Chapter's End: The Aliquet Press Monthly Digest (May + June 2025)
In case you missed any of the goings-on with Aliquet Press for the month, want to know what media I've been consuming, or some of the cool things I've been reading on Substack.
Welcome to the very first monthly-wrap up of things I’ve done this month! Typically, this post will come out on the first Friday after the end of each month and will offer up some insight — and links — into what progress I’ve made in the previous thirty(ish) days, as well as whatever fun stuff has been taking up all of my time and keeping me from making any progress as well. This month will be a bit unique, in that it will be covering both May AND June (because I thought it would be a bit silly to post a wrap-up after having only barely started up this newsletter / blog situation), and it will be just a normal Monday post, since the last day of June happens to be a Monday.
I won’t lie, May is one of the months that I generally don’t get a lot accomplished on my creative projects because of the way the day job functions. There are always a few months of the year that are busier than others (May, August, and December), and they just completely drain me. It’s not my favorite thing about teaching, but considering I also get eight(ish) weeks completely off to do as I please during? It’s a fair trade, I think.
This May was certainly not an exception to that, but things still moved along steadily, and then in June, they picked up significantly, as expected. But, without further adieu, here’s what I’ve been getting into the last “month.”
📚 Currently Consuming: Screen & Scene 📚
Reading:
Nonfiction — I’m (very slowly) making my way through New Orleans Voodoo: A Cultural History that I picked up on a Voodoo tour in NOLA in March. It’s serving as research for the Wizard School series that I want to write and am (also very slowly) brainstorming and developing right now. It’s my “fun” project for the time being—something that I don’t have any rigid plans or goals surrounding, but something that I just poke at when I have some free time and want to do something a little bit creative, but with low-stakes.
Fiction — I started and finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in the second half of June. This book was recommended to me about a thousand times and has been sitting on my bookshelf for at least a year and a half at this point, but I’d never felt super drawn to it. This month, however, I was looking for something to read that was going to be a little bit funny, but also not all the way into cheesy beach read territory. This book absolutely hits that. It’s like, Devil Wears Prada, but for film, not fashion… And a little more “smart” with things. It was a really great book, one that did make me laugh and cry and rage — sometimes all at the same time — but even despite that, I very much enjoyed this one. In fact, I had been reading it for 30 minutes a day as I dried out from my swim before walking home, but one afternoon decided I was too invested and just laid on my floor for almost three hours until I finished it. I found both of the main characters slightly unlikeable, but still interesting enough to not be hard to read. I knew nothing about the book going into it, so I was surprised (but not unhappy) that something that had seen such commercial success had such a prominent pro-LGBTQIA+ messaging. And it definitely gave me a miniature existential crisis about wasting time and soulmates after I finished reading. But emotional spiraling aside, highly recommend. 9/10
The next book I started for June was Remarkably Bright Creatures. I read so many essays during the AP Lit Exam reading that used this book as their text to support the prompt I was grading that I felt like it was time to pick it up and read it. I’m only ~100 pages in so far, and it’s not bad? I’m finding it hard to care about any of the characters — outside of the octopus, who I adore — and still feel pretty removed from them. But, I also know that the two human characters’ stories eventually come together, and I think that will help. It’s not bad by any definition, just has a slow start. We’ll see how I feel about it when I finish it up.
What have you read recently? Anything worth recommending? Let me know!
Gaming:
Currently working on — I have a bad habit of playing games that either go on forever, or worse: indefinitely. In May / June I was working on a handful of those, interspersed with the other games I tried out:
Stardew Valley: despite putting over 100 hours into this game previously, I hadn’t played this since pretty much launch. So much had been added to the game that this play through is honestly almost like playing an entirely new game. I’ve only made it about halfway through the fall season of year 1, but I do have a goal to eventually get all the achievements, so I’ll be returning to that save before long for sure.
Sun Haven: this game is a little like Stardew Valley in that it’s (part) farming sim… and also a game that seems like it could go on indefinitely. But unlike Stardew Valley, this game has everything I have ever wanted in this genre of games: battle / fighting mechanics that actually feel like they’re a part of the game, not just tacked on “because they had to;” an expansive cast of characters with an insane variety of personalities, including the ones who aren’t marriage candidates, all with actual dynamic dialogue; an INSANELY HUGE world to explore (literally at least three separate, living communities that you have access to and can reside in somewhat simultaneously — including an entire world underwater; and — most importantly — an interesting and meaningful story. I’ve honestly barely scratched the surface with this game (yes, even after ~15 hours in), and I can’t wait to continue playing to see what other surprises it has in store.
