Distractions

Publishing a game in your spare time requires a huge time commitment. I've spent an average of maybe an hour or two every night for the last six months on this, and it's getting to the point where I feel a little guilty for not spending time on it.

Last night I left work early to go to the Post Office and post another copy of Border Reivers to a customer. I needed to create a new rulebook (I hadn't yet done one for that number), so I made a batch of ten - might as well get ahead. I also tried out a new technique for stapling the rulebooks. Each rulebook consists of a cover and then three sheets of A4 paper folded in half to make a booklet. I need to staple the rulebooks together, while simultaneously holding the sheets in position relative to each other. This is the bit I've been having trouble with. The sheets need to be well-aligned or the resulting rulebook looks a mess. I've tried a couple of things but neither of them has worked very well. Last night I tried clamping the pages together with a clothes-peg at each corner while I did the stapling. It worked a treat. The clothes pegs are strong enough to hold the paper in position, without being so strong as to damage or crease the paper. I'll do that again.

I meant to spend some time later on cutting out another set of tiles (hence finishing another copy), but instead I got sucked into watching Season Seven of The West Wing which had just arrived on DVD. I've got Season Two of Battlestar Galactica on the way too, so my productivity is probably going to suffer...