Warm and fuzzy feelings from the first Hell for Leather review.

Trying. That’s how I’ve found the last week of design. I ran a short competition which has come to a close, and although there were some sparkly entries, I was a little upset by the volume. Last night, trudging back home after a gruelling night of labour, I felt like a living sigh, about to unfold and sink into nothingness, wasted by the weight of work and expectation.

It was with a weariness that I shrugged my satchel to the floor, kicked off my shoes and thudded into my writing chair. “Click, whir, beep,” my computer said, glaring at me with bluish disdain.

“What do you want?” I replied, and waited for things to spring around my screen. I leaned away from the keyboard, sipping on an evening coffee, rolling my shoulders for the midnight shift.

That’s when the fuzzy feelings started. Daniel Klein, my chief playtester in Germany, had posted a witty Actual Play vignette on RPG Net. It’s a real treat to read something that concerns your work, written by someone else, something vibrant and positive like this. It’s the same feeling you get when you overhear someone bigging you up, or when you find a secret note under your pillow. It’s like a far away whisper in cahoots with your computer screen, waiting to ambush you with a hug when you need it the most.

And then I got an email from William Patrick who writes a biweekly game review blog. He was wondering if I minded if he posted a review of Hell for Leather. The sensation I got, and still get, is a crawling thing. It slinks over my back like a dressing gown and, very gently, I feel like someone friendly is over my shoulder, smiling and watching. It feels like I’m a little drunk, you know that numb merriness you get before you’ve had too much?

What a sensation! If I get nothing else from the process, this feeling is worth all the work.

If you’d like to read the review, go here. It’s not a glowing report, though neither is it a vicious diatribe. But it is a review, or at least, a feature. Game of the Week.

So, thanks William Patrick. You’ll get a special mention in the book, for showing support at just the right time.

• Just came back from a playtest with the Trinity gamers. Wow. I learned a lot about how other people don’t understand me.
• Forgetting that other gamers don’t play indie games, I found I needed a pre-prepared lecture on the player-as-GM paradigm. Which I didn’t…
• …have. It wasn’ta total failure. I learned that I’d somehow messed up the pacing of HfL in the last week. And that the co-op mode is…
• …200 million times better than Versus mode. ANd that I need to rewrite stuff. Again. SIGH. SIGHHHH. Do you see how that makes me feel?
• Things occurred to me last night and kept me awake until it got bright again.
• A wasabi pea is the badly cut scag of the snack world.
• What’s the gender opposite of a chick flick?
• Answer: A soppy movie where the hero pulls barbed wire from his belly. Aka The Wrestler.

I need your brains.

If you can help me to design the best start-up plot for an introduction to the game Hell for Leather, I’ll send you a prize. Not only will you feature as a contributor in the print release next Spring, but I’ve also got a T-Shirt and a Hell for Leather PDF to give away. More… »

Jason Hickey sent this through last week but I hadn’t time to upload it until today. It’s a beauty. There seems to be a story in the image. You’ll need to zoom right in to absorb the bedlam in his eyes.