NYR & Reading 2023
As the forge cools down, still itching for work yet knowing it deserves a break after such a fiery busy month, the forger of worlds takes a break, breaths. You've done it? Congrats! You didn't finish the job? Congrats too, you made new words and that's already a win!
As we leave World Ember behind, a new year starts, and, oh gods, I'm still not over 2020. New year, new me? Lies, but I am preparing to get the reins of this year and I'm decided to make it a good year.
New year's resolutions
My new year's resolutions for worldbuilding tend to always be "Edit one of the worlds" and, let's be honest, it never goes well. Welp! I've made plans for real this time! These are my resolutions that are more or less related to worldbuilding or my hobbies!
Edit Khulgran: No, Khulgran ain't only a videogame design and an adventure, I swear there is more, it's just hidden cuz needs important editing! "But u said editing a world never goes well!" I did yes, but for this one, I have a plan and a list of stuff to do, it's just going to be hidden behind the scenes. I can say tho, that I hope to have the actual 8 articles of Khulgran edited by May, as well as at least a primer and, if life allows, two new articles!
Bases for Daeliha: This past WE I was supposed to work on the bases of Daeliha, and while I did a bit (it got a primer now!), I mainly got distracted with conditions and my new world, Shattered. But, because I meant to write during WE, I have some sort of plan! And I would love to write the bases of Daeliha during this year!
Commissions?: oh yeah that's a thing I've been meaning to do for over a year... Well, art-wise I don't fully feel ready for commissions and it's been too long since I made a map to feel ready either. But you know what else I can do? Spreadsheets and CSS! I have the spreadsheet part done in my Ko-fi (altho probably needs a check or two) and I hope to add CSS to the list as well during this year!
Portfolio: Now that's another thing I've been meaning to do, and, tbf, I've done at least three different versions, I just don't end up liking them! But I'm working on another version and I have high hopes for this one! The previous resolution makes me need a proper portfolio, so I should finish this sooner than later...
Daeliha and Iphars' map: I have some started maps for them, I just start struggling with mountains and all those details. This ain't a hard resolution per say, and I don't mean difficulty-wise (cuz it is hard), I mean that, if i don't do it, I won't feel too bad, so it's just optional!
[?] I should probably do something with my discord server so it is more active!
Ready SC and WE spreadsheets for this new year!
[?] Maybe should also do more spreadsheets for my Gumroad
Reading challenge
I love the way Emy wrote the Shapeshifters. Its so well-written and it has so many details, I ended up the article with no question about the Shapeshifters. It has a bit of everything one would expect society to know of other people (or species in this case) and it looks like an article from a scientific paper! I can't wait to see the article with all its art, it'll be marvelous.
Emy inspires me to try write stuff in articles that I normally wouldn't even think of doing so, such as communication and mythology to species! I'd love one day to write with such attention to detail as Emy does.
TJ's work amazes me. He made a whole new card game! During WorldEmber! And it looks fantastic! The explanation is highly detailed and hard to misunderstand! The art is pretty as all his art, and the example gameplay is a perfect detail! I would love to play this game with my friends and altho life hasn't let me so far, I swear I will play it, it looks too good and fun to not attempt to play it!
TJ has a talent to make his world feel alive with such things like games. When I read TJ's world, I feel like its a real world and that I could be walking around because of how detailed his worldbuilding is! I hope to learn more from him and be able to give such "living" details to my worlds.
I am enjoying a lot Rev's latest world. It feels like a wiki page to an existing videogame. Rev's articles are easy to read and have a lot of details to the world in general. I love all the art he does for his worlds, and in this latest, he is even trying to add short videos made with blender (such as in the First Hall article)! The CSS fits perfectly the vibes he planned for his world.
I would love to add the special details specific to a world, such as he does with the sidebar info like "bite size" or "level of light needed". It adds a lot to the world!
Callyxtus amazes me with his history and myths. And this article is a great example. Thru history and myths, he shows what is known of the origin of the artifical sun. The art is great and the descriptions of how it is used, how it works are great too. Good detail to add what happens when there is a need for a new sun and what happens when the elves go to the surface again!
Callyxtus inspires me to work in my world's history and myths, something I do not delve a lot in any of my works. He also inspires me to work in my ethnicities (Check their Desert elves!)
Storm amazes me with his articles. His worldbuilding is amazing and are able to catch my very volatile attention even with his longests articles; and how he mixes CSS to the text of the articles is incredible, a work of art if I may say. His art, beautiful. And while I love the articles where there is a lot of art and CSS, I must say, some of my favourites are articles with no special CSS, such as Catalurgy: flow from the gods.
Storm inspires me to learn more CSS shenanigans, to make interactive CSS and not only for make stuff pretty. Some of the CSS I have planned need some art, so he also inspires me to make new art for my articles. I'm so glad he's patient to my CSS ramblings.
I love how Q structures his articles, it just makes them easy to read, and easy to understand even when you are unfamiliar with his worlds. The way he explains some concepts right before adding the article block makes it very "new reader" friendly, and even tho he uses generic images to break the text, the images are fitting of the mood.
Q's worlds have always inspired me, it was after seeing his worlds that I wanted to learn to use bbcode. And, years later, they still inspire me and sometimes even teach me ways of structure an article in a way its easy to read and pretty to the eyes.
As a fan of animals myself, I love reading Mochi's articles as you can see Mochi's passion to species in their writing. And, whether they make a long or short article, all feel filled with information and is easy for me to focus and read. Another thing that Mochi does great is making places feel alive with species, creating ecosystems and food webs.
Mochi keeps inspiring me to write even more species! Never enough species :D And I would love to attempt to do an ecosystem of some place thanks to their inspiration.
Aster's Tatzel is a lovely article about a species that are domesticated and used as pets. There are a lot of details one should know as a pet owner and even details about illegal things that happen upon them. It is a highly detailed article, with pretty and cute art; I love how you can see the colourations, patterns and the breeds and variations.
Aster has inspired me to talk about details such as colourations, patters, etc in my species and I can't wait to start implementing that to my worldbuilding.
Keon has been writing spells for magical schools and I'm enjoying them a lot. I think the descriptions are well done, they sound pretty equilibrated, and the small prose at the bottom, giving an example of how the spell works is lovely.
Seeing Keon write and enjoy so much these spells and magical schools inspire me to stop fearing and start writing my own magical schools, and edit some of the old articles of spells I have! Magic is cool.
Honorable mentions
I enjoy libraries and places to store all sort of things, so of course I would enjoy this article. I love that is a library for experiences! The article is so detailed and so many pretty images of MidJourney, Han did great!
The latest world of Julian! I enjoy it! I love how the world is described as you are an intern that just joined and are taught all, its a cool detail that makes this world very immersive!
Thank you so much for the kind words! <3 You're going to achieve some amazing things this year :D
And you will too! Keep doing amazing!
Love to code, but this one is driving me crazy!
My world Shattered won as the "Most ground-breaking premise new world"!