Monsoon Update: The Physical Proof
over 3 years ago – Thu, May 13, 2021 at 01:14:18 AM

The past month has been incredibly rainy, the soft brown of Tillsoil replaced with the soaked green of the month of Monsoon. The creek outside my house has been close to overflowing, and sometimes it feels like the sky will never stop raining at all, and I'll watch the puddles form outside my office window forever. 

It's now been a month since the Wanderhome PDF has come out, and the response has been equal parts overwhelming and wonderful. There's a lot I can't quite talk about yet, but keep an eye out for Wanderhome-related news in the world. Especially check out all the cool folks making content for Wanderhome with this list curated by Wanderhome expert and Haeth Grant Recipient trouser_mouse! There's a lot of great stuff online, and between the Haeth Grant and various 3rd-party content releases, there's gonna be a ton of incredible stuff coming soon.

Update On Printing — The Proof Has Arrived!

As I am writing this update, the physical proof for Wanderhome arrived in the mail. A proof is a raw printed-out version of the book, uncut and unbound, so that we can take a look and make sure everything's perfect before we send the final order to the printer. And wow is it gorgeous!

Once we send the proofs back to the printer, it'll take between 4-6 weeks for the printer to get the books printed and shipped out. This means we'll be looking at distribution starting in early-mid June, and I expect people to start getting their books in their mailboxes by late June or early July. I'll post a quick update (and talk about it more on my Twitter) once we have a precise date.

I know this is slightly different than what we talked about in previous updates, and the reason for that is because we're printing eleven thousand books. For a small press company like Possum Creek Games, that number is way bigger than anything we've done before. Our initial estimates were based on a scale that is just woefully small in comparison! So I appreciate your patience, and I'm excited to get you your copy soon.

Preorder Note

I'm going to be sending Itch.io download keys to everyone who has preordered the book on our website so far. Thank you to everyone who has been requesting download keys from us, and if you're reading this I hope you enjoy Wanderhome!

Wickedness

Possum Creek Games is a full publishing house, so we always have a couple irons in the fire at the same time. Our big release last week was for Wickedness by M Veselak, a narrative tabletop RPG for three players and a deck of tarot cards, about a coven of witches working together to stay afloat against a crumbling kingdom, the corrupting voices of the underworld, and their own dramatic lives! It's a beautiful game, and the game I got to play with Jeeyon Shim and Brennan Lee Mulligan is still some of the most fun I've ever had playing TTRPGs.

Because of Wickedness's smaller size and print run, it will be coming out a few weeks before Wanderhome, and I cannot wait to show off the final results of its design.

Promotion

Once More Into The Void by stretch goal contributor/consultant for Wanderhome and close personal friend Jamila Nedjadi is coming to Kickstarter very soon! It's a beautiful gay TTRPG about pilots fighting evil and trying to take care of each other. It's incredibly sweet and fun and amazing and I am so excited for this Kickstarter. Please follow it now so you can get notified the moment it releases!

Stretch Goal PDF

Ruby is taking a bit of a break from working after she poured her heart and soul into Wanderhome and Wickedness, but stretch goals are puttering along nicely. We hope to release the digital PDF for the stretch goals this summer, after giving a month or so for the physical release to make its way to everyone. In the meantime, here's some more art from the stretch goals themselves — by Letty Wilson of course, with these absolutely beautiful playbook illustrations!

That's all for now! Thank you all so much for your support and kindness. I appreciated all the loving responses to the call to action last week — your positivity and support is a huge reminder as to why we keep doing this. and I hope you'll continue to join me in taking a stance against bigotry and transphobia in our communities, our local politics, and in the world.

Seeya next time,

Jay

Tillsoil Tidings: Assorted Updates
over 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 07:04:39 PM

Hi everyone, Jay here!

It's been two weeks since the PDF release, and the snow has melted away entirely. I've been sleeping with my window open, and my roommate and I cleaned most of the kitchen to the sound of the very first cicadas of the year. I'm writing this while staring out the window at the first blooming bush covered in little yellow flowers, lit by the last dregs of setting sun across the creek.

