Summer Camp 2023 Reflections and Plans

This year's summer camp was a relatively difficult on, given a lot of real life troubles I found it challenging to meet the 32 article quota that I had set for myself this year. Even so, certain changes to my workflow, and my less perfectionist insticts made it possible to accomplish and, assuming there are no disqualifications later on, I did get to the magic number. As for reflections I will have much to think on and plan for in developing future content.

Part 1: Prompts

Prompt Number 3: "A Resource that Provides Fuel or Power"

Aufgel Ruby by Echo Hawk

An interesting article to read, creating a stone that is used both as a power source, and as what is effectively gunpowder in the world. I especially appreciated the connection to

Music by Clarissa Gosling

One of the stranger choices to be sure, where I was more than a little confused by the prospect of using music as a source of power. This one was intriguing, and left me with more than a few questions about how music actually is regulated within the world. Did the authority really limit the playing of any music not under their control for example.

Coal by Kydra Hunter

As I said in my comment. It was impressive that they took a relative mundane thing, like coal, and made it a unique element of their worldbuilding.

Prompt 25: "A Children's Tale or Song Based on a Real Event"

The Danger of the Jungle by Lia Felis

This one brought back some old memories for me personally and felt very 'real' for lack of a better term. It was also something that inspired me to work on some children's stories for Getninia especially but also for my other Project, the New Frontier as well.

He-Who-Comes-in-the-Dark by Paul Norris

An intriguing little number that I appreciated reading. It has an air of mystery to it that, admitedly stretches the definition of based on a natural phenomenon a little with its uncertainty, but was nonetheless stronger for it.

The Little Keeper by Barron

An example of an inspiring, rather than cautionary, tale that I greatly enjoyed reading if only for a little while. The cyclical nature of it (the keeper watching over those that would tread the same path) was especially interesting.

Prompt 8: "a species known for its mischievous personality""

Light Blessed Cats by Deleyna

An entertaining and lovely idea, what if cat's but psychic. The idea is terrifying in some respects, as it is noted within the article that these cats retain their catlike (ie hunting) instincts. It makes me want to develop a cute species that is actually quite dangerous, though in this case to humans as well.

Kleptopus by Solstice

A fun idea and another instance of a unique take on a real world creature, this one was however, a good read first and foremost.

Human by Wordigirl

An interesting, meta-textually self reflecting piece. This inspires me to be better about how I eventually go about writing my humans in the New Frontier world.

Reflection

My experience this summer camp has been hectic while this is in part due to the experiences I have been having in real life, trying to push myself to get to that magic number of thirty two, was also something that had a significant impact. I had more articles that I would consider a 'minimal readable product' than I did last year, and had less opportunity to finish articles to a standard that I personally would have liked after the fact (indeed one of the reasons I prefer World Ember to the Summer Camp is precisely because it focuses more on word count, which I can translate to article quality). However, to return to the positive, this challenge has enabled me to develop certain areas that I would not have otherewise thought to develop.
This reading challenge also has enabled me to see concepts and executions of certain ideas that I otherwise would not have seen, and have been informative, or at least entertaining to read. I will have to incorporate some of what I have seen into future worldbuilding endeavors. Reading the comments I receieved have likewise had an impact with some commenters asking questions that I wouldn't have thought to ask myself, and brought up interesting elements that I will necessarily have to think about going forward.

Future Plans

Immediate

In the immediate future I have my work cut out for me, I created thirty-two articles for this year's summer camp challenge, and have only had the chance to polish one or two of them, so for the immediate future my plans are to finish most of the articles that I had started and, as many of these articles were the first explorations of different article types it will provide the opportunity to explore how I will approach those articles in the future. This is especially the case in my New Frontier project where I have had less time to develop as broad a variety of articles as I had done previously. As a result my immediate plans will be to finish the work on these articles, or at least most of them, as well as continuing work on another article that I was working on immediately before the start of the Summer Camp Challenge.

Medium Term

This year's summer camp has opened a few doors for exploration that I hadn't thought to work on at this stage of world development. In the medium term, perhaps going as late as the upcoming World Ember 2023 Challenge, I will focus primarily on the New Frontier Project and one the following three development categories:

• Jump Space:The first part of my new focus will be to develop how Jump Space actually works within the world. As I intend to do things a little differently vis a vie default Traveller rules, this is an important detail. Therefore the first thing I will try and do is focus at least a little on the inner workings of jump technology.
• Civilized Space:Although this is mostly old work, I still have not finished charting the major organizations and astrographic locations within Civilized Space, I would like to 'finish' the task I started when first building out the world.
• Frontier Space: After concluding my work on Civilized Space, I intend on getting started with charting Frontier Space. Though as a matter of how my process in doing so has been executed so far, I don't think I will developed the whole region. In particular I intend on developing and writing articles regarding the basics of the Pardian people and civilization. I will be primarily focusing on the near frontier, but as I already have an article on the Far Frontier, some development will be focused on that region as well.
• Bestiary: I have started work on a bestiary of creatures that exist on multiple worlds, and will have to continue to do so in order to provide a more robust selection of beasties for other GMs interested in running within the world to play around with, as well as to reduce my own workload long term.
• Psionics: It is my intent for psionics to play an interesting and uniqure role within the world, in order to make that more feasible, especially if multiple continuing instances do eventually arise, it will be necessary to work on developing and publishing information about psionics and how they work in this particular world.

Long Term Plans

In the longer term things become more challenging. Its hard to predict what needs I will have to satisfy past the next few months. For the forseeable future. I expect I have my work cut out for me with just things to which I have already committed, and that this will occupy my time well into next year at least. Therefore, The New Frontier will remain my primary focus until at least World Ember, however, I expect I will return to the Getninia worldspace at some point in the next year. I suppose I will engage in further development of the Near Frontier and the Far Frontier with a focus onfilling out content that has only been lightly engaged as I am, at this point, mostly satisfied with the scope of the content that I've already made and published is.