New to the Game #1

My name is Chris and I’m one of the folks over here at Encoded Designs making stuff. Thing is I haven’t been doing this for all that long, definitely not as long as Phil or Shawn. Since I’m the new kid on the block, I thought I’d share some of my rose colored thoughts on this world. First a bit of background.

I got my first published credit a bunch of years ago for a collaboration on a PDF called the Fire Knight that works with the OGL 3.X stuff. Then it was a bunch of years before I got to writing a Living Forgotten Realms scenario. Then more years of nothing. Then I started the Misdirected Mark Podcast. Shawn was a listener and I’d had him on the show as a guest. One day he just asked me, “Chris, wanna write this thing with me for LFR?” I said yes. Then I got to write a couple other things for LFR. From the show I also met Phil. I interviewed him for Never Unprepared, one of his Engine Publishing books, and we became friends. We started gaming together, then hacking games together until he asked if making a game called Elhal was a thing we could do. I said yes. So now we have Encoded Designs and are working on, and have made, a bunch of things.

There are several lessons here for those out there who want to get into making anything, but I’ll start with this one. Be involved. The podcast has over 140 episodes as I write this. The show has given me a chance to talk to and meet a number of people in the gameosphere. This means people know me and people are more likely to work with people they know. No, you don’t have to start a podcast to be involved. You can playtest games for companies, hold game days at LFGS’s, demo for companies at events, write reviews of products, engage in discourse on the social media platform of your choice, and I’m sure there are other avenues I’ve not discovered.

So go get involved and I’ll be back next week to talk about something else I’ve seen as I wade into this game.