"I need to beat you, Rock. I need it more than anything you could ever imagine."
New Sale, Market Trader Lifestyle, Time Travel Preview, Ritual Magic for Besties
A Rat Wave(s hello, do you wave back?)
It’s Seasonal
I like Januarys. I know it's just a trick of the calender but I like fresh starts and taking stock of things.
I've been thinking about this time in years gone by. I mentioned last newsletter that I started putting out games on December 2020. It was while I was working as a teacher in the middle of a lockdown and dealing with many personal struggles. By mid-April '21 I had a bad breakdown and was signed off work for the rest of the year.
Before that happened I put out five different games:
Killer Crustaceans find God - A Lasers and Feelings hack of mutant crab warriors in the post-apocalypse
IMAVOLCANO - A screwball comedy about your friend becoming a volcano, inspired by the Fishboy album of the same name
Plural Witchcraft Highland Rampage - A rules-lite action game based on Invincible Sword Princess
Follow Me in the Night; a Cursed Radio - A solo game (built on Carta) of music, magic and pain
The first edition of To Embrace a Swamp Creature, named at the time How to Embrace a Swamp Creature (my semi-autibiographical belonging outside belonging game of mentally ill swamp things)
It's an interesting era to look back on. I was in a very bad place and I think I was jumping into game design as a distraction. Some of the games are silly fun that kept me from thinking of difficulties but others are a lot more raw and personal (Follow Me in the Night is definitely the work of someone who's about to snap).
I revisited each of these games in a big and small ways eventually. Swamp Creature got a second edition which really delivered on the promise the original game had. All the others had their layout remastered (they were originally all put together in Word of all things).
I'm running a sale in the releases from what I'm affectionately calling the Running on Fumes Era. Three years on I don't feel like I'm burning up in the same way anymore, but these games help me remember what it was like.
This time in 2022 was when I did a lot of initial work on Transgender Deathmatch Legend and Fear the Taste of Blood. Last year it was this time when I put out The Man We Knew and The Infinite Dancefloor. Then it was by April of that year I was beginning to think about Terminal. This is the first January I'm not a teacher anymore and I'm trying to figure out if I can make games what I do. Let's find out together.
Market Research (it’s a pun)
One thing I'm trying out this year is tabling at local markets. The first weekend of January I tabled at the SET Social Market in Peckham. It was slow going there but useful practice for how to tell me about TTRPGs.
At the start of February I'll be tabling at the Big Market in Lewisham (at the Fox of Firkin). If you're London based pop by and say hi. I've not decided what stock I'm bringing yet.
Next month I'll share how that went and say where you can find me next.
Terminal
Most of the stretch goal writers have approved their final edits so they'll be going into layout soon. I'll do a call for any errors people might have noticed before we move to printing.
I've also been tinkering with a creator kit idea that might go out with the big update. We'll see.
Find “The Test of Time”, Replace “Time Flies”
I've been doing more work on my time travel adventure game. Tentatively I've been calling it the Test of Time but I think I'll be renaming it to Time Flies. Both as the expression but like terming the characters as flies to the timeline.
I've been writing a lot of the hub setting, as well as figuring out some smaller mechanics and the character sheet. Next step is writing some adventures. I'm gonna do some reading on adventures in other similar games and then dive back in to writing. Here's two previews of Time Flies; the character bios for the Time Barons and the section Time is.
The Time Barons
The iron will of the Other Place, the anointed triumvirate responsible for the safekeeping of time. Time travel is not something that should exist in the world; its introduction, even with its persistent removal, has allowed aberrations into the timeline. The Time Barons have taken the responsibility of correcting these assorted aberrations. It is difficult to tell how long they have been in power. There are indications, whispers and records, that there were other Barons in prior times. There's no indication ageing is halted in the Other Place, perhaps they simply passed on, or perhaps there have been power struggles over this Barony of Time. The present triumvirate is as such:
Lord Passage (Ancient, Cold, Stern)
The eldest of the Time Barons. His face is covered in wrinkles earned across many lifetimes. Grey, bearded, oft wearing a ceremonial cloak; for what sort of ceremony? It remains unknown. A judgemental man who sees almost all who have found themselves in the Other Place as potential timebombs. He has seen the dangers of time travel, so he says, and yet he is surrounded by children demanding he use his mastery of the chronological arts to fix problems they created themselves.
