The Stage Is Set
Greetings chat! Uh, I mean, greetings to all Caravel community and newsletter subscribers! This is Chaco with another Caravel status update.
A New Project Is Brewing
There's been some mentions of a "
Caravel Games surprise project"
or
something in the past, and at this point we are ready to pull aside the curtains and unveil the cloth. There is another Smitemasters' Selection currently under production, with Mike Rimer's blessing. Our current working title is "
Treacle Stew"
, and it will be exploring the lore of the Forbidden Gel. The hold itself is authored by yours truly, and has been done for some time, but I will be working on finalizing a script for it, and soon (probably within the next two to three weeks), starting a casting call for voice acting parts, the first step on the long road to Canonical Polishedness and Flawless Consistency.
Mike Rimer has stated that he's very busy with Twisty Little Passages' final editing, community support, and coordination of orders and shipping, but he has helped look over the script and may occasionally offer some sage advice about how the production process works.
The rest is going to be up to me, and some other helpful community members. As such, since this development process is going to be more improvised than past Smitemasters' Selections, I don't want to make any big promises about release dates or scheduling. Like always with SmSes, this is a labor of love, so I want to make sure to only call this done when it's well and truly done.
Official Contests
As this newsletter goes to press, there isn't an official contest immediately scheduled, but rumor has been circulating through the CaravelNet chat that one will be coming up relatively soon, so stay tuned for more info.
I should also mention that anyone can run an unofficial contest at any time on our forum, so if you have an idea or a prompt for everyone, speak up and you might be pleasantly surprised at the response you get!
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=83
Architectural Progress Goes Boink
I've said it before and will keep saying this over and over again: the Caravel Games community is a really positive and supportive place to be. But it also occasionally builds holds, too! The highlights are once again far too numerous for me to cover all of them in a single newsletter, but a quick rundown includes a new compilation of Arky-inspired challenges, W monsters (successfully released!), an Island of Doom, small sequels to a variety of holds, a most triumphant reprise of Architect's Edition's elements, and most fearsome of all, a custom-scripted serpent type. Will wonders never cease?
All of these holds and more are available, 100% free (even if you're playing the demo version of DROD) at the Holds board, as well as the chronological downloads section:
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=11
http://forum.caravelgames.com/holds.php?f=0&npp=10&ob=d&d=d&g=1#H
Don't Ask Award
It's been a long time between newsletters (too long, perhaps) and so it's also been a long time since some Big Recognition has been handed out. I had a tricky time picking just one person who's been super helpful to the community but also been out of the spotlight. This newsletter's Don't Ask award winner is KituU, who has been secretly very supportive, giving out plenty of feedback and demos on the Architecture forum, and some thoughtfully-written advice on the Hints and Solutions forum that goes beyond some boring straightforward hints. As such, they've helped many people complete projects and simply enjoy playing the game of DROD.
KituU, pick a free prize from the Prize Pile!
Closing Thoughts
Without getting too philosophical, I'm just going to go ahead and state a simple truth: It's a lot of hard work to create things. As fun as being in the middle of creating something is, there's just a lot of time, energy and motivation that goes into building anything, whether it's a hold or a newsletter or just a comment. But it's always worthwhile in the end, no matter how large or small it is, or whatever the reception is. Have an excellent 2020.
- Chaco, signing off
____________________________
My website
