Winter is upon us. As I type
this, it is currently 23 degrees (-5 for the civilized world) outside,
and the weatherman says that it isn't getting much better. Try as I
may, Ibrahim Ferrer is doing little to change me to sunnier states of
mind. The good news is, now that I can't escape Lunch, I have to
actually sit down and write for a change.
Speaking of. It should be pretty clear to
anyone reading this that we weren't able to meet our Fall release goal
for our first demo, and for that we're really sorry. It's been a crazy
last few months for almost the entire team, and, unfortunately, real
life has to come before all-volunteer collaboration projects. But now,
things have largely settled down enough that we'd like to announce that
our new goal is to have this demo out by Christmas. Will it happen?
Let's find out!
As we patch our paths together, we've spent a
lot of time thinking about the mechanisms of the titular ship, the HMCS
Familiarity. One of the biggest challenges so far is to convincingly
create a steampunk universe that is both factually sound and unobtrusive
to the actual story. This is something I personally have a horrible
time with, because, as my cohorts will tell you themselves, I am just as
happy dissecting a facet of our universe as I am to actually WRITE
about it. The historical aspect is even worse, because we can (and
have) spent entire nights discussing just what the political landscape
of our story is like, stopping occasionally to tell a dick joke or to
say “Hey, wasn't there a character route we were talking about?”
The short of all that is, holy crap is there a
lot of little stuff we can play with. Steam power may have gone away
before even my father's time, but learning about it gives it life anew.
Writing this story has brought romantic images of tramp steamers,
locomotives, and factories from a time where the world was still very
much large, mysterious, and exciting.
Anyways. The holidays are right around the
corner, and my path isn't going to write itself (as Lunch will be sure
to tell you), so stay tuned for something new.
