Before we start: This post is a bit shorter than usual, I’m in the midst of finishing a move and I’ve been a bit drained lately. But I woke up in a pretty good mood today: I couldn’t help but wake up a little before 2 a.m. Bayish time to check the New York mayoral election results. Turns out my flatmate was awake as well, so we followed the action live. Such an exciting time, and for once, good news ✊ What an achievement of the NYC community at large, especially considering the high turnout, it’s always good news when people vote. In today’s world what happens in one country has inevitably side effects elsewhere, and although I’m on the other side of the pond, I’m so happy for the world community. Good job, NYC, and good luck, Zohran!

Selective impostor syndrome

When it comes to game design, I often suffer from impostor syndrome. Not sure why (nah, not true, I kind of know why). The unwanted side effect is that I tend to work on monolithic game projects, and as you can imagine, this doesn’t help.

Fortunately, I’m also a web designer, and my web design activity is usually exempt from these kinds of fears. It’s not that I’m a perfect web designer; I learn and make mistakes every day. But there’s something profoundly iterative in coding that makes me comfortable.

This is why I didn’t hesitate a sec when the idea of putting together a character generator for The Lost Bay came across my mind. It took me just a couple of hours to put a version 0 online, share it with the fine folks at The Lost Bay server, and give it a try.

It’s been quietly online, and today I’m happy to share the link with you. Opening the character generator page, you’ll have a character generated on the fly. You can edit, save, and load it. And most importantly, you can choose one of the character Vibes, a.k.a. the classes, from a list that keeps growing and features mostly Vibes generated by the community.

If you’re a coder, I beg you, don’t inspect the code. It’s uselessly bulky and long. But that’s ok. Putting the generator online quickly and getting feedback helped me understand how it could be better.

As it happens, I’m working on a series of generators for The Lost Bay and Mothership. I’ve started drafting the specs for a generic, open-source generator framework I’d love to use for the upcoming works. I’m aiming at an easily readable data format, with bits of logic embedded (what and how to roll). I’ll talk more about it once it’s live!

Do you use online generators? I’d love to hear about how you use them, and what you’d like to see baked into an open-source generator framework! Drop me an email or reach out in the server.

For now, you can check and play with The Lost Bay online character generator

The generator is a lot of fun; right now, you can select from 18 different Vibes. It’s quite addictive in a good way. I’ve used it to generate in just a click the character for my latest game, a Cryptid, a Vibe designed by Robert Is Lost In The Wires.