In a couple of the previous devblogs, I talked about WHY I came to the Spelkollektivet co-living/co-working space, and WHY I was making a commercial game after a lifetime of general computer interest and hobbydev. I've had this creeping feeling that something was missing: WHY is Not Us a game about traveling a postapocalyptic fantasy countryside, gathering plants, and making potions? 

In the 1980s I played a lot of gamebooks, one of my favorites being  the Lone Wolf series. For some reason, I became fascinated by something as ubiquitous in fantasy as the healing potion. In this series — as well as in many others by the same developer — it had a name: Laumspur. It is described as a "rare, wild and delicious tasting herb with bright scarlet flowers" that can be used to make Laumspur Potion (in some cases just called "Magic Potion"). This herb also had a cousin: Laumwort, a somewhat bushier version with leaves that were also a bright scarlet. 

Magic plants, potions, adventure — I loved it. 

I wanted to come up with my own magical potions! It didn't matter if they didn't actually DO anything — I just wanted to play with interestingly shaped bottles filled with something shiny and colorful.

As could be expected, I took a fancy to coffee as an adult. As I started living and working at Spelkollektivet, I wanted to find a way to make and store huge batches of coffee that could last for a while. Cold brew turned out to fit that bill nicely. To save time and effort, I made ready-to-drink lattes that was portioned into separate bottles of varying sizes and designs. For a time, I got so into "potion making" that I wanted to share it with the people around me — and Coffee Doggo was born. There was a Patreon from which people could "subscribe" to a daily custom latte, or put their hopes into finding a bottle of free coffee in the public fridge. 

It was fun, but eventually the whole project had run the length of its creative potential and these days I'm just making coffee for me again. I still have the pictures though, and to be honest, I wrote this whole thing just to get an excuse to show off my cool potion making days: