nobody reads blogs in 2024

a bit about me and why i'm writing a blog

monday 5th march 2024

To be honest, calling me a jack-of-all-trades would be a compliment. The truth is that my interests and taste vastly exceed my skillset.

I've wanted to write a book since I was about 6 years old but never had the chops to make it happen. My first 'novel' was a rework of the 1994 Disney classic The Lion King. My sweet mum even stapled the pages together into a proper paperback. At the age of 15, I found Lion Wars bent out of shape in my wardrobe. The narrative left a lot of room for improvement, but nonetheless I was pleased to see that it had a hand-drawn barcode on the back.

At school, despite liking English, I focused on subjects where I had more ability: design technology, science and IT.

I chose to study Architecture at the University of Nottingham after attending an induction day with Mum and Dad. A professor spoke about the 'future of cities', 'community focused architecture' and 'buildings with purpose'. All stuff that made my parents raise their eyebrows but blew my mind. I quickly fell in love with the layering of different ideas, something that is integral to architecture as a discipline. Thankfully, the established 'professional pathway' meant that my parents could get onboard too.

I needed to get AAA at A-level, but after taking my eye off the ball during my AS year, I didn't perform so great in Physics. My Dad took me aside that summer and told me that I'd done 'good, but not good enough'. It hit me pretty hard and I spent a couple of weeks panicking before starting my final year of sixth form.

Roll on 12 months later and I managed to turn my grade into an A*. On results day, Dr Johnson, my teacher and Head of Physics, parted the crowd and shook my hand.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted. I can talk about books and buildings another time. You're here for board games, right? So where do they come in? Well ... as it turns out, not for a while. I spent more time as a kid on my Gameboy Colour than I did playing Scrabble. Truth be told, to this day I've never finished a game of Monopoly.

However, I had an idea for a board game during the summer of 2020 and played around with details over the next couple of years. In early 2022, a colleague of mine, David, became a close friend after it turned out that he too had invented a game. I went looking for my hand-drawn prototype and we headed to the pub to play test each others games.

Last year, David pulled his finger out and launched his game online and this year he's been encouraging me to do the same. Check out his Kickstarter and Amazon.

I think I've got a good idea. But, if architecture school taught me anything, it's that the idea is only as good as it's execution. I want to share the process of making this game on my blog, even if it's just to keep me honest. I would podcast DOAC-style, but I hate the sound of my voice and there are enough podcasts at the moment.

My objective is to get my game, MARCH ON: Gold Rush, onto Amazon by the end of the year. It's a big task, but if there's anything I Iearned from Dr Johnson in A-level physics, it's that time is relative to how hard you work.

Maybe I'll write a novel one day, but until then, this will have to do. After all, only 2 letters separate a blog from a book.

Thanks for reading

Michael