Cardboard Town: this is an interesting little game where you build a city and manage its resources using cards drawn at random. You unlock new cards as you progress, based on decisions you make and cards you play. It’s like SimCity but more interactive and thought-provoking. Overall, very fun, and easy to pick up to play a round — or at least start one — if you have a spare 15-20 minutes and want something to do. I’m not sure I’ll play too much more of this one, maybe just to eventually go back and get the other achievements, but it was fun.
R.E.P.O.: maybe the only co-op multiplayer game that I have ever fully enjoyed. If you somehow haven’t seen it, you play as a cute little robot, collecting items from around creepy locations while avoiding monsters until you get to a certain monetary value and can move on to the next level, each round getting more challenging as you go. While I do enjoy playing this on my own, I much prefer playing with someone, and my preferred duo partner has not been up for running lately, so that has been a bit of a bummer. But I’ve still been having a good time with it, at least.
Dragon Quest IX: I’m not super far into this one, admittedly, but from what I’ve played so far, it’s a very traditional RPG, and I’m enjoying it for what it is.
Proverbs: this game is a kind of combination of Minesweeper and Picross, both of which are favorites of mine. In this game, there’s a large piece of artwork that’s been divided into a few hundred sections that you have to solve the Minesweeper / Picross puzzle for to uncover the full piece of art in the end. It’s quite fun and very relaxing. I imagine I’ll keep working on this one throughout July until it’s 100% done.
Some of the sections unlock funny achievements as you complete them, based on what’s going on in the part of the artwork you’ve uncovered.
Finished — I actually made progress and checked off a few games from my backlist! Trust me, I am as surprised as anyone.
Kingdom’s Deck: This is a tower defense style game with “cards.” You randomly are dealt several options for buildings, troops, or upgrades that are shown to you in pairs. You pick one of the two, discard the other, and defend your castle from each wave of enemies coming to attempt and eliminate your kingdom. There are a few random prompts / events that happen that can either help boost your stats — or drop them. It’s pretty straightforward, but quite fun. I ended up 100%’ing this one, so I clearly enjoyed it a fair amount. 9/10
Dungeon Divers: This is a Minesweeper-esque rogue-like dungeon crawler, sort of? There are several different rooms that are hidden around your playable space, and you have to locate them (much like the bombs in Minesweeper) based on each room’s specific traits — ie: farthest space away from start; surrounded by the most open rooms, etc.. As you progress, there’s loot and items / upgrades to help make things easier (supposedly) and help you win. I wanted to 100% this one because I REALLY like it, but the expert levels are so hard that I haven’t been able to get through them yet. I’ve temporarily admitted defeat. I might return to it later, but for now — this one has beaten me, but I’m still considering it “finished.” 8/10
Lost but Found: You play as a lost and found employee at an airport. Three items come to you by conveyor belt every so often and travelers come up, asking for their lost belongings. Which you then return to them. Pretty basic premise, but lots of fun. I didn’t bother to 100% this one, since after a few hours, the gameplay loop got a little more repetitive and tedious than fun, and I was just ready to be finished. But, overall, an incredibly enjoyable game. 7/10
Radiant Historia: I have way too much to say about this game to sum it up in a paragraph here, so expect a long-form post breaking it down here eventually. But in a nutshell, it’s an RPG from the DS era that involves maybe the best handling of time travel / alternate time lines that I’ve ever seen. And has an engaging, interesting battle system that stays relevant throughout the entire game, rather than eventually just resorting to using the most powerful skill to one-shot everything. Amazing game, absolutely a 10/10.
📝 Tales in Progress 📝
As for what I’m writing, I’m still working on Emo Coffee Shop. It was supposed to be finished by the end of June, but I stalled out a little and just hadn’t been writing much in April / May. In fact, most of my words came from a really heavy binge session for the Virtual Writer’s Retreat that
hosted. During the course of that three day “trip,” I wrote approximately 20,000 words—most of which I’ve even managed to keep in the current draft. In June, thanks to starting up 185 Insane for Authors, I managed to kick myself back into the routine of daily morning words, and since starting that in the middle of the month, I have gotten the first draft of Emo Coffee Shop up to just over 40,000 words. Still approximately 50,000 words left to write before the draft will be finished and heading into the first round of edits, but definitely much closer to complete now than it was when the month started. And the fact that I’m still pretty happy with the draft and where it’s going is the icing on top with this one. I’m genuinely glad that I decided this book should be the first book published, even if it was one of the least developed projects in my backlog. It’s been fun to write, so hopefully, that means it will also be fun to read. I’ll be taking part in the Rough Draft Challenge with a goal of 50k or “the end” with Emo Coffee Shop.In May, I also took place in the AutoCrit Short Story Contest with what is technically not a short story, but a functional prologue to a YA dystopian novel(la?) that I started back in 2023 for one of my creative writing courses called Outside of the Wall. It didn’t “win,” or even make the short list—neither of which was I surprised by; I’d put off writing the thing until two days before the deadline and it wasn’t my best work, by far—but, I’m still pretty happy with it, and ended up sharing it HERE on Substack a few weeks back, in case you missed it.
