Having had several plans picked apart by events, and the subsequent unavailability of people and services, I’ve been looking at other options. What’s been most helpful in this regard has been the idea of building a plan that is less structured, or perhaps just more simply structured.
I needed to come up with a plan that would be less likely to need changing yet again. The need for repeated revisions has been very disruptive and has really got in the way of thinking clearly and creatively (though I did design most of a new game yesterday, so it’s not stopped me entirely). Simple and flexible has been the aim for this new plan. I’ve also been testing it with example use cases. Inventing further apocalypses to throw at it has been an entertainment.
In between iterations, I got side-tracked reading about creativity and productivity, which has been a worthwhile distraction. Then I delved into the numbers and research around coronavirus to try and understand what’s likely to happen going forward. To sum that up: we ain’t out of the woods yet, boys and girls. Not by a long chalk. And when we get back to “normal”, that may not be quite the normal we’re used to
Anyway, suffice to say that a little more research to check some specifics and I’m expecting to be back online shortly.
Wherever you are, stay safe, and I’ll see you soon.
Quirkworthy 
You stay safe too!
I feel your frustration about the “unavailability of people and services” too. One thing that is helping me is a program called Tabletop Simulator. I run it through Steam and it allows me to test games in a virtual environment with other play testers. It is $20 a pop, so that might be a hindrance, but you can literally make any kind of game virtually first and play it with anyone around the world. Hope this helps.
Thanks Jared. I’ve seen TS, though I’ve not used it. It’s not so much the cost as the time I’d need to spend needing to learn how to set it up that I find offputting. That, plus my inner Luddite telling me that the real cards on table vibe is so much nicer 🙂
For the sake of speed, I’ve been working on solo games lately, and looking to see how I can apply that idea to various areas you don’t normally see it. Some intriguing design puzzles to unravel there.