Milanote

Had a very disturbed night neurologically last night, but on plus spent some very useful time building up some overview boards in Milanote of my next IF game (interactive fiction, in this case parser text adventure). Here's a snippet, hopefully blurred out enough in appropriate places! This is a board showing the 7 chapters side by side, with overview info of each, helping me balance things, as well as links to more detailed boards for each individual chapter. To be honest this is all rather advanced procrastination, when I really just need to get on with writing and coding up more game sections! But it is helping me see the balance, and through structure, and also helping highlight areas where I need to develop things more deeply or in differently connected ways. Milanote has a rather costly subscription model after you've used up the free allowance. But I'm currently finding it useful for brainstorming and developing. It's like having nested digital white boards. And syncs well across web, Mac, iOS and Android. I previously created mood boards in Milanote for both Bad Beer (my previous game) and this new game. But this is my first go properly planning and overviewing with it.

Books finished in 2025: end of April edition

Catching up with this, and another 6 titles finished since my last post:

( earlier titles )
1. Colostle Complete Edition by Nich Angell
2. Wild Card: Let the Tarot Tell Your Story by Jen Cownie and Fiona Lensvelt
3. Insomniacs After School volume 5 (manga) by Makoto Ojiro
4. Doctor Who: The Ruby's Curse by Alex Kingston and Jacqueline Rayner
5. Notebook by Tom Cox
6. Kiki's Delivery Service by Eiko Kadono

Of the new ones the Colostle solo RPG/journalling game was fun, but not something I decided I'd want to play. An original fantasy setting, with solo gaming mechanics, based on random tables.

The Tarot book was fantastic, and really got me feeling more confident about doing self readings.

I continue to *adore* the Insomniacs After School manga series, which is being slowly but steadily published in English translation.

The Doctor Who book was somewhat fun, and a new tale about River Song. But it ultimately felt a slog to read through, and was overly muddled. I'm guessing Jacqueline Rayner wrote most of it, though Alex Kingston had some input too, and got top billing.

Tom Cox's Notebook is a varied hodge podge of often amusing rambling thoughts. I loved it! I had backed the digital edition, but not read it yet. I ordered a signed paperback from Tom a few weeks ago. He has lots of his books after the collapse of Unbound (who owe him thousands of pounds) and is selling them on.

And we read Kiki's Delivery Service - the original novel the Studio Ghibli film is based on - for my book club. I've not seen the film yet. A very young read, but still charming.