This is just a quick post to say I’m going to be offline for a little bit – I’ve suffered a mild concussion. Don’t worry, as far as I can tell my brain is fine (I did a radio interview that night before I realised this was actually a serious thing, and was every bit cogent and coherent as I would normally hope to be) – but I’ve been told to keep screen work to an absolute minimum and slowly, slowly reintroduce it over the space of several weeks, as long as it doesn’t cause the headaches to intensify. What this means is that I’m basically doing nothing on my laptop except responding to emails with “sorry, I can’t give you a full response right now – I have a concussion and I’ve been told to stay off my computer” – both programming and academic writing have (temporarily, one hopes) fallen by the wayside. I hope to be back at it come October – although a head injury being by definition rather scary, I will not be pushing myself before I am ready – with another update. In the mean time, my priority is on resting, doing only a tiny bit of screen work each day, and preparing for my move to Sydney (October 1st). Thanks everyone, and see you all soon.
Ouch! Yes, do get some rest. I hope there are no side effects, and that your upcoming move to Oz goes smoothly.
Take your time and get back to full health carefully. Best regards!
Lol I can’t imagine having an injury that both prevents your work and your freetime activities. Hopefully you’ve got some good books to read to occupy the time!
There has certainly been a lot of book reading!
Dear Mark,
i am following your project just for some months and i have to say that your energy and discipline for this work, in which you have put so much of your heart blood, is just impressing and it causes just resprect for your determination.
You show with URR the capability of games for society and that they are worth to leave the stereotypical “nerd niche”. As a history teacher i am quiet curious if their are interesting ways to use your work to inspire pupils for history, anthropology and social studies. With just a short brain storming i could imagine so many possible fields for use from archeology education via generated history and literatures, documentation of cultures, linguistic research via the names, the possible types of gouverment and economics, network research etc.
The long and short of it please take your time to recover fully and take all the time you need for 0.8 it is really worth to wait for.
Regards from Germany,
Adrian
Hi Adrian – thank you so much for this comment! I really, really appreciate it. A lot of historical, archaeological and anthropological themes were certainly among those I wanted to explore with the game, and as you say, also the generation of artwork and the like (which hopefully will become a larger part of the game in the future). And thank you – recovery is ongoing, slower than I would like, but it is happening – I’m just about to post another blog entry about it after I reply to this message. Looking forward to properly getting back to it, again… thank you again for this great message!
I hope you are doing well Dr. Mark Johnson and I am going to be playing Ultima Ratio Regum for the first time this week. Be well.
Thanks Erik, you too, and do let me know what you thought!