2019: New Year, New Plan

Last year, my New Year's Resolution was "More Zero Bad Ideas." In that time, I've started intermittently streaming on Twitch for about 11 followers, and kept up an Instagram account to track our board game experiences: 269 pictures and 103 followers, which is 102 more followers than I ever expected to have. I also started this blog that probably no one reads, and is almost exclusively meant to collect any posts I make elsewhere.

My work schedule meant we couldn't play games and stream as often as I would like, but that's about to change. I'm starting a new job in January, and I'll be free in the evenings and on weekends for the foreseeable future. Plenty of time for streaming, hopefully on a consistent schedule. And if other people aren't available, I can just play some solo games.

Even if no one tunes in, I still want to take it seriously and go about things as though we have an audience. I'm also planning streams with board games that share a common theme or mechanic. We usually get together and play just whatever game jumps out at us first, but I'd like to get to a point where I can make a video on a Monday or Tuesday to announce and discuss games we're actually going to play within the next week.

I'd also like to get back to what Zero Bad Ideas was originally meant to be. Almost four years ago, I made a YouTube channel to talk about my own original board game ideas with my friend Bryan. I made one video, then I moved away. As a one-man-team with a full-time job, I didn't have the time or energy to do more than that. I still technically don't, but I have so many ideas in my head, it's getting a little cluttered and I have to do something. That could end up the purpose of this blog, just writing about my ideas.

Anyway, I'm excited to make things happen this year. I think it's far more within my capabilities than it has ever been before, and it feels like a weight has been lifted.

This year, we're going to finish Pandemic Legacy Season One. We're going to start and finish Seafall. We're going to finish 7th Continent if we can ever get to the third island. We're going to keep playing Shadows of Brimstone monthly, if not twice-monthly. I'm finally going to make the Print & Play games I've accumulated, and we're going to play them. We're going to have a day where we play games we never play because one person in the group doesn't like it. We'll probably have a Stonemaier games stream. A farming games day. A deck-building day. A heist games day. A hidden traitor games day. We'll play Tabletop Simulator with Bryan at least monthly, if we can't get him up here in person. And I'll start uploading streams to YouTube so they live forever, and I can add graphics to make them easier to watch.