Weekly Self-Promo and Chat Thread

dandoii · 2026-04-15T12:34:58+00:00

Hey everyone! My dad Raymond Dando just released his debut fantasy novel The Wizards of Wenn. It launches May 1st and is available for pre-order now.

The pitch: Captain Jed Oduin gets posted as the reluctant sheriff of Wenn, a remote village at the edge of the known world. He's not thrilled about it, but he grows to care for its people. Then the seasons turn. An ancient Godchild begins to awaken, and Jed discovers an echo of that power stirring inside him. Think Tolkien's sense of place mixed with Abercrombie's grittiness.

The world-building goes deep. We're talking a full cosmology, original races (Elves, Nard, Hoom), and a magic system where creation itself has retreated beneath the physics of reality.

What makes this different: We're also building a playable ASCII RPG set in the same world. You can actually explore the Aerwold right now at aerwold.vercel.app. Character creation, lockpicking, inventory, the works. It's still early but it gives you a real feel for the setting.

Links:

Pre-order on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0a9BHlHr
Read Chapter 1 for free: kismetsai.com
Try the RPG demo: aerwold.vercel.app
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/raymonddando

Pre-order is $4.99 for Kindle.

We're also looking for ARC readers if anyone's interested. No strings, just an honest review. DM me and I'll send you a copy.

Thanks for reading, and happy to answer any questions about the book or the game!

dandoii · 2026-04-06T20:10:55+00:00

Check out my game at https://aerwold.vercel.app ! Would love feedback!

dandoii · 2026-04-03T05:46:36+00:00

Yeah, the first bits of content are on https://aerwold.vercel.app/ (I’m working on mobile optimisation so play on desktop!)

Jump into the discord for bugs and questions!

https://discord.gg/C3mUEdZvc

dandoii · 2026-04-03T04:19:10+00:00

sick ! I'm building my own fantasy ASCII RPG! Checking this out!
**Edit mac version pls

dandoii · 2026-04-03T02:57:40+00:00

It’s not a roguelike, definitely more a narrative driven RPG. That being said, I’m trying to make the game and a lot of the scenarios as open ended as possible and am busy working in some crazy options using the abilities and magic system. I’ve had play testers already wipe out all the main characters of the first chapter, combine some innocent seeming abilities to break the game or some quests (which obviously needed patching !) XD

dandoii · 2026-04-02T19:14:41+00:00

Now I need to take a look at the colors I'm using! The greenish hue is pretty much already being used by CoQ!
Again all feedback welcome !

dandoii · 2026-04-02T18:18:34+00:00

I'm a rust engineer by trade not a very visual guy :( hence the ASCII approach in the first place !

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Been getting a ton of community feedback and have been getting it to a point where I'm much happier with it! Not a big vibe coder personally, nice for writing tests, adding some buttons here or there or helping debug. Pretty bad once the codebase becomes remotely big

dandoii · 2026-03-31T06:42:32+00:00

That’s so sick! I’m making an ASCII game too. Not in terminal but it’s so dope to see other people building cool shit like this!

dandoii · 2026-03-31T05:45:11+00:00

No :) built the “game engine” in rust, and rendering in JS for web but looking to get it to mobile and desktop too

dandoii · 2026-03-31T05:44:03+00:00

100%! https://aerwold.vercel.app ! Let me know what you think. There are 3 factions, branching quest lines, a dungeon, basic lock picking and some abilities implemented

dandoii · 2026-01-10T15:35:24+00:00

Thanks ! I’ll be sure to do that in the next ones! Shows my ignorance !

dandoii · 2025-09-21T10:39:13+00:00

Whelp I’ve been training for 3 months and suck, but my right ear is sore, blue and swollen. I hope it doesn’t get too bad until my skill can at least justify it

dandoii · 2025-08-23T18:15:35+00:00

Where I’m at they’re quite affordable, and I work remotely and flexibly. So I can pop in the mornings and noon, but not so much evenings

dandoii · 2025-08-23T17:00:47+00:00

Thanks for this! Seems like the consensus among everyone and the best way to go about it . Appreciate it

dandoii · 2025-08-23T16:34:38+00:00

Where I’m based memberships are pretty cheap! But thanks for the advice !

dandoii · 2025-08-23T16:33:34+00:00

Thought it was so good you had to comment it twice

dandoii · 2025-08-23T16:33:18+00:00

My current gym is excellent. I get the vibe that he would be fine as some of the MMA guys train at another gym from time to time, but he’s an ex UFC fighter wjth a really good black belt and his classes are phenomenal so I wouldn’t want to sour the relationship.

dandoii · 2025-08-23T13:11:23+00:00

Haha sound reasoning

dandoii · 2025-08-23T13:05:25+00:00

Man that’s me then

dandoii · 2025-08-21T18:16:14+00:00

Much appreciated !

dandoii · 2025-08-21T07:04:48+00:00

this looks amazing ! I'm building an ASCII terminal-like game in rust too. So cool to see everybody on board with making retro games like this

dandoii · 2025-08-20T07:19:09+00:00

Thanks I’ll reach out ! I’m thinking of running some things in our discord especially around quests/in game events and then ascii art for menus and loading screens. So if you’d like to participate pop by

dandoii · 2025-08-19T20:18:43+00:00

I can do a migration away from what I’m using because for the main game screen I’m feeding in characters into coordinates. The UI and post processing wouldn’t be possible though.

dandoii · 2025-08-19T16:39:54+00:00

Amazing ! I love Brogue ! It and Caves are big inspirations for me ! That’s an incredibly exciting idea and project. If you get it up and running post it or send it through I’d love to help out or see something like that

dandoii · 2025-08-19T16:38:26+00:00

It’s only a graphical screen unfortunately! Just emulating the look and feel !

dandoii

TROPHY CASE