great Exhibition would be of interest to the Cornish rebels?
  • Following this, I worked on the Defeat Cycle for a few hours.  One of the inspirations behind this is the ‘chumbawumba’ loop in Sid Meier’s Pirates! Gold, which I began playing in around 1996 and is my essential standard of sandbox/open-world/roleplaying game.  I’m a hard enemy of permadeaths, really – I’ll cheat to avoid them and improve the story – so in Steam Highwayman when you are finally defeated in a battle, arrested or left at the roadside for dead, there are always a few routes open to you…  Friendships are key here – I really liked the way these were written back in Smog & Ambuscade and in The Reeking Metropolis I loved the idea that the Waterside boys might repay you with a rescue.  So there are several loops to get you back up again, both in Cornwall and Devon.
  • I’m closing in on completing a key quest that opens up when you are arrested by the Constables.  It was an early sketch but I’ve never been quite happy with it, so it’s a priority.
  • And Ben submitted drafts of four full-page illustrations…  A tiny part of one is below, to whet your appetite.

And what next, in the next fortnight?  Or where next?

I’ll be in Devon and Cornwall for most of the next two weeks, visiting a few locations that have stubbornly resisted inspiration, gathering real ideas to turn into story content.  It’ll be a family holiday-cum-business trip, and steam trains profit both.

I might manage to actually write while I’m there, but I’m not putting any pressure on myself.  If it happens, it’ll happen, and if it doesn’t, I know I’ll be all the more efficient once back at home.

And what else has been taking up my time?  This is less relevant to the project and more of interest if you want to know what sort of things influence me and…

  • Reading online:
    • Rand Roll – including a recent interview with Joseph Fry, whose excellent Lost in the City I read in draft last year, and which I recommend as an atmospheric and original modern gamebook.
    • A series reviewing the Usborne Puzzle Adventure books – these got into my head at the same time as Pirates! Gold and Fabled Lands.
    • The excellent filfre.net posted an article about… gamebooks!  This is one of my regular fortnightly reads, as Jimmy Maher’s history of computer games is exciting, nostalgic, well-researched and fluently-written.  His archives include a fantastic 10-part study of Civilisation.
  • I’m circumnavigating the works of Patrick O’Brien for the sixth or seventh time – currently in The Far Side of the World.
  • I’m reading Judges with my family…  My children are just encountering the biblical, unwatered-down account of Samson.
  • I’m reading the Gospels – particularly to inform my Sunday preaching at church – usually twice a month.
  • I recently read and enjoyed Robert Macfarlane’s children’s picture book The World to Come – if you have children under ten, take a look.  Rob went to my school and then taught me at university, so I have an interest in his writing.
  • I’ve been watching two fantastic youtube series, each of which have reached some recent highlights:
  • I’ve been listening to Eric Clottey’s UCB mixes, particulalry while working.
  • I’ve been editing a book of poetry.

Next update due: 26-9-25 from Newquay, Cornwall.

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Why so quiet…?

Yes, it has been quiet here at martinbarnabusnoutch.com Here’s why.

Over on Facebook, there’s a relatively new group called Interactive Fiction & Gamebooks Discussion Group (Book Club). Catchy, eh? Well, since the beginning of August, I’ve been posting there every 2 days or so, sharing how Steam Highwayman was written and what I like about it, as well as responding to other readers’ comments. In fact,t the series has been the Club’s featured Book of the Month, so it would be rude for me not to be there!

Then there’s normal life! My two little children, Samuel (6months) and Teodora (26months) are getting some full-on family time, seeing as it is my summer holiday from my full-time teaching job. But just because it’s holiday time, doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing! Oh no. Aside from all the day trips and the park visits…

We moved flat (within the same area – in fact, the same building) and have been redecorating and setting up within a slightly bigger space, which includes a [tiny] desk for my laptop, so there will hopefully be [long-term] an easier writing schedule that doesn’t depend on tidying away for dinner (although I am sat on a dining chair).

And then there’s what I have been working on… Steam Highwayman IV, V and VI are in a gentle planning stage, I want to try to have all three planned out and will probably write them side-by-side, so they need time. Until I’m ready to tackle that, I have some contract work on the horizon that I will be very excited to post about, once I can. And an add-on to the Steam Highwayman project that I’ve posted about before – the Steam Highwayman App – has also been taking up time. I should have more details about that soon.

Then there’s been a steady trickle of readers ordering copies of the Gormley-Watt Velosteamer’s Touring Guide, which takes a regular bit of admin (buying online postage, printing, labelling packets and sending) and quite a lot of Happenings at our local church congregation, where I have some responsibilities.

