Game Diary Summary - January

1/2/2008
This is the first entry for the new year, a year since my very first entry (1/19/07). After reading that first one, it's interesting to me how much I've gotten done over the last year and how much I haven't gotten done. Although I don't anticipate taking another year to finish the game (since there's really only one chapter left), I'm curious how things will be in January 2009.

1/7/2008
I FINALLY started working on the commodities yesterday, but it was slow going. I have plenty of notes, but it's been very hard for me to put it in rule form that didn't sound terrible. However, I did get it started and, like pulling off a band-aid, that's perhaps the hardest part.

I was able to do more today with commodities including examples of how to setup the preliminary supply/demand quantities and prices. I will have to test all of this, however, to make sure the values come out okay. As usual, there will probably be modifications once I get into the actual numbers.

1/8/2008
I added my notes to the rules last night, although I was having some technical problems getting the stuff from my google doc into my word doc. I normally use Firefox, but I couldn't copy and paste into Word that way. However, after getting really frustrated, I switched over to IE and it worked fine. I guess there are still reasons to use Internet Explorer. ;-)

Anyway, I have to remember to add a section on cargo licenses etc. Seems like there's something else I'm forgetting, but I can't remember right now.

1/9/2008
I worked on the Events table yesterday. Basically, there's a chance (once per week) of an event changing the commodity prices and supply/demand amounts. I had done this table previously, but decided to rework it slightly. I was getting frustrated with it, but I got it done and added it to the rules last night.

1/11/2008
I've had a pretty crappy couple of days. On Wednesday, I got laid off from my day job and yesterday I fried my hard drive and had to reformat everything. Although I had a lot of my stuff backed up, I did lose the last section of the current chapter and I also lost the photoshop files for the Imperium and Jova maps. I have jpegs for those, but neither are print quality (at least not the Jova one). So, I have some rework to do which sucks. Of course, I also have to get a new job which also sucks. Meh.

1/13/2008
I spent lasts night and part of today redoing the Jova map. I basically started from scratch, although I had a jpeg version as referenced. Actually, the most frustrating part was trying to get the colors of the districts the same as the old version, but I simply approximated the colors instead of matching them exactly. Today, I mostly worked on adding all the star systems in. I got Capitis done and I will try to do Kurai tomorrow.

1/14/2008
I completed the Jova map today so it's basically as good as new (and backed up even!). Next I need to redo the part of the rules that was lost. That didn't amount to much and a lot of it was already in my Google docs, so I was lucky there. It's funny, but working today on the map I felt a certain calm come over me: even though I was laid off last week, I guess I still have the game to work on and keep me busy. It helps.

1/17/2008
I've been kind of busy lately trying to find a job. Today I had an interview (which went terrible). In the meantime, I redid the header for the rules (which had been lost due to my drive failure). I was lucky because the image for the Imperium crest was still on the wiki AND it was at 200 dpi for some reason (even though it's a JPEG). So, I was able to add it to the header.

1/19/2008
My rules are now totally caught up. I spent today putting in the Trade stuff that I had lost. I guess it only took a week to get everything back more or less as before, but it's still a wasted week since I shouldn't have lost the stuff in the first place. Unfortunately, I really have only myself to blame. :-(

1/20/2008
It looks like I'm basically done with the current chapter, which means I can start the final chapter of the game now. Today, I added the rest of the Trade section and also a section describing Jova province and the Aldin star system. As I may've mentioned before, the final chapter will describe Aldorus in greater detail, including various NPCs to meet and places to explore. It's really intended as a jumping-off point for characters just starting to play the game.

1/22/2008
It turned out that I wasn't completely done with the chapter after all: I still needed to add contraband and smuggling rules, although some of that info will be in the Gear chapter instead. Today, I've been mostly doing preliminary notes on the final chapter about adventuring. I'd like to create a nice map of Aldorus, but I'm having trouble getting something that looks presentable. So far I've been pretty dissatisfied.

1/24/2008
Today I was working on the Regalis city map. I had created a map for it a long time ago, but I thought I could do better. So far I haven't. :-( However, I don't think the original is good enough either so I'll keep trying.

1/26/2008
Yesterday I decided to go with my old Regalis city map instead of the new one that I had slaved over. The new one just didn't look like a city map to me. Today, I actually started the last chapter (ie: actually wrote in the rules instead of just notes. I didn't get too far however because I found that the world map for Aldorus was far too small. So, I spent the last two hours redoing the map so it would fill the page instead of just of a part of it. I'm much happier now, though!

1/29/2008
I was stuck the last couple of days: couldn't seem to write very well. Today, however, I've written quite a lot; describing some of the areas in Regalis. The wife seemed to even like what I'd written so that's something! ;-)