I was going to post a Weekly Update last night after I got home from MAGFest. That was the plan, but I’d made it when I was younger and full of hope. I was just too exhausted to even think last night, so you’re getting the Weekly Update on a Monday. It’s not like I have too much to say, but here we go!
My testing team for the final chapter are truly a group of rockstars. While I was away at the convention, I was watching them pick apart every last thing about the final chapter and every chapter before it. I don’t think a single issue of clipping or a misplaced punctuation mark escaped their notice. A super-duper special thanks to Thor’s Hamster, who has access to my github repository and basically fixed all the coding/typographical bugs, leaving me only needing to fix the graphical issues.
The best news is that, from a storytelling perspective, it seems like the ending chapter is being thoroughly enjoyed! There’s a few surprises that caught everyone off guard, but in a “how did we miss that?!” sort of way, and not “the author is pulling this out of their ass” way. To see everyone greatly enjoying a release that has no NSFW or sexual content in it makes me feel fantastic, since I always tried to present myself as an author first, and a porn peddler as a very distant second.
As it stands, it looks like the release schedule is still on track, with the Steam release still being February 14th, and the last free release being a few days before that to give everyone a chance to grab it for free that’s been keeping up with the story.
But What About MAGFest?
So instead of having a “personal life” section, I may as well say this is the MAGFest section because that completely consumed my personal life this past week — well, other than one last not-so-great thing, but I’ll save that for last.
We went to the National Harbor area on Wednesday, which many of us convention attendees call “Day Zero”—the day before the convention actually starts. We were just there to hang out with our out-of-town friends, grab dinner with them, and generally have more relaxed fun before the chaos. In a stroke of absolute luck, as we were having dinner we got the news that Registration had opened extremely early, so Morgi and I managed to pick up our badges without having to wait in the hours-long line that usually takes up a good chunk of our first day.
From there, MAGFest was a whirlwind of activity. We played a lot of Werewolf (ironic, coming from me), did cosplay for three of the four days, did only one cosplay photoshoot (but it was the best one), and collected an ungodly number of badge ribbons. We saw DJ Cutman and Cybertronic Spree live on stage, tried out a few really fun indie games (I stupidly didn’t take down any of their names so I can’t find them now), and got some pretty trinkets in the vendor hall.
One of the highlights was the drag show, which featured a group of stellar performers. We also caught a tabletop RPG improv show called “Who’s Roll is it, Anyway?”, where they have stacks of index cards filled with audience submissions for creatures, items, spells, and NPC lines. My suggestion was actually used when an NPC randomly said “Communism was just a red herring”. We didn’t meet any of the special guests (though the voice actor for Alphinaud Blue Alisaie from FFXIV was there), though we did meet Chuckles from Legends of Avantris who was just like… hanging out and attending the con, so that was fun.
All in all, I think this MAGFest was really good. There was some drama and some issues, like with every con, but we didn’t run into much of it ourselves.
When we got home on Sunday, instead of getting right back to Mythos work like I’d planned on, I instead just kinda relaxed. We caught up on Drag Race, SmackDown, and Saturday Night Main event while I did some Infinity Nikki quests.
The Not-So-Great Thing?
I want to preface this by reminding everyone, again, that I was not close to him — while we were at MAGFest, I got word that my grandfather (my final remaining grandparent) passed away. He’s been unwell for a while, starting with him being found an hour away driving in only his underwear with no idea who he was. It seems he had a stroke, and was in the hospital all this time. He was about to be moved to hospice but passed before he could be taken out of the hospital.
His funeral is Thursday, and I’ll naturally be attending, but the “not so great” part is the family drama and fighting that’s come along with all this. It seems like it’s very, very common for a family death to cause fits between family members, but this one comes with an added special wrinkle in that he’d been living with his girlfriend for the past 46 years. They were never married, and this girlfriend is what caused him to split with my grandmother. The whole family resents her, and her family believes she’s entitled to something. My family disagrees… as does my grandfather’s will.
I will probably have more to say on this in next week’s update since I’m sure I’m going to see some shit flying on Thursday. Thankfully, I’m not directly involved in any of this, so it’ll be just me as an observer to the madness.
I had more to say than I thought, this week! I’m off to do grocery shopping, and then work on the final build of the complete Mythos, Book One!
Keep the legends alive!
– Nine