A Busy Two Weeks

It's ... only been two weeks? I feel like it's been a month since I finally got to give Wanderhome to all of you. Since then, we peaked at the top of every single Itch.io website category (popular, new & popular, and top sellers!), landed in the top 10 highest rated physical games on Itch.io, and umm ... ended up on the front page of Polygon?!?!?!?!?

Umm. So that's cool. Thank you all, so goddamn much. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't in shock. To be completely honest, part of me assumed you'd all suddenly realize that Wanderhome actually really was a queer indie game with no dice and weird GM-optional stuff and leave me for dead in a dumpster outside the local Arby's. So, thank you for liking this thing I've made.

Genuinely, the outpouring of kindness from people who have read and played Wanderhome has made me cry enough in the past two weeks, so I won't enumerate it again. Regardless, I'm so deeply touched and grateful and emotional and ... I've got a lot of feelings. 

But let's talk about what else is going on!

Book Printing & DriveThruRPG

Grubby is down in Philadelphia right now, slowly being driven to madness by UHaul, so printing is delayed a couple days. That's all fine! We should be sending an updated PDF to the printers by the end of the week or the start of next week. At that point, we'll also be putting an updated version of the PDF file onto Itch.io, Backerkit, and ... DriveThruRPG!

That's right, Possum Creek Games is experimenting with hosting our games on DriveThruRPG. We've historically avoided the site, as it's not really where our audience is, but we've gotten a few requests and we're going to give it a shot. We'll sync everyone up with DriveThruRPG when we add the new PDF, so if you get an email from DTRPG with Wanderhome next week — that's why.

We will not be using DriveThruRPG's print on demand services at this time.

Haeth Grant

Emails regarding Haeth Grant acceptance have been sent out. Almost forty creators have received funding for their creative projects. These range from playbooks and expansions, to soundtracks, to works of art, and more! There's a lot of incredible genius so far, and we weren't even able to accept everyone we wanted to. We've emptied out the Haeth Grant Fund at the moment, but we have plans to expand it.

Keep an eye on our website and our twitter as we promote the work of our Haeth Grant recipients!

3rd Party Content

Want to create content for Wanderhome, but didn't get a chance to get your application in for the grant? Don't worry! We've developed our 3rd Party License, so anyone can feel safe creating new materials in the world of Wanderhome. 

It's a pretty simple license — it gives you permission to make what you want, as long as you credit us and don't plagiarize. It covers some other stuff (including logos, attributions, content, etc.) but it's all there in the license. We also have a license for Sleepaway, so check that out if you're interested in our other game!

A Little Bit Of Art

The PDF of additional playbooks and natures won't be coming out until after the physical release of Wanderhome, but I wanted to give all of you a little taste of what to look forward to! 

A Call To Action

Okay, so one last thing.

If you're trans, you can head out now. There's nothing new I'm going to say that you haven't been shouting a million times before. I don't want you to have to read another call to action when you're already at the end of your rope.

If you're not a trans person, please stay and listen. Please.

So I'm trans. I'm pretty open about this fact, it heavily influences my work, it's all over my online presence, I work with trans teens on a regular basis, it's a fundamental part of my identity. 

As I write this, waves of transphobic legislation sweep the United States. 

A small but incredibly vocal minority of the United States threaten to strip away rights from me and the people I care about. They want to pass laws making it so teachers will report gender deviation to parents, that authorities can strip children to ensure gendered compliance, that children are denied access to basic medication that can and will save their lives. It's horrifying and exhausting and it is only possible because the silent majority sits by and lets it happen.

Please get involved! Please help out! And I don't mean in a "share posts on twitter" way. I mean, donate to your local leftist organizations. Volunteer your time and resources to trans organizations. Reach out to the trans people in your life and make sure they have what they need. Stand up for trans kids, trans adults, trans people. 

