I love experimentation. I love trying new things, I like eating new things, I love doing new things, and I love being part of new things. It doesn't make it any less scary, I think, and new things still make me nervous. If it's too far out of my comfort zone, I might shy away from it. I think most people are like that.

Photo 1: This is called a Plaster Blaster; fusion Southeast Asian Indian-American; prata layered with ham, sunny side up egg (the plater), with hollandaise sauce

Now, in order to try new things without being too scared of it or intimidated, one has to bridge the gap in knowledge or expectation.

Would I like this new dish? What is it like? Is like something I already like eating? For food it seems like there's an obviously simple way to trying new things. A new ramen store is easy to compare to an old ramen store you've eaten at before, but if you're trying balut for the first time, you may be intimidated as you don't know what to expect. Now, everyone's gaps are different, and this is an oversimplified exampled, but I'm getting to the point, I promise.

So I started thinking of how to deal with "making a new game" by bridging that gap between "never made a game" and "have made a game" by pulling on something I've already done many times - making homebrew for 5e.

I often say I'm not gamer, and perhaps that isn't entirely true, because I have most probably spent hundreds (if not over a thousand yet) of hours on 5e and making things for 5e (link to homebrew here). That's a step. I've played with unity, and although technically speaking I made a game for a college project, it was really 5 people working around stipulations provided by the lecturer, and hoping we get a good grade. There are no limitations with the HOPE system. Well, in theory at least. Obviously, we’ll meet some of these limitations as we play the system more.

So, I looked at how I made homebrew, and how many other people I've seen make homebrew, and I studied it, and I broke it down into actionable steps. 5 steps to be exact, and they are as follows: Conceptualize, Research, Butcher, Create, and Playtest.

I'm by no means an expert game designer, and by no means is this the be all end all method to making a game, but it's something I can follow so that making the game doesn't intimidate me. I don't get stuck on the idea of HOPE, and make HOPE a real game.

In future devlogs, I'll dive right into the 5 steps, but for now, I want to digress a little. While not everything requires a plan, or steps, in order to get done, I think this framework could help for content creation, making new things, and exploring the world. There's so much to do, experience, and create. The best part about the HOPE system for me is that it's something I can do, experience, and create. This is something I felt a lot with making music, and it's something I definitely feel here.

Photo 2: Sometimes I explore other art forms, such as with this origami snail on a painted dungeon tile.

Our initial playtests have allowed us to realize two things about our system so far; firstly that it's easy to move through the story and do anything you want, and secondly, it's fast. Narrative moves along. This is something we want to push for, since most people who watch TTRPG streams typically are listening in like it's a podcast, and the video is supplementary to the audio. While visually we want to engage with the audience as much as possible, the narrative is king. After the playtests, there'll be other cool things we wanna build for this ruleset, and hopefully, you enjoy it as much as I have so far with testing it.

As with the first devlog, if you're up to support this project, and do, experience, and create with HOPE with us here, do consider dropping some support for the Kofi, and if you don't wanna spend money, do pass by our social media channels, and say hi. We're definitely keen on having more people be involved with the project, especially in that step 5 (that's playtesting) eventually, especially when we release the alpha and beta versions of the HOPE system.

And hey, don't forget; who's awesome? You're awesome.


JOSH
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