It has been Some Days since the last update. That’s ok¹ because again, I’ve been busy. Also, I told you in the inaugural I Can’t Believe I’ve Done This that the newsletter would like as not be infrequent, and I wouldn’t lie to you² .

I’ve also been sticking myself in a rut by finding a consistent message for each article, which is troublesome when life so rarely themes itself. Consider that goal dropped, and the writing lifted or whatever.

I Can’t Believe I Made This

To celebrate the end of February and the start of the second month of spring, March³ , I’ve put my battle maps on sale for a dollar! Now is the perfect time to get some tabletop inspiration or a last-minute combat map!

I make these maps in a wonderful tool called Dungeondraft. The process is a little like kit-bashing with 2D images. I wish I could draw these from scratch but I lack both the skill and the energy to obtain the skill, so this is a happy medium, where I can flex my creative muscles without toiling for years in the shading and perspective mines.

I Can’t Believe I Wrote This

I have finished another book, and one that I wrote in record time! For a little backstory, I am a paid Dungeon Master. At the month’s start, my current group played the Ecstasy of Bleakwash Village, a best-selling adventure I wrote. In the first act, the adventurers travel to a distant town, encountering random monsters and characters along the way.

For one encounter, I described wandering dead, pattern-following, and peaceful, that traverse strange patterns across the fields. From this point onward, the party explored pure improvisation territory. I described three barrows, two smaller and one larger, where the undead appeared to congregate, and explained that while they could investigate those now, the villains they hunted would not pause their plans to let them do so. They opted to see to these barrows after completing Bleakwash, which gave me ample time to prepare the scenario.

While writing, I realised it had grown from being a quick single session detour to a two or three session dungeon delve, with an interesting antagonist, high stakes, and fun encounters. In short, something worth publishing. From there, adding the bells and whistles a published book needs was trivial! That book now rests in the small, soft hands of my darling wife, who is the primary editor on all my books, before coming back to me for layout, further editing, a second editor review from my friend and TTRPG expert Erin Brioche and finally back to me for the proofs. So while the writing is done, the book is only half finished.

It got me thinking: if I can write the book in a week, surely I can finish the rest of the damn book in a month, right? It’s the gaps between stages in a project - the lost momentum and memory - that hinder me. If I worked consistently, could I write one book a month? And from there, a self-imposed challenge was born. Starting in March, I’ll endeavour to write, edit, and publish one adventure a month. Wish me luck!

I Can’t Believe I Played This

Fans of hit newsletter I Can’t Believe I’ve Done This⁵ have been wondering at chair’s edge what game I’d pick up after Metaphor: ReFantazio. Having completed a complex, narrative-focussed post-apocalyptic RPG about identity and what it once meant to be human, how would I cleanse my palette? Would I perhaps don the comfortable khakis of the shooter, or the nerdly glasses of a 4x?

In about a week, I acquired, started, and completed 1000xRESIST, a narrative-focussed post-apocalyptic game that is about identity and what it once meant to be human.

But it’s more than that. It’s also about diaspora, generational trauma, the role of imperfect memory in perpetuating harm, and lesbian clones.

The game is interesting. On the one hand, it’s a gripping narrative with some of the most believably complex characters in video gaming, with characters that flit between protagonist and antagonist as you evaluate and re-evaluate their actions in new light. It is heartbreaking and beautiful, espousing the virtues of forgiveness, community, and, of course, resistance.

And it’s not a good game at all. The environments are washed out, the lighting basic, reminiscent of a developer’s first unity project, and every asset looks bought and ill-fitted for purpose. The game mechanics are clunky and uninteresting, serving only to pad the runtime. This is a visual novel with an incomprehensible focus on running between points in an ugly, unremarkable 3D space. At one point, the narrative swaps characters and cannot make you care about the new one. The voice actors performed on amateur equipment, and very few characters manage an ounce of emotion in their voices, like they’re keynote speakers at the lesbian cough syrup convention.

But, despite the game’s many flaws, it’s a fantastic science fiction narrative. One I will turn over in my head again and again, re-analysing the multitudinous overlapping stories of resistance, trauma, and apocalypse, and the conflicting memories within Iris Kwan: ALLMOTHER, abused child, racist bully, neglected saviour, murderer, diplomat, appeaser, doting parent, goddess, and the last human alive.

To hell with remaking good games. I don’t need another Silent Hill 2, the original still exists! Remake games with promise that failed to live up to it. Remake those that need fixing. We don’t need, ironically, more clones.

Hekki Allmo, sisters.

That’s all for this week’s⁶ I Can’t Believe I’ve Done This. Perhaps next week will be me giving up on my book challenge, perhaps not. The only way to find out is to:

Or read it on the website. You do you.

1  it’s ok if I say it’s ok

2  unless it was funny or I stood to materially gain

3  I firmly believe in the astronomical calendar, to the chagrin and rage of many around me

4  unless they were a dollar or less already, of course

5  thanks, mum!

6  again, time only moves when I post