It's a small thing, but I cannot underscore how different it is when a cis person speaks up for our needs. When all y'all demand pronouns for yourselves, when you correct people on misgendering, when you fight for gender neutral bathrooms and protect us from fash, it changes things. Cruel people maintain power when they think everyone agrees with them. When we speak up, we're often dismissed as inflammatory or ideological, but cis voices can legitimately save lives.

Please, help us make the world a safer place for all of us.

—

Okay, that's it. Thanks for listening, and thank you all for reading Wanderhome and playing it with your friends. Don't forget to leave a rating on Itch.io if you haven't already, keep an eye out for updated typo-fixed PDFs, and I'll let you know once we place the order for the physical copies!

Take care <3

Jay

Post-Launch Things
over 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 07, 2021 at 01:20:21 AM

Hey y'all, Jay here!

Yesterday went amazingly, I'm so grateful and appreciative of all of your support. I don't have the time or energy to reply to all the incredibly kind things y'all are saying, but I'm reading your comments and threads and feeling deeply touched. Your care and support for Wanderhome means the world to us, and I'm so glad I can finally share this game with all of you.

This update is all bookkeeping! Let's get into it.

Typos & PDF Update

Thank you everyone who has been spotting typos in the PDF. If you spot a typo and want to submit it, you can do so here. There's a couple little things we have to fix before the book goes to the printer, and once that's done we'll also be updating the PDF files. If you've claimed the download key with your Itch.io account, then you'll get an updated file. These will all be very minor cosmetic changes (typos, minor formatting, etc.) and won't change the experience at all.

Edge Case Not Getting PDF Key

There is one specific segment of backers who did not get PDF keys — if you backed at the $1 or no reward tier, and then upgraded on Backerkit later, the download key didn't get sent out to you. Oops, our bad! Please email us at [email protected] and we'll send you a download key. You'll still be getting a physical copy if you upgraded to that, this is a weird issue caused specifically by how the emails got collated.

Preorders

Similar to the above issue, there isn't currently a great way to send out PDF keys with physical orders made at our website. If a friend of yours preorders Wanderhome on our site and wants the PDF, please tell them to email us at [email protected] with their order number or receipt and we'll send them a download key. This is a little janky but it's better than nothing.

ALSO if your friends want to preorder Wanderhome, please make sure they know they can do that at possumcreekgames.com/wanderhome !

Community Copies

The community copies got eaten up so fast! As of this post there are only 6 (!) remaining, and I suspect they'll all be gone very soon. There's currently no way to donate more, but I'm working on figuring out a decent solution so that we can restock those copies. 

Blank Character Sheets

In the email that went out to everyone, it didn't include the file for the character sheets. Don't worry, that's on our Itch page! Go here and scroll down to DEMO — the Character Sheets are located there. That way they're free and don't require buying the game in order to access. 

Ratings & Reviews

While you're on the Itch.io page, please swing by and leave us a rating, a nice comment, a review, whatever you're feeling! All of those mean a lot and help us continue to do this work. 

Tagging

If you're hosting a podcast or an AP where you're playing Wanderhome, if you've made cute fanart, if you just have a lot of feelings on Wanderhome and want me to read them, please tag me! I'm on Twitter at @jdragsky and I really love to retweet cool things and read words. I'm also happy to answer questions about design and such when I can, although I can't promise an in-depth response. I'm just saying! I like to see stuff!

Anything Else

For questions about anything, you can always reach me on Twitter, here, or (ideally) at [email protected]. Email is best since Grub can reply to emails for me, and she's way smarter.

Thank you all so much, I'm so endlessly appreciative of all of you and I hope you all enjoy reading, playing, and designing with Wanderhome!

— Jay

[PDF Release] The 'New Years' Update!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Apr 07, 2021 at 12:40:42 AM

The snow has melted into the first sprouts of new grass, I'm sitting on my back porch writing this while the creek floats by, and all the windows in my house are wide open. After the many long cold months, it's finally Tillsoil here at the Possum Creek. In Wanderhome, that means the long year is finally over, and a new year has begun. We can shed the heavy detritus that has built up on our shoulders since last Tillsoil, and embrace the joy the future has to hold for us. And since New Years is such a special holiday, I figured there was only one way we could celebrate it ...

