My book/game, of course! Not the only legacy I have going for me, but as this is a project I have been working on (off and on anyway) for well over 10 years, it has one of the longest lifespans of anything I’ve played a hand in, and maybe fittingly, it is something I wanted to put out into the world.
The Also-Rans started off as a book concept, and went through at least one solid rewrite when it wasn’t interesting or fun. Which is my way of saying, “ew, who would sit through this maudlin crap when they could be doing literally anything else?” It was conveniently around the time my son got into stories that didn’t involve chewing on corners of the book, so I got exposed to a lot of children’s books that, while not having particularly gummable corners, were zany and fun, often just making up stuff whole cloth as the story careened around nutso scenarios.
I dabbled in RPG Maker for a time, at least long enough to realize it was pretty bad for what I wanted to do, and that the field was littered with half working prototypes striving to be the next Final Fantasy game. Plus, jamming entire stories into a RPG risks the audience falling asleep one dialogue box at a time.
I still want to gameify the experience of reading a story that takes place in a game setting, but lacking a decent tool to create that with, the programming know how to manage it myself, and, honestly, real doubts as to whether or not forcing gamers to listen to long tracts of a (delightfully written) story in order to play some game, just didn’t seem like a winner.
So, I reinvented the concept, and I really like it. Why not make the game playable by itself and interest the player(s) in the characters, then they can read the book to learn more about them? That way, I’m sharing the book and the joy of playing in it. Hence the change up to making a board game of the combat parts, and still able to pack in the silly for the interested reader after the game is played. Or as a break in the reading to enjoy some of the game aspects of the work?
I love me some books. I love me some games. Why not make a legacy of combining them, and, if it catches on, helping others get their work out there by doing a similar treatment?
The Also-Rans 
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