For the curious, I thought I'd post a bit about how the artwork for BOXCARS is being handled. I want to maintain a look of early 1900s era print, and have decided on something along the look of over-reproduced rotogravure. The print-historians in the crowd will cringe a bit, as this process was more common ten or twenty years after the game's setting of 1902. That said... I love the look, and it feels right.

Here is an artwork draft of one of the "Rolling Stock" cards that will be used in the game. Cards give me the option to randomize train strings that may be encountered, and allow me to print data and tables in the same place. The layout is very much a work-in-process, so I picture the final cards on a darker stock and resized to include other data:

Here is the raw source image for this card: Look closely... they're the same image! Flipped, stretched, distorted, dodged, burned, and a few bits re-drawn!

I've spent a large chunk of this week's production time culling through over 3000 pages of 1900s rail and engineering journals to find images that are both accurate and public domain. In this case, I've chosen to modify the source images photographically rather than re-render them by hand. It's time consuming, but I'm very happy with the look of the cards.

Sadly, I've found some beautiful images that don't really fit the game, and I've even stopped to read some fascinating bits about weight, friction and incline that I never wanted to know about. This is one of my favorites, but not of use in the game...
To be clear, this is not a "card game" by any stretch ov the imagination, but I've found cards are a great way to have data on the table without having to constantly flip through books to find tables and paragraphs.

More to come!

The Kickstarter Zinequest and #ttrpg community are amazing!

My first crowdsourced project in over 10 years has funded in just under 2 days!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/156507812/boxcars-the-game

A huge thanks to the project's early backers! I had a concern that RPing as a homeless tramp in the early 1900s is a bit too fringe, but I'm thrilled to see so much energy in this community outside the big genres!

The core mechanic of BOXCARS is working well, and the majority of the writing is ready for round-two of editing. That said, I have a lot of work to do before committing asset designs.

Currently: I expect one or two more micro-playtest sessions (one or two people at a time) with fresh faces over the next week. February 15th will be a larger scale run with multiple groups playing unguided. This is my way of testing the documentation for holes.

Thanks again for the fabulous support!

Some of you may remember my old home on the internet: straytechnologies.com. While I still use that domain for various projects, my years of work in unusual electronic interfaces and DIY kits have gradually faded away. In the past year or two, my interests have shifted more toward writing and media—though I will always be indebted to the backwaters of dead media and forgotten technologies that inspired my earlier work.

In the past year, I have begun creating zines as part of my practice, which will serve as a launching point for my future projects. My passion for zines stems from their archaic production processes (xerography, printing, imposition, and hand binding), as well as their role as a mode of expression for all things non-pop.

As I work through future projects, I plan to use this site (messagelost.cc) as a sort of dev-blog for analog projects, making my process a bit more public. While thinking aloud on the internet isn't always the best choice, I have high hopes. At best, others will be intrigued enough to voice their own creativity. At worst, it'll make a reader or two scratch their heads and ponder life a bit.