The PDF Release

The Wanderhome PDF is finally here. More than 250 pages (or 125+ spreads) laid out by our incredibly talented Ruby Lavin (seriously, please tell her how beautiful it is, she poured her heart and soul into this) with art by more than a dozen artists. It's screen reader compatible, thanks to our amazing consultant J Tyler, and we have 3 different variations on the file:

• The full color file is functionally identical to what will be in the book itself. Full of lush colors and with incredible art, it's a dream to read through.
• The Black & White file is designed to be printer friendly. Each page is resized to letter size and a lot of the art has been removed. This is best for printing out references.
• The insectophobe file is the same as the full color, but any pictures of bugs have been censored. The game text still references bugs, but if the sight of a creepy crawlie is too much for you, I hope this file will be useful for you!

There is also a form-fillable PDF for playbooks, places, kith and seasons. 

Where am I getting it?

I'm going to send it out to all of you in two different ways. 

• First, you'll all get an Itch.io download key in your inbox. This is my preferred method of distribution, please claim that key and download your copy of Wanderhome there. Also feel free to leave a rating while you're there, comment anything nice you want to say, and all that. Ratings and reviews are big for boosting the game's presence on Itch.io, and also they make my heart flutter!
• If you ordered through Kickstarter or Backerkit, you'll also be getting a zip file that contains the PDF through Backerkit. This is just in case Itch.io glitches out or something. 

FAQ:

I didn't get an email with Wanderhome in it. What do I do?

If you didn't get an email with your copy of Wanderhome, from either Backerkit or Itch.io, please check your spam folder! Once you've done that, contact us at [email protected] or message us here.

I want to buy the PDF copy of Wanderhome. Where can I do that?

Go here to get a copy of Wanderhome! Alternately, visit our website and pick up a PDF copy of Wanderhome here.

I spotted a typo. What's the best way to tell you?

I made a cute little form you can fill out! Click there and fill out the form to report a typo. 

I'm a news site / podcast / radio station / etc. and I want to do a special on Wanderhome. How can I contact you?

Please email me at [email protected]. Please don't DM me on Twitter or message me here — I'm very forgetful, and I'll direct you back to my email anyway, where Grub will remind me of all the things I've forgotten to reply to.

I applied for the Haeth Grant and I never got an email. Did I get rejected?

Don't worry dears! We haven't accepted or rejected anyone yet. I was hoping to get that done before the PDF release, but ... life happens, and this PDF took a lot to make, so I had to prioritize that. However I hope to have emails to the first round of folks within the next 1-2 weeks. 

What's Next?

Oh lord. What is next? 

Okay so, the Kickstarter's not done. As I type this, products are arriving at our warehouses. There were some hiccups with EU shipping due to Brexit, so I get to spend the next 2 months sorting that out. Thankfully we've partnered with GamesQuest, and we'll be working with them to make sure there's no hiccups on the international end. (We'll also be working with them more for our future Kickstarters, so our international backers will be able to score better deals on shipping in the future!)

We're sending the PDF to our printing company, and they'll be sending us a proof so we can make sure that looks good. Once that's done and we OK it, the printers will churn out the more than 6,000 copies of Wanderhome we need to fulfill all the orders and stock up our storefront, and those will go to our warehouses, where they'll then arrive to all of you with your merchandise. I am very hopeful we can get that all done by the end of May! However it is very possible and likely that distribution will bleed into June, which is fine because I gave myself that much time when I launched this damn Kickstarter.

MEANWHILE, there's also stretch goal stuff! Both Jeeyon's cookbook and the additional playbooks will be released as PDFs available to all backers. Jeeyon's cookbook will also appear in the printed copy of the book, while the rest of the stretch goals will remain PDF only. Jeeyon's cookbook will be available within the next few weeks (and will be added to the Itch.io page) while the additional playbooks will be released sometime mid-to-late June / early July. 

