Life and Marriage of the Philippine Gamer

No, this isn’t the ring I got her. I swear.

I don’t tend to write about my personal life on this blog, but I suppose once in a lifetime events can be forgiven. That said I just wanted to share my happiness at the fact that I’m actually going to be married to my longtime girlfriend and fellow gamer Silver Countess this Saturday, September 1st.. I’m certain that some of the regular readers of this blog’s Actual Play reports recognize her from the games that I’ve chronicled so far.

I have to admit that as far as the hobby is concerned, I’m a very lucky bastard to have found a woman who is intelligent and beautiful and is also a gamer who can understand, and participate in the hobby with me. This sort of thing isn’t common, and I’m thankful that she is every bit as amused with this hobby as I am. In fact, I could probably attribute the hobby for setting up the chain of events that resulted in me running into her in the first place.

In any case, it’s the start of a new phase of life for me, and I’m pretty sure that there will be a heck of a lot of little adjustments that both of us will make in our lives. Don’t worry though, I’m still determined to keep plugging away at this blog. If anything, you guys might see the occasional post from her on topics from her point of view, something that might lend a much-needed alternate point of view to my own ramblings.

Perhaps it’s weird of me to be broadcasting this publicly to the interwebs, but I’m a genuinely happy man right now.

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Okay, I’ve been asked if people could give a small cash wedding gift over the net. I’m incredibly grateful for your generosity, and I’d like to direct you to the paypal donate button on the top of the left-hand sidebar of the blog.

Good News Everyone! Gaming Library Now Accepts RPG Orders!

After the rains this kind of good news is very much appreciated. I’ve just gotten word that Gaming Library, an online business that specializes in bringing in board games to the Philippines is expanding its business to cover RPG books as well! This means that us local gamers can now go ahead and place orders for just about any RPG in hard cover. While they won’t be carrying any books in stock (yet) they’ll be open to accepting special orders for books provided that you give them the full title and the publisher of the game you’re looking for. I’d suggest providing a link to the publisher’s website as well just to make things easier for them.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had this sort of opportunity, so I figure I might as well get it out there. I’m already writing up a list of which books I’m interested in getting…

So drop by Gaming Library via their website and check out their stuff as their board game and card game offerings are really good too.

To place an order, please go to Gaming Library’s special order express page : http://www.gaminglib.com/pages/special-order-express-page

Take note that placing an order there doesn’t mean you’re committed, rather the Gaming Library team will be giving a quote and you can now choose whether to push through with the purchase or not.

Slight posting delays

Hello everyone. Life and Times of a Philippine Gamer will be having an irregular posting schedule due to having been knocked offline thanks to the torrential rains that have been battering Manila as of late. Thanks for the understanding and I’ll be back online as soon as possible.

Is It Time For Me to Branch Out to Other Kinds of Games?

I’ve been at this blog for quite a while now, and now and then I’ve entertained the notion of actually expanding my reach to other non-electronic games as well, such as Board Games and Card Games. When I started, I decided against overreaching, but now that I’ve got a steady rhythm going on, I figure it wouldn’t hurt to try venturing to other games and reviewing and studying them as well.

I guess the question now is whether or not people will be willing to read those. I’m not going to reduce the spotlight on tabletop RPGs by any chance, it’ll still be my bread and butter, but having a board game or card game review might be an interesting thing to pull off now and then.

What do you guys think?

Is It Time For A Philippine Game Design Resource Directory?

I’ve been thinking about putting up something like a resource page for people here in the Philippines who are looking to try their hand at game design. The idea isn’t completely fully formed in my head, but it’s something of a directory where interested freelancers can post their contact details and samples of their work if they’re willing to do some stuff for games.

Artists are an obvious target audience for this but editors, playtesters, freelance writers and game designers are all welcome to add their contact details as well. What I’m hoping to put together is a showcase and network, so that when someone like me wants to try and make a game, I have one place where I can go to when I’m looking for someone to make interior artwork for a game, edit my work or playtest my game.

I’m not sure how big the pen and paper game development community is here in the Philippines, but I’m sure that there are more than a few of us who have always wanted to come out with a game of our own, especially now that I’m elbows deep into a new game’s development and I’m setting my sights a little higher.