I mentioned Wizard School above. It’s technically in the planning stages right now, but I’m not spending much time on it because I can’t let myself prioritize the shiny new project and put off the others. But I’ve wanted to write some form of magic school series for probably close to fifteen years at this point—if not longer—but I’ve just now started to put pieces together and start really, truly brainstorming for it in a way that would make sense to actually write the book. Up until this year, it’s just been scattered thoughts and daydreaming sessions of “what if…” It probably won’t start to be written for another year at least, but the beginnings of characters and plots and the world are starting to be planted, and I’m quite excited that it exists at all.
📖 Memoir Marginalia 📖
I’m also slowly but surely working on revising and rewriting To My Beloved Ex-Boyfriends so I can start posting it here. The introduction will be free as a sort of preview for the world, but the bulk of it will be locked behind the subscription paywall for the time being (it’s partly for privacy reasons, but mostly to retain first publishing rights and do what little I can to avoid it being scraped to feed the genAI overlords), so if you want to read it, you’ll want to subscribe (remember there’s always that 50% discount available — hit me up if you need another link to it).
I’m more nervous to post anything from that collection of essays than I am about anything else that I have planned for my Substack, including my horrible fantasy NaNo novel that I will eventually post here as well, just because it is something so personal. I really love writing creative nonfiction / essays like that, and I do think the voice in that piece is SO perfect for this platform, but it’s still scary.
🎮 Pixels & Side Quests 🎮
For the first time in a while, I made actionable progress on my game. After a short discussion with a friend about his demo and the things he wants his demo to accomplish, I sat down and took some notes on what I would like my own demo to show off about All the King’s Men. I always knew that I didn’t want the demo to just be the opening hour of the game like a lot of demos are—it’s not ideal for a narrative-driven RPG, because the beginning is always a little bit slow by design—but figuring out how to then choose an appropriate vertical slice had always been a sticking point for me. It’s a sprawling game, so there’s plenty to choose from; the need for a demo is pretty strong to give people the confidence they need to purchase the game, especially at the intended $15 price point. But I didn’t think promises of: “look, the writing is great!” or “it gets really good, you just have to keep going!” and a few gifs / screenshots would cut it. So, I made a list of things I wanted to show off:
The narrative — but just a snapshot of it. I want players to see the depth and the interwoven plot points that are going on in the game without giving too much away, while still giving the player enough of a hook to ask questions and want to get more involved with it.
The world — the players need to feel like they are truly impacting and are a part of the world they’re inhabiting, not just wandering around and taking in the sights.
The gameplay — second to the narrative, this might be the most important category that I wanted to make sure came across to players. I wanted them to see that…
Exploration is not only fun, but a huge part of understanding the game, and will be rewarded.
The dynamics of the party — from their unique personalities to their equally special move sets, and the ways in which both interact with each other to tell the story of this failing kingdom.
BATTLE SYSTEM, BATTLE SYSTEM, BATTLE SYSTEM (to quote RPG Maker streamer, d757gaming) — I haven’t been slaving away to understand the insanity that is ChronoEngine for nothing! I want to make sure it’s intuitive and fun for players to experience, too… before it’s too late and I’m stuck with it. With the demo, I can make sure it’s accomplishing those things well-enough, and then evaluate if it just needs fine-tuning, or if it needs to be scrapped completely, to be replaced with a more traditional turn based battle system, with all the depth and complexity of what I already have going on.
Since I was a little bit of a slacker in June in terms of streaming, most of my progress (albeit also limited) was done off stream. I did a little bit of polishing of the Antlia Island maps, put together the tileset for the shrine that will be a part of the demo (and used throughout the full game), and mapped the entrance area to the shrine. I also finally put together the rough version of the flower circles that will be used as save points and animated them. I’m not in love with what they are at the moment, but they’re a good starting point for sure; they get the point across and function… They just need a little more polish still.
