"It is December, and No One Asked Me if I was Ready." ~ Sarah Kay, poet (Patreon)

First of all, I am sorry for not having written an update sooner. I tend to rabbit-hole while concentrating on a writing project, and pretty much the rest of my life tends to suffer for it. My only saving grace is that I always take notes - written bread crumbs, if you will - to make the journey down the rabbit-hole yield something in the end,

With the year ending in a few weeks, I have made myself stop what I am doing to take stock of not only my personal and public life, but of this project. At times, it feels like everything is moving too slowly along, but I then realize that because I have a pretty good idea of the whole story, I just want to have it all completed, like magic.

But real magic - Wild Magic - is truly rare. Some people spend their entire lives chasing after wild magic and constantly miss the Mundane Magic of the Everyday. The latter comes from working towards a goal either by yourself or in tandem with a group of like-minded people, and eventually creating magic in a way that is crafted, but still unexpectedly enjoyable.

Princess on the Run is like that for me. While the other devs and I are still figuring out how to craft that magic together, I can see bits of the magic starting to form, starting to flow. I know you can’t see it yet, and are patiently waiting to see it in the form of a shiny new update.

There is an idea about writing poetry that looks at each line of a poem as having a certain amount of ‘weight’ to it; each line is carefully balanced, like balancing smooth rocks in a forest. Put too heavy a rock in the wrong place and the whole thing crashes down. Put too much exposition, or too much conflict, or too much sex (yes, even in a porn game, you can have too much sex), and the whole thing devolves into an uninteresting mess. Too many times, we have all played games, or watched movies where the plot seemed too wordy (too much talking and not enough action), or too much action (and not enough explaining), or the sex seems almost…mechanical. Or the game crashes whenever you as the player do something that the dev didn’t expect.

Part of making a fun game is making sure to avoid those things that make a game suck. Part of fixing up the game is hammering out those bits that made you fall out of the experience of playing the game, those errors that make you realize that you should be doing your Intro to Western Civ homework, or preparing for that presentation for the Gibbler Manufacturing account, or taking out the trash because your Significant Other has asked you three times and is planning your slow demise if they have to ask a fourth time.

I want you to get into trouble. That is, I want you to get lost in the game while you play. Steve, Rich, Jefferson, and I all want that. That’s why we’re being so methodical about the process of reimagining the game. Each part fits together just so, and no other way will justify the trust and hopes that you have placed in us.

I will make it a point to post more often, even though - as is clear from above - I tend to wander. Maybe ask me a question or something. Let me know what you are thinking, what you want and don’t want to see happen.