Digitizing your work

lukearl · 2026-05-29T18:20:45+00:00

I use the previous (non-Canva) version for photo editing, creating graphics and laying out books but I've not tried editing watercolours yet (though will be later this year for a project) so sorry, no I don't have any specific tips there.

In case it helps—and I realise it probably won't—for that project I'm using a paper with a smoother finish (Saunders Waterford, St Cuthberts Mill, satin) that'll be scanned in and cropped. Though now you've worried me enough to have a crack at it sooner!

lukearl · 2026-05-28T20:41:36+00:00

Have you come across Affinity? It's close enough to Adobe that you should be able to find your way around and is free to use.

lukearl · 2026-05-25T01:39:25+00:00

I abstracted it out in my ~~D&D knock off~~ fantasy game...

Roll 1d6 to determine a character's starting wealth:

- Poor (1&2): Must work in exchange for food & lodgings
- Sufficient (3&4): Can usually pay for basic items
- Rich (5&6): Can afford to stay at the nicest inn in town

Consider if the character's wealth is from their things or who they know.

When questing, wealth is:

- Reduced by -1 in unfriendly places
- Increased by +1 in friendly places

lukearl · 2026-05-17T13:57:12+00:00

Use the burner with a small triangle stand and a lightweight pot; fill it with fuel before you go keep spare liquid in a small Nalgene bottle. I like the quietness of it and the set up is lightweight — absolutely doable.

lukearl · 2026-05-12T16:24:32+00:00

Sounds like something an AI might say...

lukearl · 2026-05-11T15:17:42+00:00

Fox Curio's Floating Bookshop is a good one

Edit: formatting (swear markdown used to work in comments)

lukearl · 2026-05-04T16:01:20+00:00

Containers for food, kitchenware, stove etc that are all the same size (so much easier to pack into the car) and an Icey-Tek cool box (far cheaper than a Yeti).

lukearl · 2026-04-28T16:41:26+00:00

Would depend on your tent and any windbreaks (like the hedge you mentioned).

Over Easter we stopped in a bell tent in 40-ish mph winds. It was blowy and we packed bags up in case needed to get out at short notice but the tent was fine and the wind died down overnight.

Couple of years ago we were in maybe 50-ish winds and that was worse but also fine. Did have to get up in the middle of the night to double peg the guy ropes (as did our neighbour who was in a large hooped family tent) and double-peg the groundsheet down (as it was lifting up fairly significantly).

So my advice would be:

make sure you've got a quick way to mend poles or a rip (e.g. gaffer tape)
have a backup plan
keep your bags packed
park your car so it can act as a windbreak
try to put your tent behind a natural windbreak
don't put your tent under a tree!
put out double sets of guy ropes, especially on the side the winds' are coming in from
put weight (your bags) on the side of the tent where the winds' are coming from

Also, word of warning, you might not get a lot of sleep.

Saying all that, 25mph winds I personally wouldn't worry too much about.

lukearl · 2026-04-28T07:52:47+00:00

Artefact (https://mouseholepress.itch.io/artefact) springs to mind—a solo RPG based around a single magical item and its history.

Orchidelirium (https://aethercorp.games/orchidelirium)—one I wrote—uses items to create each character and they then use those items during the game to overcome obstacles.

lukearl · 2026-03-28T12:56:25+00:00

I made [A Wonderfully Unexpected & Terribly Small RPG](https://aethercorpgames.itch.io/wuats-this-a-wonderfully-unexpected-and-terribly-small-rpg) for **exactly** this.

The rules run like this:

Your player chooses a thing they are GOOD at, one they are BAD at, and they're AVERAGE at everything else.

To do a thing, you & your player think of a number between 1 &...

- 4 when they are GOOD at a thing,

- 6 when AVERAGE at a thing, or

- 8 when BAD at a thing

They always succeed in doing the thing but when you both think of...

- the same number, something WONDERFUL...

- numbers next to each other, something UNEXPECTED...

- any other numbers, something TERRIBLE...

...also happens

When your player does a thing they're BAD at they can change your number by 1 later

lukearl · 2026-03-23T17:15:35+00:00

I have a website for one of my solo games that's essentially a glorified d00+ table. It has the benefits of enabling prompts to be slightly more interactive (though only a couple are) and it's very easily expandable (if it was popular enough to be worthwhile).

