DEV-TALK 011 - It’s Been Awhile…

Looking back on my past post (the title especially) I think it turned out to be a lot more prophetic and or foreboding than I realized. I mean, do I REALLY need Ardenfell? I can promise you, it’s a question I thought about a lot in the last few months. Several months, and a number of AA meetings later I have concluded that I do still need Ardenfell, and I think you will dig it too!

I started this project back in the malleable time that was COVID. It started first as a worldbuilding exercise, something to tinker with while I was bored and evolving (or devolving I guess) into the more hermit like man that I am today. I spent some time messing with different workflows, briefly (and regretably) tried to use AI for editing & development, and realized that I really enjoyed actually just writing all this stuff out and actually trying to design games and stuff. I hired on an editor and artist to help me start from scratch, a decision that turned out to be the right move as we all watched AI get increasingly more problematic in the creative spaces. We then spent the next year writing, making art, and figuring out how to design this kind of modular, Game Master focused kind of design and to be honest as hard as it was, it was also super awesome to run. We participated in two game jams (Dustbound & Project CRATER!) and started to form an idea of doing a Kickstarter for this massive project we’d slowly been perfecting.

I would be lying if I said that the process of monetizing all of this didn’t wear me out, because it definitely did. When we started this, making money wasn’t really the plan (and kind of still isn’t) but I’m a big believer in paying people for their work, and our artist and other writer were just as into seeing this all succeed as me. Luckily, I’d portioned off a good bit of funds to float us for awhile as we moved closer to Kickstarter-ing, but as the process dragged on (tariffs are AWESOME) and we kept working, life also kept kicking everyone in the shins as it is ought to do. I was spending less and less time worldbuilding, and more planning and trying to do other stuff to make this whole thing work, and I like many simply burned myself out. With the world continuing to remain on fire, I lacked the funds to properly keep the project going like we were before, and I didn’t want to risk doing anything if I wasn’t completely certain we’d be able to complete it.

That’s where I was about two-ish months ago. Everything kind of fell apart, and it sucked.

Pretty hard.

I focused on my sobriety, painting models, and honestly just writing what I wanted to for the fun of it. Taking off the pressure helped considerably, and I found myself enjoying Daggerheart content more and more, and looking back at some of the stuff I’d fiddled with before but never really got to focus on like making our content into Daggerheart stuff and practicing all the HIP MODULARITY. I missed just making stuff to the best of my ability, so I just started doing it. I wish I could say it was something cool or profound, but really just doing what I liked was fun, and it’s been really fun recently at the new pace I’m doing it.

I wish I’d plotted this post out a bit more versus my usual stream-of-consciousness thing, but I guess what I’m trying to say is this:

I don’t know when we’ll be releasing our Kickstarter, (we’re still working on it!) but in the meantime, you’ll be seeing a lot of Ardenfell content converted into Daggerheart-ready products shared in the process here, and posted on Heart of Daggers! You’ll see the updated Campaign Frame on there in the next day or so (I hope) so please go check it out if you can (it’s free!) and give it a review if you can, but as usual, I hate leaving a post like this without giving something so… You can check out what the frame looks like below :D