So watch this space – and if you’ve missed hearing about some of these and would like to find out more, follow the links in the post.

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Psalm 119 – 169-176

May my cry come before you, O Lord;

give me understanding according to your word.

This cry is the voice of the human spirit, now rising up to God whether things are good or bad – now I can remain in heartfelt communication with my Lord.  And my cry is – continue to teach me, so I can learn and grow in your Word – with Jesus, by the Spirit, with your word on my lips, speaking and living in your paths, righteous and sanctified and glad to act!

May my supplication come before you;

deliver me according to your promise.

My cry – my appeal – should repeatedly reach the throne of God, say simply ‘Sanctify me, save me, according to your promise, your word, your Son, the promised one, the living Lord Jesus!  Save me in him and in his spirit!’

May my lips overflow with praise,

for you teach me your decrees.

I want my mouth to be overfull and for words to pour out constantly, praising God for this, my prayer, is being answered now [sic.8.6.14, but also 7.11.16].  As I write this, as I read it again in the future, whether times are hard or easy, he is teaching me this pattern of life, his way of doing business.

May my tongue sing of your Word,

for all your commands are righteous.

I want to sing!  To be noisy in your word – for and through the Spirit of Jesus – because your way of ruling is proper, good, upright, effective and able to redeem your people.

May your hand be ready to help me,

for I have chosen your precepts.

I am going to need your help, Lord – but now I understand that to ask in the Spirit is to prophesy – to ‘speak into being’ – to ask with faith is to begin to receive.  We can’t have faith in the wrong things, because faith comes from the Spirit, so what we have been given holy faith to believe, we should pray wholeheartedly for and act upon.  This is to choose God’s precepts rather than our own way of living.

I long for your salvation, O lord,

and your law is my delight.

Being saved is so exciting!  I want to run on in it – because your words and ways fill me with gladness and excitement.

Let me live that I may praise you

and may your laws sustain me.

Yes – this is life to the full – to worship in Spirit and Truth – in understanding of the real state of affairs – and sustained by God’s living law, by the Spirit of Jesus living in us as his word, showing, explaining, drawing our attention.

I have strayed like a lost sheep.  Seek your servant

for I have not forgotten your commands.

And this is the power of God’s law – I strayed – I spent all this time trying to do it – but I have not forgotten your commands because they have continually acted upon me.  As long as God seeks me, holding me on the path through his law, through his Word, his command is to follow.  His command is impossible to resist – his command is the person of Jesus – his person is the greatest command, commanding us to know him by his very presence in the world he created.

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A Spiritual Diet

I was talking with the Lord last year over a meal and heard him clearly tell me to eat up my dinner.  Three times.  After that sort of amusing word, I’m always intrigued.  This is how the Lord likes to hook me, I think!

Protein builds muscles, he reminded me.  So I began to think about this with some new insight, for everything that is true for our physical body is reflected in our spirit, I’m learning.  When we do things – when we exercise – our muscles are torn and worn and it is in the repairing of them, using protein we’ve eaten, that they are strengthened.  So what is it that makes us stronger in the spirit?

It is the Word – scripture – God’s speaking to us – that builds us up.  We know this!  But our diet must be coupled with exercise – with obedience to the word.  Without the tearing and the wearing out of our human abilities the muscles of a human spirit cannot be rebuilt as muscles of Jesus’ spirit in us.  God works in these organic ways, growing and replacing from within – we see it all the time.

To continue the analogy, rice gives us energy.  Carbohydrate is the fuel of our continuing life, allowing us to move.  What is it that energises us in the spiritual realm?  Surely it is praise and worship!  You can go a day without carbs, but your body will need to re-wire and re-plumb and improvise to find some energy somewhere – yet you are designed to burn that carbohydrate in every cell of your body!  Now sometimes we think we can get on without worship, yet worship is the thing that gives us energy – spiritual energy – to do the work that God has for us.  As we burn the fuel – make the offering – give the sacrifice – we ourselves are cleansed and changed and made ready to act.

I think the analogy could go even further – I love to shove a metaphor – and I wonder whether prophecy might not fill some of the place that minerals and vitamins do in our earthly diet…  But there are so many things to be explored here!  Suffice to say, I’m convinced that getting the two big blocks sorted for growth is a good place to start – the protein of the Word, exercised through obedience, and the carbohydrate fuel of worship, burnt to give us life!