Grubby and I will also be taking a vacation, once I'm fully vaccinated. That won't impact any of these timelines, but hopefully it'll be sometime in May.

After that ... the work continues. Venture / Dungeon and Wickedness both have their releases lined up somewhere in there, and then after them there is Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast.

Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast

Once upon a time, the world was cruel, and there was a witch who knew it well. And so, she sold her heart away and built a house in the woods where the world could never find her. At first she would let no one into her fortress. But in the long march of days, a strange thing happened: in her own cold and spiteful way, the witch made a friend… and then another… and then several more, until her house was teeming with colorful faces and complicated lives. The house would come to be known as Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, and it would last for a very long time.

Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast is the next big project from Possum Creek Games, a slice-of-life RPG about a heartless witch and her magical B&B. It's gonna be magical, whimsical, weird, fun, and unlike anything you've seen before! We haven't published any official material yet, but we have been putting bits and pieces up on our Patreon, and we have a tentative launch date for the Kickstarter of September 15th. If you want updates on Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, follow me and the rest of the team on Twitter, support the Possum Creek Games Patreon, and sign up for our mailing list!

Anything Else

Happy new years, folks. It's been a long year. Planning for Wanderhome's Kickstarter started right around this time of year last year, and it's wild how much has changed since then. I wrote Wanderhome as a light for myself, a hope for a world after this. I hope that after all this time, it can feel that way for all of you as well. Thank you for your patience, your compassion, your excitement, and your thoughtfulness. Thank you for sticking with me on this wild impossible journey, and I can't wait to see where we go next.

— Jay

The Frostbite Update: Grants, Photos, Art, and a hint of what's to come ...
over 3 years ago – Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 03:40:50 PM

Oh, Frostbite. The coldest month, and somehow the longest. We've left Snowblanket behind — the fluffy snow on the ground has calcified into sheets of harsh ice. I've been wrapped up tight in blankets for weeks now, my feet basically pressed up against my ineffectual radiator. The creek is frozen solid, and I can spot from my window the occasional wanderer along its barren surface. Soon the ice will crack, and the first sprouts of green will burst up out of the ground, and the new year will begin. But until then, we bury ourselves away under sweaters and gloves and get to work!

This update has some really exciting news about an aspect of the project I've been looking forward to for a while, along with news and updates about a bunch of different aspects of the project, including art and merchandise.

The Hæth Grant aka. The Wanderhome Community Fund

So this is the part I've been really excited for, ever since we came up with the idea for the Kickstarter. Wanderhome has only been possible thanks to the creativity and ingenuity of the indie TTRPG scene, and we want to give back to the best of our ability. The Hæth Grant is a small grant program for creatives in the Tabletop RPG industry designed to uplift small creators, support Wanderhome, and create more equity within our communities.

Basically, you fill out an application with an idea for a project related to Wanderhome in some way, and if we accept your application we'll provide up to $500 USD in financial support for the project, along with a bunch of other useful resources. This can be a new playbook, a setting or module for the game, a piece of art, a novel, a mixtape, literally whatever! We're here and interested in supporting you.

We plan to do a series of rolling acceptances over the next several months, so we don't exhaust the community fund all in one go. We want to get the first pool going so that they can release their projects adjacent to the full Wanderhome release, but that's a bit aspirational. 

We've made a whole page on our website to cover more information on the Hæth Grant, including how to apply, the full list of benefits, and some frequently asked questions. If you have any concerns, questions, comments or requests, please don't be afraid to reach out to us at [email protected]. I'll be real, I'm a bit nervous doing this! While we're not the first RPG Kickstarter to do something like this (shoutout to Sandy Pug Games!), it's all still very new to me and I want to make sure I can do right by all of you.

