🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
enamel pins with fire, a raccoon with a match
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Hi Reader, Welcome back to game night. I'm briefly out of the smithy—Udo has to bury all the bronze swords in the backyard for that weathered look, so the ball's in his court. Still, I've been busy. I'm working on enamel pin designs. What do you think? Can you tell what B is? I've also been publicizing the game. I contracted with a consulting company called LaunchBoom to help me, because I don't know from marketing. Little did I know it would drop me into the crossfire of tabletop games discourse. LaunchBoom's main gimmick is to set up a "prelaunch" page for a Kickstarter, where I ask people to plunk down a refundable $1 deposit. If you back the game, the dollar goes toward your pledge, and you get a freebie too (five dice). If you don't, you get the dollar back. People who make the deposit are 20x more likely to back the Kickstarter than folks who just leave their email address. Given all the thousands of dollars I've fed into this game, it sounded smart. Well! It turns out this tactic blew up in board games last spring, when backers pushed back hard, angry to be asked for money before the Kickstarter even launched. Board game publishers have dropped the tactic en masse. And here I am trying to use it again. It takes six thousand raccoons to build trust and just one to burn it all down. I'm keeping my setup for this campaign, but I doubt I'll do it again. I'm grateful to the nearly thirty people who have already pre-pledged. Coming up! I'm going to GAMA Expo, February 23rd to 27th. GAMA's Horizons Fellowship made that trip possible, so thank you, GAMA. I'm looking forward to connecting with retailers and others in the biz. Then I'm a guest at Breakout Con in Toronto, March 14th to 16th, where I'll run both Raccoon Sky Pirates and Defy the Gods. I can't wait! Maybe I'll see you there. In the meantime, I'll try to keep the raccoons from getting into the strike-anywhere matches. Cheers, P.S. Seriously, what do you think of those pins? P.P.S. If you haven't yet, I hope you'll consider making the refundable $1 deposit and then join us in the private FB group. I'm talking more about Defy the Gods in there—including more work-in-progress art! |
Everlasting, Neverending Game Night
🌈🚀 Reliable wonder engine. I make narrative role-playing games that imagine a weirder, queerer, more connected world.
Hi Reader, Welcome! Please, come in. It's getting blowy out there. On the table, we've got flame-orange dahlias. The Raccoon Sky Pirates Kickstarter is doing well beyond my wildest hopes. But, for once, I'm not here to talk about that. I recently read Lin Codega's diaries of their experience playing Over/Under, the massive, 30-day game on Discord that started a year ago. Here's what I said about it on Bluesky: Me when O/U was happening: Man I wish I had time for this. Me after it ended: Man I...
Hi Reader, It's All-Raccoons Eve! Tomorrow at noon Eastern, assuming nothing wacky happens in the meantime, the Raccoon Sky Pirates Kickstarter will launch! I've just finished (whew) the free Haunted House Map that goes to everyone who backs in the first 24 hours. I hope you'll be one of them! Here's a low-res screenshot from the first floor. There's a second floor, an attic and of course a basement. It has its own Disaster Track and over a hundred cursed items to steal! If you haven't...
Hi Reader, Imagine it's after dark on the eve of All Hallows. Your car broke down, and now you're tramping through the woods in search of shelter. Ice-cold rain soaks through your too-summery clothes and into your bones. A sudden shock: Lightning outlines a looming manor house. Deafening thunder—or is it the manse's baleful façade?—roots you to the spot. Brambles choke its walls. Mazy gables top narrow windows from which fell figures stare out. And then...like an ill omen...a Chevy Bluebird...