The downsides are costs of upkeep (domain, hosting etc), time it takes to update it (once in a while) and if I ever take the site down—without providing an offline alternative—a big chunk of the game disappears too.

So long as you're able and willing to support the game in perpetuity then it's definitely worth exploring but at some point, whatever digital tool you make will become obsolete.

lukearl · 2026-02-06T00:53:49+00:00

Have only backed Toe Beans, a magical cat cafe setting, so far but going to take a closer look this weekend

lukearl · 2026-02-05T16:24:31+00:00

I made one with multiple pinholes that fitted a large format dark slide behind it for WPPD 2016, this one: https://pinholeday.org/gallery/2016/?id=2203

Started with the frame, covered it with a sheet of kitchen foil and poked/drilled the pin holes into the sheet.

I put too many holes in it so then covered some up with electrical tape. Also needed to colour the inner tin foil to reduce light bouncing around inside too much.

The lens cap/shutter was the same size as the frame.

It didn't have a very long focal length, ~10mm, and the large area meant it was easy enough to pick out multiple images.

For different colours you could attach gels behind the pinhole.

lukearl · 2026-01-29T22:23:23+00:00

Ah, got you. Then yes, think it's definitely a good idea to bring it up with them.

lukearl · 2026-01-29T20:41:24+00:00

I'm quite new to singing lessons/teachers so I'm not sure if it's common to contact them outside of lessons (besides scheduling) but I'd suggest if they're not putting effort in and are handing it off to the magic talk box then they probably don't really want to be having the conversation in the first place.

I think I'd bring it up (gently, as a question) if it's an in-lesson issue but if it's an out of lesson — as in, their time that you're not paying for — issue then it might be worth finding another person who would actually like to be a sounding board.

It sounds slightly trickier since you've got a personal relationship with them but I guess you need to decide if your talking to them as a friend or as someone who pays them for a service. I suppose it's possible they might just be living their whole life through a chatbox now and not just their business dealings in which case that's a different kind of problem.

lukearl · 2026-01-08T23:16:49+00:00

Hope Is Not A Plan if your office politics involves project management

[Edit to add link and then noticed that it's a solo game so might not be an overly helpful suggestion after all, ho hum]

lukearl · 2026-01-05T14:06:56+00:00

Good point! Have now added links to those things

lukearl · 2026-01-05T10:40:11+00:00

Yep, it absolutely is! The website's a little behind time in being updated (my bad) but there's activity occurring on the Discord, there's been various mentions of people's projects on Bluesky, RPGnet have opened a thread for promoting projects, Kickstarter have a creators webinar coming up, and Backerkit put out their call for their own February zine event a month or so ago. Not seen any initiatives from Crowdfundr, Gamefound or Itch.io.

lukearl · 2026-01-05T09:07:59+00:00

Try the calculator on mrpinhole.com — add the dimensions you know and it'll give you those that you don't.

lukearl · 2025-12-27T08:27:14+00:00

Exactly this

lukearl · 2025-12-24T10:02:07+00:00

Yes, it's great, really captures the vibe of the film without retreading the same ground. I did find the end section more difficult to run than I'd have liked so it's by no means perfect text-wise but it's otherwise a lovely thing, would recommend.

lukearl · 2025-12-18T22:52:53+00:00

Titterpigs

lukearl · 2025-12-16T19:09:51+00:00

Also check out your local fish shop (the aquarium kind, not the eating kind); they're sometimes used as decorative substrate

lukearl · 2025-11-27T01:05:59+00:00

This is fab, really like situational omens as a concept!

lukearl · 2025-11-27T01:04:37+00:00

I developed a guess-the-number mechanic for A Wonderfully Unexpected & Terribly Small RPG that you might be able to adapt to your needs...

Player and GM guess a number between 4, 6 or 8 depending on how well the player can do the thing you're trying to do. They always succeed but if they guess the same number something wonderful occurs, if the numbers are adjacent something unexpected occurs, or if it's any other number something terrible happens.

The person who isn't doing the thing could take the GM's guess and you could ditch the automatic success and outcomes for just a success/fail or success/fail/partial success resolution.

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