Hmm, the weather's pretty bad today, so I think I'll wait til tomorrow to tackle the car's issues. It's going to be sucky enough even without it raining during the whole process. I thankfully don't need my car on a daily basis, so I can afford to be a little bit of a prima donna about this.

So, got about a month of good operation out of the car after that fairly expensive repair, and today it wouldn't start again. I guess I get to see how good that warranty is this week.

But hey, since I have the perfect cd for today, time to put on "Just Can't Get Enough 80's New Wave: Halloween". As I recall from last year, there's some bangers on there.

I've honestly never had trick or treaters at this apartment, so if anyone pops by they're prolly getting one of those little pringles cups. Tomorrow I'll wander over to Walgreens to actually buy my post-Halloween candy. I usually get a bag of reese's on sale or such.

I usually find that I have to really sell a publisher on a boardgame design, then I don't want them to do it. I try to find publishers that are actively excited about publishing the game. Things go so much smoother and the end result is so much better. A hesitant publisher can be worse than nothing.

Second 2-player playtest of Sky Pirates of Tempest today. This one was smoother than the first, though it's not certain if it was the scenario or just a different set of random circumstances coming together. Further testing should clarify things.

Also, I've weirdly been bombarded by ill-targeted emails wanting to work with me to illustrate my children's book (that I didn't write) and calling me Vaughn (which isn't even close to my name). They seem to be some kinda AI spamaroo nonsense I guess, so that's always fun.

Ominously, the car has started doing some weird stuff after being cold started. It seems to be running fine, but it's just not behaving 100% as expected, which, given my recent experience with it, gives me anxiety. We'll have to see if it progresses or if this is otherwise fine.

Playtest #20 of Sky Pirates of Tempest today, and was finally able to get in a multiplayer game to see what goes sproing, and yeah, there will need to be some tweaking. Gonna play one more of these with a different scenario to start getting a vibe on what needs tweaking and then I'll adjust.

Finished up another Sky Pirates of Tempest playtest tonight (18 or 19, don't remember which). Got my taxes back from my guy, and I'm listening to the Shawshank Redemption soundtrack now while we've got a tornado watch for another hour here.

Took about 300 photos this last week on my walks, as the fall colors have been peaking and the light was terrific today - all overcast and glowy. Lots of very Halloweeny landscape shots and a few deer.

I'm feeling pretty good about the variety of play in the different scenarios for Sky Pirates of Tempest. The core elements remain the same - which is what you actually want, you don't want to take out the fun parts of the game for a scenario - but how they get used and how they feel get shaken up.

Got in playtest #18 of Sky Pirates of Tempest this evening. First play of the Place Where the Sky is Broken scenario. I was cursed with an unnatural idol that made enemies attack me more and journeyed around the board visiting various landmarks in order to ignite 2 beacons of light...

For all that I sometimes get befuddled by stuff I don't really have energy to mess with, I've never regretted having a website of my own, even if it's not super active, it's still a homesite where people can find my most up-to-date contact info and see the sort of games I make.

My inability to read email over the weekend was due to them being cautious and expiring passwords (PHP stuff I think?), so I just had to figure out how to get into my admin access, which I rarely use, and update passwords. First email I had was about the issue and how to fix it. Mwah. Chef's kiss.

#IFComp '26 results are posted. All the games are there to play now and forever! ifcomp.org/comp/2026

IFComp 2026

ifcomp.org

Hmm, suddenly can't log into my email, and tech support is out til Monday. Well, if my friends suddenly notice that I'm spamming you this weekend, I apologize. Dunno if it's a security issue or not. Hopefully just my ISP crapping out.

While I'm not a truly hardcore animation fan, I've watched a ton of it over the years, and I love it. I got into anime by joining the anime club at UC Berkeley back when it was all fan-subs traded on vhs tapes, and I'm pretty delighted by modern animation in general still. So many cool things.

If you know what the Mystery Skulls music videos are, you might want to be aware that the finale has been announced for Oct. 27th. Wild to think it's taken 11 years to get here, but I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

Nice find today. Really good copy of the Shawshank Redemption's soundtrack on cd. I'll have to listen to it tomorrow, but it's one of my favorite movies, so I'm relatively sure I'll enjoy it.

Today was playtest #17 for Sky Pirates of Tempest. Played a solo game, attempting the Kraken scenario. I dinked around a bit too much and should've wrapped up one of the tasks I let linger too long, and was overwhelmed in the end. It was a good time though, and ran for almost exactly 2 hours.

As often happens when the seasons change, my sleep schedule is drifting around, which often sucks. On the other hand, I get to have the window open a bit and listen to the October winds late at night without the usual city noises drowning them out.

One of the questions I've stopped asking when I'm approached to design a game is "Who is your target audience?" I find that the answer is usually the utterly worthless "Everyone!" So now I ask different questions. What are your goals for the game? What must be included? What must not be included?

Managed to get everything done this week that I needed to get done. A minor miracle, to be sure.

And, Sky Pirates of Tempest is now imported into tabletopia so that I can do online playtests with non-local friends. That was a lot of stuff. I'll prolly have to tweak some things for usability as I go, but at least the big painful step is done.

Was up late last night working to transfer SPoT to tabletopia for online playtesting. Also am working to refresh my contract clauses for a gig I'm preparing for, and I have a bit of development work this week I need to get to the next stage. The trees are also turning colors that I refuse to miss.

Dropped a decent chunk of Sky Pirates of Tempest into tabletopia for playtesting this weekend. Still got a chunk more of cards and such to go. Also have another game that needs a few more components to add there. They'll have to wait til tomorrow though.

As oblivious as I often am when watching stuff to fall asleep to, the AI writing I'm running into on youtube is often so intolerable I couldn't watch it if I wanted to, as it gives me the eye twitches. "Just sit with that. AI being so low-effort that it's unwatchable. More likely than you think."

Had the carbon monoxide alarm go off, much to my startlement, so I stepped outside and then looked up what the beep pattern meant to see if I needed to warn the neighbors, but it was just its "end of life" warning, so I put in a maintenance request to replace it and took out the battery.

Got in a pleasant walk this afternoon. We're still a week or two out from serious fall colors here, so the questgiver tree at the park hasn't started glowing with yellow leaves yet, but the weather was really nice. Did a bit of cleaning too, and now I'm listening to the Decemberists.