Never let the dream die. Keep trudging forward.

I remember a long while back, I was discussing a coding project with a buddy. We were talking about coding something together and putting it up on the web. He mentioned that he had started many projects in the past, but eventually the pieces left to code were difficult or tedious or both. So, the progress on the project would wain, soon thereafter it would just come to a halt, and the project would be forgotten. So, this post is me saying that I will not let myself give up on my goals. One of my goals is to see startingplayer.com become a great place where people new to the board gaming hobby (the newer games like Dominion, Ticket To Ride, etc.) can come and learn about new games and whether they are ready to try said game. I have other goals as well, some might even be considered dreams. Those are goals/dreams I have pledged to myself to not allow to languish. I don't want to stop because progress has slowed. I don't want those goals and dreams to be forgotten. So, here I am writing another post on my blog as a way to--well, it might be trite but--keep the dream alive.


Let me explain a little further. This blog is an important part of the future of StartingPlayer.com in my mind. So, just as I need to work on getting startingplayer.com coded, I also need to keep this blog going. I have not posted here in a very long time, but because I have pledged not to let this project be forgotten, I am back. I have made a little time for me to work on this project, and now I am back writing another post even though the progress seemingly halted back in May when I last posted. Don't worry, though. Progress has not ceased. Since my last post, I have learned CSS, PHP, and even a little JavaScript. I have also gotten more practice using subversion (for version control), PhotoShop, and DreamWeaver. Progress has been made.

So, is that all this post is about? Saying that I am still here, still working towards my dreams. Yes, mainly, but allow me to finish this post with a quick synopsis of what I would like to do with StartingPlayer.com.

There are a lot of great board games out there, and they are great for adults and are not just the silly party games many Americans are familiar with. These games have light strategy or heavy strategic elements, they have themes most of the time, and some have lots of randomness while others have very little random aspects. The games I am speaking of are games like Ticket To Ride, Dominion, Pandemic, Settlers of Catan, and more. The American populous is starting to realize these games are out there. However, once they have experienced some, where can they go to learn more? Of course, boardgamegeek.com is a definitive source. However, there is so much information there, and much of it is from the perspective of people who have been into these games a long time and enjoy the more and more complexity. (These games can be like drugs: you start simple and then begin to crave more and more complexity and/or difficulty.) Therefore, it is difficult for new games to go there and quickly figure out what games they might want to try next. For example: What games have a complexity similar to Ticket To Ride? Should you try a game with the expansion first (because maybe the rules are improved with the expansion) or is it easier to tackle the base game first and try the expansions after that?

The idea behind startingplayer.com should be fairly obvious at this point. I want to create an environment where
* Users can get reviews on games from the perspective of new or casual board gamers
* In addition, there might be reviews from more experienced players that would focus on the game from a viewpoint like this "If you are a game that liked Dominion, then you might like Thunderstone. However, the complexity is higher, and there is more player interaction such as attacks. So, if you think Dominion is complex enough or you don't like the attack cards in Dominion, stay away from Thunderstone."
You can get some reviews like that on boardgamegeek, but it is not always there, and it can be hard to find.
* Users can easily get suggestions of new games to try based on things like theme, complexity, player interaction, & etc.
Basically it is what it sounds like: I want new and casual/infrequent gamers to go to startingplayer.com and feel they can reliably understand what game they want to try next and what games they don't ever want to try. For instance, many casual gamers would like to try Ticket To Ride or Settlers of Catan, but Race For The Galaxy may never be anything they want to touch; it could just have too many possible strategies to juggle, too big of a learning curve, and just what one might call "too heavy."

I am going to try to post more regularly and get back to blogging more about specific games in addition to having some game entrepreneurship/business topics thrown in here and there. We'll see. I am currently in my last semester in the University of St. Thomas' Graduate Programs in Software, and I am, of course, always working hard to find ways to expand/further my career and/or skill set while juggling family life with all that; hence, those things might take precedence, but I will try to make time to blog here and, thusly, "keep the dream alive".