Some of the concierges said Passage was one, of many of course, who invented a form of time travel. Others suggest he merely funded a project. Most agree the Lord title is not an affectation but one he held before coming to rule this place. Was it he who founded the Other Place and the Time Barons? Or is there a distinction between the eldest and the first? None can say for certain.
Elaine St. Cross (Inquisitive, Learned, Casual)
The most approachable of the Time Barons. A mathematician in a life left behind long ago. She sees time as an equation, and anachronisms and paradoxes as things to be solved so that the equation is balanced. It’s complicated, and difficult to understand, so she says, but things need to be done carefully and precisely.
Elaine will tell her own story, if asked. She never invented time travel. An ex-boyfriend of hers did, in the 80s allegedly. He attempted to rewrite their failed relationship and turn it into a picturesque love story. Elaine turned the tables on him, he was left erased from existence and she found herself in possession of the gift of time travel. The story of how she went from there to one of the Time Barons is one she is vaguer on, though most suggest she is the “newest” Baron, as it were. If pressed Elaine will say that what she is above all else is an opportunist and the Other Place is where there are plenty of opportunities to be made the most of.
Coda (Haunted, Paranoid, Phantasmal)
The least human of the Time Barons. Only ever seen in a modified diving suit. The glass helmet holds a shifting, almost mist-like face, sometimes it resembles a skull or a melting witch, other times you’d swear there were features you could see. This was a result of an accident with time travel, the suit is for safety, though whether that’s Coda safety or that of others is unclear.
Deeply suspicious of all within the Other Place, perhaps even their fellow Barons. Time travel is a slippery scope, anyone here could emerge as a time meddler, capable of causing so much misery and ruin by messing with thing they couldn’t hope to understand. If it were up to Coda they’d cage or kill everyone, much safer that way, but they’ll settle for making sure everyone stays in line.
Time is…
Time is tricky.
Lord Passage says time is a river. It branches apart and has its tributaries that will have been rejoined. Divergent streams arriving at the same destination. The river will split in the face of intrusions but eventually erodes all opposition. It can drag you under.
Elaine St. Cross says time is a body. It heals itself from small scratches and tears, it paves over the cracks. It's why the same faces still exist, however unlikely. Major problems require intervention however, with surgical precision. It can ache, it can suffer.
Coda says time is a chemical equation. It's volatile. Unstable interactions lead to destructive outcomes. It must be handled delicately.
Time is complicated. It doesn't make intuitive sense or have rules that are simple to grasp and yet the consequences for breaking rules you never knew of can be grave. Don't stare into time for too long, the quest for understanding is folly and it can become an all consuming compulsion.
Ritual Magic for Besties: Coming to Crowdfundr Next Month
I’ve talked before in this newsletter about mine and Molomoot’s upcoming spellcasting tarot game Ritual Magic for Besties. I’m excited to announce it’ll be coming to Crowdfundr as part of Tabletop Non Stop/Zine Month 2024 on Feburary 6th. You can follow along at https://crowdfundr.com/RitualMagic
The book is fully written, Mol has been showing me some exciting works in progress for art, and I’ve been talking to Alyssa Ridley (Terminal editor) about coming on board, as well as working out some layout samples.
I was saying recently how I think of this game in part as a companion to The Infinite Dancefloor (L Word chart style relationship map, focus on the mess of friendship) as well as Follow Me in the Night (emotion focused magic, card play, importance of memory). I’ll have more previews and such coming down the wire.
Quick Hits
I'm trying to get better at cross-posting longer Tumblr posts on to my blog. I do a lot of those sort of a whim but it's nice to have a back log. Over on the blog currently there's stuff about the sale, deep dives on Terminal's inspiration and a preview of Ritual Magic for Besties featuring the in-universe cold open. Check that all out at blog.ratwave.uk
This weekend the first half of Game Soups interdimensional award show goes up in your podcast feed. Come back next week for part to then it's back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Next month we’ll be in the throes of Ritual Magic for Besties Crowdfundr, I imagine there’ll be something to share on Terminal’s first update and next steps of printing, as as more previews and updates on where I am.
Until then,
Kayla! (I once signed off a work email just exclamation pointing my name with no other context but maybe I can keep doing that as a style thing)