… as it were. One of the more valuable aspects of the Echelon Reference Series in my mind, and one of the most time-consuming, is the collection of diagrams showing the prerequisite relationships between game objects. That is, many feats have a diagram that illustrates the prerequisites of that feat, …
Over the last year I’ve been reworking my data engine, and I’ve reached a point where it’s actually useful again. It’s not finished, but I am least up to the point of being able to identify object prerequisites and search for objects in text (such as feat names). One of …
I’ve been on something of a hiatus for the last little while. I work in the social sector — the part of the provincial government that provides more or less direct support to vulnerable citizens — and the last couple years put unprecedented demand on us. It’s been tiring. In …
Uniquely identifying objects is one of the more vexing activities in building the Echelon Reference Series. It is good to have a human-readable ID (it’s a great kindness to the developer to be able to see that yes, a parsed link looks like it does refer to the correct item, …
Any time you build a nontrivial data model, you have to expect the original assumptions will be tested, and found wanting. You’re not going to get it right the first time. In fact, I’ve read design books — data modeling and software design — that advise the reader to be …
ANYWAY, over time my document workflow has changed a few times. Here’s the latest iteration, for those who wish a look into the mind of someone not quite right (and so I have a copy to remind myself how I’m doing this). Not three weeks after I wrote that, I …
It astonishes me sometimes how long I’ve been working on Echelon, and even just on the Echelon Reference Series (I spent a year working toward the first release in September 2014). The Echelon Reference Series has been a five-year project just gathering information for the game I’m actually working toward. …
The 2017 GM’s Day Sale is almost over, but you still have a couple of days if you want to pick up any Echelon Game Design products at a 30% discount. (They’re also available at Paizo and the Open Gaming Store, both of which give me a better cut, but …
I’ve talked about my data workflows before, but now I’m going to mumble a bit about layout. In my current workflow I break the game entities (feats, spells, etc.) out by type, then work with them. Each has different rules for rendering. I realized a while ago that from a …
News release? New releases? Whatever. My books, let me sell you them. It is to my immense satisfaction that I announce that I have completed, for now, the Echelon Reference Series Spell Book line. They are not yet all published, but all have been compiled and laid out. Most are already available …
