The first few weeks of 2019 have been rough. I’ve been focused nearly around the clock on a project for work, and any free time I’ve had has quickly been scooped up by other responsibilities. I haven’t traveled anywhere since the trip to St. Joseph, Michigan (over a month ago), and it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a local escape room. I’ve been getting stir crazy.
The clock has also been ticking on setting a goal for 2019. By this point in 2018, I had gone to Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Canada, and Florida. This year I haven’t even gone to Wisconsin. But as of yesterday, 1/15, I finally came up with a plan.
I’m calling it the Twelve Labors, after the feats from the classic story of Hercules. There are twelve months in the year, and every month I’m going to launch a completed product to anyone who wants it. I’m guaranteed to have a few whiffs in the mix, but the hope is that with twelve shots, a few of them will actually be pretty cool.
2018 was about traveling and consuming the experiences other people designed. This year I want to produce, and I want to do it in a big way. Each month might give a new app, a new book, a new game, etc.
January is already halfway gone, so I’m going with something easy this month- Puzzle Plunder challenge coins for people who answer my weekly riddles. I would also offer to make these challenge coins for other puzzle-oriented folks, but if I can make my own this month, I’ll call it a win.
February and onward, I plan to make things that’ll be a little more hands-on and fun. February I’ll launch a game I’ve been kicking around for a long time (with an ugly prototype sitting on my coffee table). March I’ll probably hammer out the Morse code app. And so on. I even hope to fulfill a long forgotten wish of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle…
There’s too much to see in the world to stay home, so I’ll continue to travel and write about escape rooms, but I wont be traveling as much as I did last year, and that gives me some time to build some cool stuff. Wish me luck.
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