The Search for Meaningful Connection

 Hello. C J here. The original title of this post was Only Connect, a well known quote from the author E.M. Foster. I figured that for once I needed a title that explained the post better than a quote would. There’s a new world coming. Internet technology has sped up or slowed down everything we know and do. We have as a species invented wondrous, beautiful things. I can get a free app on my phone, buy a $2 rubber tipped stylus and draw anything. I can then upload those images into another free phone app and make a 3D landscape out of them for a video game. I can then publish it and make money without spending any.

But our species has yet to figure out exactly how to use the really good things we’ve invented. I’ve run Meetups on Meetup.com that no one signed up for and no one attended. I’ve attended ones that no one including the organizer showed up to. I’ve gone to spiritual circles and gatherings and found really they were probably a cult or knew nothing about the modern day world and insisted their views were correct. I’ve tried the rare few LGBTQ+ meetups I could find and I found really strangely a lot of hate towards people in general that I couldn’t find tolerable.

I’ve gone to dinner clubs that yielded no social interaction where I was meaningfully eating dinner alone surrounded by people who apparently knew each other and didn’t speak. I’ve done cooking classes and no luck finding anyone there either. I’ve gone to board game groups where they took over restaurants without the staff’s permission and then just played gambling games with dice and not board games all night. I’ve heard enough tales of how badly run and unethical business networking groups are to know to stay away from them.

I thought I’d hit gold when my family suggested I do local game nights. I’ve gone to several. No one shows up. I’ve done ones in game shops and also ones in private dwellings. There’s always a core of old guard who meet every time and then me and just me. There is still also no expectation of friendship outside of game night. I’ve been in one and only one Dungeons and Dragons campaign that finished and it was through one of the colleges I’ve gone to and lasted for one school year. The club and I think the college are pretty much not there anymore.

People like the idea of board games, which I still consider my games to mostly count as, but unfortunately without spending a ton of money and having endless dedication finding a good one is hard. A lot of them are not well designed and those that are rarely can be played more than a few times. We need things to do together, hence me finishing my games before I started trying to organize local play nights. That was done 14 days to the second before the Kingston Pride 2025 parade.

And boy, Kingston Pride 2025 was good. I met people. I know there is no expectation of networking through it or of meeting people long term, but it was the community I know I’m trying to reach. With their knowledge and their explicit instructions about what of my products the community there wanted for buy off me at the next year’s event, I am set for the year. And then there’s furries. Furries are great people but we really suck at networking. The conventions are massive but people go there with friends and don’t meet new ones. They’re not designed for that.

I’m not trying to be picky about the people I net into my life but so far I’ve never met anyone who wants into it. Facebook Dating and Bluesky are my current two websites I’m looking into. They look really promising but the learning curve is not flat and I’m an introvert. I have the games and endless entertainment almost finished but that entertainment only works for a group. Things do sell better by far if I lead with the LGBTQ+ content but it was always important to me and part of my plans. This is where I am with this. But, really, there’s a new world coming. 

It’s a world defined by the internet and its ability to decentralize jobs and income while centralizing community and the respectful sharing of knowledge. The idea of doing a home office job is a modern day concept and I know that’s probably my main audience here. I do try to have something for everyone but that’s the group I think will be the most interested in what I do. Meeting them has proven to be hard. We’ve invented income through decentralized work and we as a people who occupy this planet haven’t figured out the centralizing connection and learning yet.

My goal here is to provide educational game content. The cookbook Cooking With a Wolf is the food I ate and invented to have something fun to do while running numbers in my head full time. I’m really happy with it but it will be the only actual cookbook I make that isn’t cards with game effects in Quantum. Quantum was my end goal, even though I didn’t know the whole time that it would work better as a card game than as a tabletop roleplaying game series. I have one of those as well, Legend – Elements, and they are fully compatible. I’m making education free or free by donation.

The other key pillar of this is Dragon Engine. This massive video game project has evolved into something I never expected. Combining everything found in the open world fantasy roleplaying game genre, art creation and generation software and social media and networking, it aims to be a place where people can create, learn and connect in person within a digital world while also having fun stories to play through as entertainment. Facebook has games and Bluesky doesn’t need them but they really do attract people to a platform when they work.

For example, Dragon Engine will feature user generated worlds that can be shared with other people. Imagine one for Downtown Kingston with little streets, shops, some NPCs, a cafe and a bulletin board. Someone would have to run this digital environment by mostly just hanging out in the voice chat that comes with each world, managing the bulletin board and promoting cooperation. I really hope people could find a job, friend, or AirBnB using a digital environment like this. Another option is making a digital museum to show off your own art and accept new paying clients.

The crafting engine will be identical to the one in the card game and the player avatars will allow for a lot of customization. Making and selling avatars, designing worlds and running community meeting locations with jobs are all fine. I want people making income on it. If you want to use my characters and setting names then sign up for the Patreon. If you want to influence the future of the game then sign up for the Patreon at the $35 a month tier. This is still being set up and I’m allocating today and tomorrow morning to GDevelop. I’m liking GDevelop and everything on it is stored in the cloud so I never have to worry about too many user generated level maps so long as I allow only one or two per user. This is why I do what I do.

Only Connect.

C J Mcpherson