On Incomplete Worldbuilding & Elden Ring

So, like everyone else, I’ve been playing Elden Ring.  I’m a huge fan of the From Software games when it comes to worldbuilding. There’s just something about how it feels to wander around in these worlds. You have this feeling that everything in them hints at this bigger, broader existence that you’re not quite inContinue reading “On Incomplete Worldbuilding & Elden Ring”

New Release: The Tomb of the Heartless King (A 5e Adventure!)

Hello again, you lovely people! I’m here to happily announce THE INSTITUTE!’s first major release since early September!  “The Tomb of the Heartless King” is a full adventure for 5th Edition, lovingly hand-crafted by our institutional researchers and product developers (which is me, i was both of those things.) Initially stemming from The Storytelling Collective’sContinue reading “New Release: The Tomb of the Heartless King (A 5e Adventure!)”

New website layout!

Hello again, you lovely human beings! It’s that time again– time to look back on all of the things that past-me did and put up on the internet, blush, and quickly go through and edit it all with a better set of pictures. And better curation. And a better grasp of what I’m actually doing.Continue reading “New website layout!”

What a summer!

Holy cow, it’s been a while!  It seems like whenever I’m doing a lot of things, the first thing that falls off the plate is updating the blog talking about the things I’m doing. The perennial flaw in the freelancer’s life. It’s been five months? Nearly half a year? since I posted about what I’veContinue reading “What a summer!”

NEW GAME: Cryptid!

This past month, I’ve been hard at work developing, writing, and producing a new Table-Top RPG! It’s called ‘Cryptid: A Game of Small-Town Monsters‘, and I had an awesome time making it! The game is designed as a collaboration between you and your friends to develop a cryptozoological being to haunt the edges of aContinue reading “NEW GAME: Cryptid!”

SCAVENGER DEVLOG 8-13

So I skipped the last devlog. Don’t tell anybody. BUT! To catch you up to speed, we’re off on our way to building a vertical slice of the game! Which is to say, our goal is to have a “finished” arena and character model, along with the nuts ‘n bolts of the gameplay mechanic. AsContinue reading “SCAVENGER DEVLOG 8-13”

NEW RELEASE: The Rot-Eyed Lady

I’m excited to announce that I’ve finally put out the first installment in my “Reasons Not To Leave Your Home Tonight” series– The Rot-Eyed Lady! Gross name. I agree. This is a project I’ve been working on since about October of last year. The initial idea is, I really like monsters. So, I thought I’dContinue reading “NEW RELEASE: The Rot-Eyed Lady”

SCAVENGER DEVLOG 7-21

All right! We have officially tipped the scales from concept to execution! Today was a pretty short meeting– more or less all we did was go over the last few bits of preliminary design (establish color pallets and design themes for character models, go over models we want to start with, and so on.) So,Continue reading “SCAVENGER DEVLOG 7-21”

SCAVENGER DEVLOG 7-9

H’oh m’GAAD after no fewer than three other devlog posts saying we were going to talk about world building, today we actually talked about WORLDBUILDING! So we took a break of about a week as other job obligations/projects/clients/etc. reared their head(s), and we returned… Well. Not refreshed, per se, but certainly returned. We returned presently.Continue reading “SCAVENGER DEVLOG 7-9”

SCAVENGER DEVLOG 6-25

ALL RIGHT! YES! OKAY! … nnnope. No. I have no energy today. That’s the lesson from today, I think– sometimes, doing work is like trying to dig a hole through a brick wall by rubbing your face on it. I love this project, and I’m having a kick-ass time working on it, but learning howContinue reading “SCAVENGER DEVLOG 6-25”