It’s been over a year since I’ve updated the page. It’s been over a year since I really started on SEO for this website… And surprisingly enough, I’ve got a ton more traffic navigating here than I’d expect. Cloudflare claims that we’re hitting ~100-200 visitors each day. Globally. That’s wild to me.
Whether it be from spam, bots, or anything else… that’s still ~200 unique individuals hitting my personal website nearly every day or two. That’s crazy! I don’t think I even have anything worth looking at… but I guess if you do like music, or TTRPGs, etc. then that might explain how you got here, reading this ramble.
I’ve got a lot of really cool ideas I’ve been working on. There’s been Vaerfel Idle, which is an idle MMORPG that I started about a year ago. It got a bit of traction before I realized, fundamentally, there’s little fun to be had with idle games… and its very much so something that needs a LOT of content. In general, I didn’t do stratified content well enough — all the zones have about the same feel in them, just are level/gear gated.
Which… isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A lot of MMOs do that. But the thing is, most action-oriented and real-time MMOs are user-engaging. Like. They’re controlling the character, etc. Vaerfel is simply click a button and your person goes out and does things. Then they continue until a couple of conditions are met, etc.
I really wanted to dive into things and make it more ‘fun’. But I really don’t know how that looks… Because fun is such a relativistic concept. What may be fun to one may not be fun to another. And this is an idle game as well… which, by nature, takes time. A lot of time. Real-time, time. Everything happens while you’re away, etc.
Conceptually, I do have a living and semi-breathing world… but it’s hidden behind UI madness. UX experience is just, not good. And that’s okay! I’ve wanted to design games for so long… and I have to realize the first couple of attempts at anything will always be difficult. Met with likely less-than-desirable results.
And that’s the best part, aye? When we get to the beginning of new things and realize that it’s never what we expected. That there’s always more room to grow and progress to be achieved. Much akin to writing, it’s a never-ending process. There are always ways of redoing things, making them more efficient, etc.
I’ve also been working on something I’ve dubbed the: “Chronicle Engine”. It’s going to be a collaborative story-telling platform. Agnostic to any ruleset, playstyle, etc. It’s a program such that a GM or an Admin can set up stories, locations, skills, etc. Then they can determine how many rounds they want to play out. Then, each participant picks from a list of potential roles, and then the engine starts.
It’s an interesting premise. A sort of a-synchronous route for DND or TTRPGs or Storytelling/Backstories etc. Such that if folks can’t all commit to a ~2-3-4 hour session once a week or whatever… they can play a round each day. Or every other day. Or whenever the group decides! The tool can be scheduled, automated, and even AI/LLM driven. It already has features and functions that allow folks to note what they want to do, roll for it, and then see what has happened, etc.
The goal will be such that anyone from anywhere can pick up any story, chronicle, etc. and then spin-off of it if they’d like. Or redo an ending. Or anything else that anyone would want to do… Whilst having templates for any and all sorts of story worlds, genres, contexts, etc.
Between that and a personalized Arcana Journal Tarot system… it’s been a busy year. I really fell off about ~March of 2025. That was when I went full time into game development on the evenings. Literally coming home and working, until nearly ~1-2-3am most nights… and then going back to work, rinsing and repeating.
The old job gig is done for the time being. CEOs who want to throw their weight around to their employees for reporting unethical and illegal (alleged) business practices really don’t deserve to be worked for. Me and the boys walked out of a gig after some really messed up stuff went down. I’m not saying I was altogether in the right here; I literally walked out of the gig. But at the same time, I definitely wasn’t in the wrong. Standing for the ethics and morals that I know and love are some of my baselines as a human.
I probably wouldn’t be sitting here able to type into this new blog post without having done that. It lead us down a lengthy journey of getting the wife back to work, kids taken care of, and 401k accounts drained. But alas, we’re here! In a whole new world. Ready for all new things.
Just kidding. It’s going to be the same old new me. Doing the weird things that I do. Hoping to make some money somehow in the middle of it.
Stay tuned! Music will return! Storytelling programs will emerge! Tarot Arcana guidance will be alive!
Weird.
Thanks.