The past month has been a busy one for me as I have been required to tend to other aspects of my life, but this week I found some time to draft up the next version of GRIMOIRE. The development of GRIMOIRE this week involved some basic layout, a touch of graphic design, and scouring the internet for some pretty pictures. Though I have many more ideas for GRIMOIRE, I believe that I need to step back from it and expose it to a wider audience before I begin implementing more changes – this way the experiences of more people can help shape my ideas and the development of GRIMOIRE.
In the hopes to reach a wider audience, this version of GRIMOIRE will be released as a PWYW. I believe there is a good amount of content already within the game, but I hope to add more study locations in the next edition of the game. I left the list of study locations that I am intending to create in this version so as to give people a better idea of the tone of the game. Maybe I will see people suggest some changes or additions to this list.
Speaking of changes and additions, I already have a few ideas about how to expand GRIMOIRE for the next edition. First, I want to see how others play and enjoy (hopefully) the game before I begin designing, though one system I will be tinkering with on the blog sooner rather than later is the spell generation. From the beginning, I have not been totally pleased with it as I find the tables can be cumbersome and limiting. I enjoy the cards and the referencing aspect of it because it feels a little like mystical research, I think an interesting alternative would be to somehow assign physical books that people own to card suits or numbers or whatever. This is something that I will be exploring in upcoming blog posts and will likely find its way into GRIMOIRE.
On layout and editing: Will I do it again? Yes. Will I enjoy it? Maybe. I do enjoy the design aspect of layout, but it can become very monotonous for me after a while, and it was difficult to come up with a cohesive design because I was only able to work on the development of GRIMOIRE intermittently. I like the final design I went with and I have learned a lot about using Affinity Publisher, particularly the quirks it has with tables *Shakes fist*.
If you are interested in playing GRIMOIRE, you can find it here on my itch.io page. If you have any feedback, criticisms, or ideas then I would love to hear about them. You can either post a comment here on the itch.io page, or on my twitter. Happy Wizarding!
The Bardic Inquiry 
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