🎥 Broadcast Bookmarks🎥
All links in this section will take you to the VOD of my multi-hour Twitch streams. Please do not feel obligated to watch them! Having access to the VOD archive is just a benefit that you have, by being cool and subscribing to my little newsletter here. :)
We came back to streaming for the summer season—or at least attempted to—on May 21st, but realistically not until the 22nd (thanks tech troubles; we love to hate you). After some careful reflecting on the current state of the project, as well as trying to give myself a solid game plan for what to work on while live, I decided that this summer, I would be narrowing my dev scope to the portion of the game that the demo will occur in.
There were a handful of reasons for this, outside of just giving me fewer excuses not to stream on any given day. First, it gave me the ability to focus on establishing / mapping the area, while also making sure I could fine-tune and give attention to the area in full detail. These things are both incredibly important to me, because not only do I want my game to be beautifully mapped, I want the landscape of my game to be a part of the narrative. Which means the small details matter. A lot.
Something else that’s really important to an RPG are the battles, so I made sure to start working on some of the enemy sprites this week as well. I explain it during the stream, but in All the King’s Men, the battles take place on the map, so the enemies you’re fighting will be out, wandering the world with you.
Of course, then, I fell off the streaming habit, in start because of reading for the AP Exam, which took up not just all of my free time, but also all of my brain power. After that concluded and I’d taken the weekend to rest and recover, I had no excuse not to stream other than… I didn’t really want to, so I didn’t.
I have a strange relationship with streaming; when I do it, I generally enjoy my time that I’ve been live. But the anxiety and build-up I have before actually going live, especially if I’ve been avoiding it for a while, is intense. I love using it for coworking and being productive like I do, but I would honestly rather sit in a Discord voice chat with my chosen circle of dev friends for 4-6 hours than stream any day. I’m still trying to figure out just what I want to do about that, but it’s hard to keep the two conflicting halves of my brain happy on this one.
🧰 The Craft Table 🧰
I have just come off yet another conference — this one fully online — the AuthorTube Writing Conference. I haven’t decompressed from it yet, considering it just ended at 4pm yesterday, but also, I haven’t watched all of the sessions I wanted to watch yet (I’m at about 65% through the sessions I would like to watch as of this morning), so I want to make sure to finish watching everything first.
But, this is the 4th year of the conference, and the 2nd that I’ve watched the majority of the weekend live (I also watched the majority of year 1 live), but I’ve watched a handful of the videos from years 2 and 3 as well, and I can confidently say that this was the smoothest it’s gone from the onlooker’s perspective.
Definitely expect an in-depth write up of this conference (with lots of links) in the coming weeks, but so far, my favorite session has been the one on worldbuilding with World Anvil.
💌 From the Desk: Substack Scribbles 💌
Back in March, I attended a WriterMBA / HeartieCon (which I recapped HERE last Monday), but this month, I want to shine a spotlight on one of my HeartieCon tablemates: Morgan A. Drake (Primary Substack:
)! She is doing really fun and interesting things with a variety of publications, from nonfiction to nautical fiction and everything in between. She truly has something for everyone: if you’d like fiction, or nonfiction, or an epistolary zombie historical fiction, Morgan’s got you covered!A post that happened in June that I thought was really great for anyone writing a book, no matter what stage of your book — or your skill level — you are currently in as over at
, called “The Novel Blueprint.” In the post, Russell Nohelty goes through each step of the writing process with examples from multiple forms of media and downloadable worksheets along the way. Even as someone who has penned several books cover-to-cover already, reading through the post had me nodding along the whole way. (I mentioned Russell Nohelty in my post about WriterMBA last week, so if the name feels familiar, and you’re not sure why… that could be why!)💪🏻 185 Insane Updates 💪🏻
This data counts my “trial week” alongside my first eight days of the challenge, so it definitely is a little bit skewed, but I didn’t want to not count what I did that week just because it was early. The numbers on the far left will be out of 31 in the month of July. Right now, they’re out of 9 because the challenge only officially took part during the final 9 days of June.
Overall? I’m very pleased with that progress. Goal #4 and #9 are optional, so I’m not as worried about the fact that I haven’t been hitting the game dev one every day. I don’t love the way the social posts is going, but I think that’s just… Not relevant to my life right now? If I were streaming, then it would be a little better, so I’m debating what I want to do with that particular goal. I might change it to something career-community related, so it could still be social posts, but maybe it’s also coworking with my dev pals, or participating in a conversation about writing in one of the writing group discords that I’m in. Just some form of intentional connection that somehow relates to either writing or game dev.
And that’s the wrap-up for May / June! How was your month — got anything fun to share? I’d love to hear about it all. :)
You are an awesome person to follow. So many ideas and energy.
How did I miss the '185 Insane' for authors??? (goes to check on the rules and watch all the VODs).