General Project Updates

Layout continues! Layout endlessly continues. Grub has finished laying out approximately 1/4th of the book, and is now moving on to the playbooks. We recently fixed a snag we were having with the fonts, and so the long march of threading and formatting a 33k word project continues.

We are still on track to get all of you the PDF release by the start of April. I know a lot of you want the PDF, and I get it! Me too! I'm the most impatient person on Earth, I swear. But the book will be finished when it's finished, and not a moment before.

As I'm sure you're all aware, the Backerkit closed up earlier this month, and since then I've been handling a lot of logistical nonsense. I don't want to cover everything, but I'll hit on a few highlights and how they might impact you.

• There's still a few (~100) cards that still need to get charged through Backerkit! If your card was declined, go check into the system or contact Backerkit about it.
• There's still a few (~250) people who haven't filled out their surveys. Specifically there's one Pilgrim backer who hasn't filled it out, and that's just confusing to me.
• Brexit caused some major headaches for us and our EU shipping! The good news is that we probably have it all shored up. This won't impact any of you in any way, I just wanted to give a little window into the endless headaches that come with a big project like this.
• We're continuing our experiments with Facebook and Instagram advertisements (leave a pleasant comment if you see them!) to solid success, but it does mean I had to spend multiple days learning to navigate Facebook's multiple contradictory business/commerce portals.
• Did you know you need UPCs to sell with Barnes & Noble? A UPC is a barcode that's distinct from an ISBN and oh my god please I dropped out of college only like 2 years ago I'm not built for this oh my lord
• Folders are a hassle to get printed in the specifications we need. Grub's a genius though.

Speaking of folders, our merchandise is slowly trickling on over to the folks at Indie Press Revolution, who will be handling our domestic and non-EU/UK shipping! IPR's resident corvid AC was kind enough to send us some amazing photos of the merchandise as it shows up.

Unfortunately and heartbreakingly, you cannot preorder merch at this time. We were doing it through Backerkit, and we are so far from being equipped to do more merchandise preorders at this time. However! Be sure to sign up for our mailing list on our website, where we'll post updates once we finally have merch in our store. 

Some Kickstarters

Zinequest is wrapping up, which means there's a bajillion Kickstarters coming to a close. I wish I could list them all — I've spent far more money this month than I have any desire to admit. I'm limiting my recommendations to folks who are in some way involved in Wanderhome and are either still active or going to launch soon. So without further ado!

This project is coming in a few weeks, and is by Dominique Dickey, Possum Creek Games's resident copyeditor and absolute genius. I'm really hyped for this game, and can't wait for it to release in March! It's a science fiction adventure with gorgeous art and great design.

Jeeyon's done it again with another ephemera game, this one about facing down your father's lineage in a cursed and magical family. It looks goddamn gorgeous, and Jeeyon is consistently a genius when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Heart of the Deernicorn is handling a lot of our merchandise design, and this Kickstarter is an amazing testament to that group's artistic skill. This gorgeous scroll of a game allows you to travel as a caravan across a beautiful landscape, and the design of its predecessor (Fall of Magic) was a big inspiration for the wall scroll we posted last update.

Adira Slattery (one of our stretch goals and our stretch goal manager) just had her zinequest Kickstarter wrap up, but it's still available for preorder on Itch.io. Based on stories like Killing Eve and Hannibal, Tension is a 2-person game about an investigator as they get tangled with a dangerous killer.

A Little Bit Of Art

We have our last couple of pieces trickling in, and there's one in particular I wanted to show off that I think really suits the mood of Frostbite. This one's by Sabii Borno, depicting a group of travelers exploring the woods where winter moths have cocooned themselves among the trees. I love its energy and I think it does a great job highlighting a side of the Haeth that doesn't always get seen.

That's All For Now

It's deep in Frostbite, and the world is cold and frozen over. We work hard in our offices, preparing for when the snow will melt and the first signs of Leap appear. The next time we talk, it'll be the new year in the Haeth, and I'll have some treasures for you. It's only fitting that we'll kick off the spring with a very important PDF...