Wandering - Masashi Hamauzu
MAYBE MY LAST POST ON SUBSTACK
Get this, so, yesterday it was decent outside (35 degrees) and this morning it’s 13. I went to the bar to meet my friend Adira for her 20th traniversary, and to just soak in the atmosphere of being surrounded by a bunch of other transwomen in public. It’s good to do that every so often. It snowed on our way to Taco Bell afterwards, and now it’s cold af. Go figure. Maybe we’ll get a white Christmas this year.
This week is big, as far as newsletters go.
First of all, huge congrats to Apocalypse World. Massive kickstarter is well deserved. Meg and Vincent deserve way more. They deserve to never have to worry about money ever again tbh. Their contribution to the art form created PbtA, the most influential design trend since D20, not to mention their other FUCKING fantastic games, like Firebrands (my personal favorite) and Under Hollow Hills (a very close second). Go check out their games and find your new inspiration.
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As you all know, the Songbirds pre-orders have been up since July. It’s been 6 months and we’re, like, not at the point where I can order a set of cloth-bound books. I would need to sell more than double what we have, and we currently sit at 100 pre-orders, which is MONUMENTAL, but just not enough for the kind of book I wanted to print.
I want to discuss some possibilities with you. I’ve been thinking about this pretty much non-stop since the pre-orders went live, worried that securing 250 pre-orders was impossible, that my reach and the interest just isn’t there. As far as I see it, the options are as follows:
Continue on course hoping to catch some big break. If someone of prominence covered the book through their blog or on video, maybe there would be enough new people to finish the pre-orders. But, in my experience, this isn’t likely. I don’t really get covered by places because I’m bad at reaching out and feel like I don’t really know how to approach that anyway. Also y’know, to take some credit, I’ve been critical of a few bigger things in this industry, and I think that’s kinda made people want to stay away from my stuff. WHICH IS FAIR. Like, idk, it’s the sacrifice you make when you criticize things. But even then, every day I wait or try to get that to happen, is another day nothing happens, and when nothing happens, the pre-orders mean less and less.
Change course and print a more standard hardcover, like the kickstarter run of Songbirds. This is tantalizing to me because it’s doable in early 2026, it gets the book in circulation, and it’s familiar. But I know some folks probably only backed for the cloth cover and that maybe they’d want to cancel their pre-order. So there’s risks that might not be worth it and might jeopardize the entire thing.
Do a crowdfunder for the cloth cover. This isn’t ideal because a lot of the possible backers have probably already put in their pre-order, and they would not be backing this project because their copy is already secure. PLUS my kickstarter is currently tied up in .dungeon, which is a whole other can of worms I do not want to get into at this moment. I like this idea because it keeps the original promise of the cloth cover, but I don’t like it because my project-pipeline is already set. I’m doing Screaming Metal Vector Soul as part of zinemonth on backerkit, so I’d have to wait until Summer of 2026 at the earliest to do this, and by then we’ll have been waiting for a year, which, to me, is just far too long.
The reason why it’s far too long is a tax reason. I don’t really need to get into the details of taxes (unless that’s something people want) but the simplest way to put it is, you want to spend the money you earn for a project the same year you get that money, or else it’s going to be taxed fully, and you’ll end up losing more of it. VERY reductive, but you get the gist.
Those are the three options I’ve been thinking about and they each have benefits and downsides. Ultimately, I have to make a choice and deal with the consequences, but you are the ones who will be getting the book, so I’m very curious about your thoughts and considerations.
At this moment, I’m still considering all options. I have not made a decision. I just really want to print this book and get her to people. I’m so proud of her and think she’s so pretty.
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And now, a word from my handler, er, I mean sponsor...
Welcome to the annual, definitely-not-a-last-minute-joke, the Snow Awards! The awards show where we ask the important questions, like “most fuckable art in a ttrpg” and “most likely to dethrone lancer on itch.io.”
Voting is open until January 5th! So go cast your votes. My reach is small and these awards mean nothing, so all it will take to win any category is to get like two of your friends to vote for you! Go shamelessly vote for yourself! GO NOW!!!
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Snow’s Secret Santa
Every month I’ve been releasing one of my games along with all of its related files: indesign, photoshop, pngs, rough drafts, etc. And for Christmas, I really wanna give you all something special. So I’m gonna give you The Straight Dope on Songbirds. Woah, right? That fuggin game I can’t shut up about? Yeah. It’s coming. And in a big way.
I have documents from BEFORE the first edition of songbirds. I have shit that goes way back. I have shit that’s never been spoken about. Full adventures that have never been published.
I’m putting together an amazing suite of shit for you all to dig through if you love the nitty gritty of game design. You’ll see Songbirds in its original incarnation (a notepad document with my nasty little notes) and be able to follow its continued development up until the release of Songbirds 3e.
So, if you’re not a paid member of the patreon, and you want in on this, NOW IS THE TIME! It will be dropping DECEMBER 25th! Early in the morning. So you can sit in front of the tree and unwrap the best present you’ll get this year: more of aunt snow’s bullshit.
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Dev Diary and Other Updates
The last things I want to talk about and will be coming by the end of the year are that Lilancholy is being fulfilled, so if you want to grab the updated book with new layout and new writing, it’s available now! If you’ve already bought the game, then you can download the new PDF immediately. If you want the physical, you can buy your copy now. They’ll be getting sent out in January.
And lastly, development on Screaming Metal: Vector Soul is progressing. I’m pushing to get a simple, plain-text, bare bones version of the rules out SOON. And the reason is quite simple: I want you all to start playing it NOW.
Vector Soul is designed as a solo game. You will make your pilot, you will go on missions, you will live your awesome fucking life as you try to climb the leaderboards. But, really, it’s designed to be played in a discord with as many people as possible. Because the really, really exciting moments of Vector Soul happen when you take a mission, travel hyperspace to get there, and run into a fellow pilot. Her mission? To protect the thing you were sent to destroy. You fight. One of you loses. The other gains rank on the leaderboards and now has bragging rights. While you’re on downtime, repairing your mech, you go to the local watering hole where all the lesbians talk shit and hook up, and everyone is laughing at you for losing. No one will let you live it down.
The dream scenario for Vector Soul is a discord server where you make your pilot along with all of your friends and maybe a few strangers, do your missions, sometimes cross paths, and then RP as you do your downtime actions.
AND THAT’S NOT TO MENTION THE BEST PART!
When you play the game solo, you can roll dice on an oracle to generate missions. But, you can also drag a friend in to play two-player, where they take on the role of your handler. The handler is an entirely separate game from being a pilot. As a handler, your job is to navigate the factions that want to control the galaxy, take jobs and pass them off to the pilots you think can or can’t handle it. I mean, if you want a faction to suffer, pass that difficult mission of theirs off to the worthless pilot you know will fail, and when your favorite faction offers you big rewards if you succeed, tag in the pilot you know can handle her shit.
It’s an entirely separate game from the one the pilots are playing. And I’m just super fucking excited for this.
It’s a solo game, a duo game, and a multiplayer competitive game. It just depends on how many people you can drag along with you.
The basic rules SHOULD be coming before the end of the year. It’ll feature all the pilot-stuff and the basic mission generator. Probably not the full Handler rules, but maybe if I get the time.
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Okay, I think we’ve covered everything I wanted to cover: songbirds, the awards, secret santa, mecha game. Yeah, that’s everything.
I hope you all are having a great holiday season. I love Christmas. I love this time of year so much. I’m kind of a basic bitch, sorry.
I’ll see you all this weekend when I do another world building post.
Take care,
Snow