Surrounded By Danger Update #2

Geez, PDR, it’s been more than a year since you last made a post on your site about Surrounded By Danger, the game you have been making slowly. Ought to do something about that.

As I announced last time, I put the version I was working on on hold so I could work on that, because the first version was so complex. Well, I have indeed continued working on the Zombie Mode version of Surrounded By Danger. Look, it’s going slowly, I admit that. I’m not the best at focusing at the best of times, and playtesting a game requires me to actually play it with people. This isn’t easy for me. But as of about a month ago, I got the game to roughly the same point in development that it the first version had been when I stopped it. That may sound like I’m back where I started, but the whole point of Zombie Mode was that it required a lot more at this point. I’m much closer to being done Zombie Mode than I was to being done Story Mode, and that’s good. Now I just need to close that last bit of distance somehow.

General PDR Update for Summer 2022

Nothing against Pete and Jeremy, but it bugs me to see nothing but Phone Guys going up on the site. For a while we had that thing were my Twitter posts would come here, but that’s busted I guess. Ah well, I’ll just have to actually post something to break things up momentarily.

Life continues about average for me. Financial struggles continue to govern my life, but at least I’m making good progress on several projects (because, as always, I am unable to focus on a single project at once). Here’s some updates:

Surrounded By Danger: The game I am making has gotten to a point where I feel like I would be realistically able to finish it within this calendar year. But the thing is, as it is right now, it’s a game about characters I created for SecGov Robots and the Beekeeper Chronicles. I love that cast and am enjoying making a sort of “Choose your own path” Story Mode game with them, but that is complicated and they’re not exactly universally known. So what I’m gonna do is restart the whole concept and make a Zombie Mode version of the game. Since the beginning I’ve been aware that the mechanics of the game are pretty good for simulating a fight against zombies. This should, if I don’t mess it up, allow me to create a version of the game without a Story Mode that can be put into production and actually get into the world while I go back to working on the Beekeeping version of the game.

The Many Monsters of Mackestry Manor: Another project I am working on is a franchise about a bunch of little monsters who live in a house. This one is aimed at very young children. I’d love for it to progress to the point of being a series of little adventure games, but that feels unlikely. What I am working on now is a colouring and activity book starring these monsters. That’s a much easier scale for me, and I honestly think I can have it complete by some time in October. Once that’s done I’ll begin work on a book that tells more about the monsters and see where we can go from there.

So while I’m toiling away on these and other projects, I’m sorry that the Phone Guys have the whole place to themselves.

Surrounded By Danger Update #1

Time flows so quickly that I was surprised to learn that it has been more than two months since I officially announced I was making a game called Surrounded By Danger. But in those two months, progress has continued and I can say that I think the basic mechanics of the game are nearly complete. There is only a little fine-tuning left to account for balancing issues and the like. Otherwise, this is a completely functional cooperative board game that I have playtested with four other people, not including myself. It genuinely works.

But, unfortunately/extremely fortunately, something has changed since the last time I wrote on the topic. I delved into research on other cooperative board games and learned a lot about what exists in the genre these days. What I learned changed this project entirely: there are board games that now attempt to tell ongoing persistent stories. I got very into the idea, and I very much am now working on a Story Mode for Surrounded by Danger. It’s going well! I’ve even tested it! And while it may not be as developed as the basic mechanic yet, but it’s coming along.

Another bit of progress that has occurred is less good news. I had really, really wanted to release this game with the subtitle “An Urban Beekeeping Simulator” because it would greatly amuse me to do so. But cooler heads have convinced me that this would give potential players an incorrect view of what the game is about. Is it my fault that the populace at large doesn’t know that Beekeepers are all about fighting crime and investigating supernatural threats? No, I’ve done everything in my power to prove this to them. But the more people who come into the game, the more will learn about the greatness of Beekeepers, so I guess I should do this right.

Surrounded By Danger Announcement

Say there, partner. Do you remember the time that Jason Dante and Gladys Blue were surrounded by supervillains and fought their way out? Or do you remember when the employees of Adam’s Extra-Fancy Honey Shop were surrounded by a bunch of Beekeepers and had a rooftop conflict? No? Nobody remembers that? Well, that doesn’t matter. PDR remembers.

For a couple years now I’ve had a back-burner project where I was making a board game. Over the past two months, that project has moved to the front burner, so I figured I should make an actual announcement on this website o’ mine.

Surrounded By Danger, as it is now known, is a co-operative game in which you portray Adam Obianu, Gladys Blue, Jason Dante, and their friends in situations where they are surrounded by enemies and have to fight their way to success. I’m gonna be stingy with details for now, but I have done playtesting and so far things are going well.

More to come in the future.