Today is the one-year anniversary of Mothership Month 2025, and of the kickoff of Certain Fathoms. Absolute insanity at how time flies. A lot has changed since then and what started as lofty dreams became incredible (and sometimes frustrating) reality.
Last time we chatted I mentioned the following:
..., the Certain Fathoms PDF will be releasing before the end of September, Hostile Takeover + Viewer Discretion PDFs following shortly behind in late September or early October. From there, Employee of the Month + Echo Chamber PDFs will be in the month of October, followed lastly by the Secret Levels PDF in November.
For all intents and and purposes, that plan was on track. And then the INDD file I was using for Certain Fathoms stopped opening (or rather, crashed InDesign every time I opened it, with no error report to debug).
I tried to fix it, ultimately sending it to Adobe to take a look at (shoutout to [email protected]) and hopefully figure it out. And then they sent this back about a week and a half later:
This was about a week ago. I spent the time they had the file continuing work on Hostile Takeover and Viewer Discretion and, honestly, I spent the week after getting this email doing more of the same. News like this always knocks the wind out of your sails and I put off hopping right back into it.
Thankfully, it's not the end of the world.
Not All Doom & Gloom
I have a backup service (backup your files, y'all!!) that saves every couple days to protect against this sort of thing. Unfortunately, the last saved backup that isn't corrupted is from before a bulk of the layout edits were made.
Transparently, this means I've lost about three weeks of work.
All said and done, this isn't as huge of a problem as it might seem:
The big, framework-level design decisions for the layout are still there.
I remember most everything I ended up doing for the layout.
It will just take time to re-implement everything before sending out final PDFs. So: still annoying, still lengthens the timeline - but ultimately fixable.
I want to take a moment and say how much I appreciate everyone's patience with all this. I know it can be extremely frustrating receiving delays over and over again. It was never my intention to have things lingering this far out, but life always manages to find a way.
All that said, to give myself ample time to make sure things don't break again AND to make sure you get final, working files, my drop-dead delivery date for Certain Fathoms, Hostile Takeover, and Viewer Discretion PDFs is set for Thursday, November 12 - exactly one year after the campaign ended in 2025.
Everything else will be coming before end-of-year 2026 (cannot believe we are already at the end of the year). And as a gentle reminder about physical fulfillment, please check out Tuesday Knight Games' update here.
Again, thank you for your support, your patience, and your excitement to play Certain Fathoms. It's not hyperbolic when I said you all changed my life.
For those looking to the new hotness (or hot newness) in the Mothership scene, lots of cool things are on the horizon: I'm very intrigued by SOPHONT which uses the PANIC Engine that Mothership is built on. If you want to learn more about the game aside from the very cool campaign page, Sean McCoy himself gave an interview with BRITTLE STAR, the brains behind SOPHONT, on his blog - go check it out!
First of all, apologies for the radio silence - I can assure you all that work has continued on Certain Fathoms and we're very near some finish lines!
Ahead of the jump, the Certain Fathoms PDF will be releasing before the end of September, Hostile Takeover + Viewer Discretion PDFs following shortly behind in late September or early October. From there, Employee of the Month + Echo Chamber PDFs will be in the month of October, followed lastly by the Secret Levels PDF in November.
As for physical releases, all physical vendors have been prepped for files and are ready for them when I send them out. Even though the writing / editing / layout has been a little slower than I would have liked (life, amirite?), rest assured that the fantastic physical vendors we're working with have been standing by for when they're ready. Expect more on this in a couple weeks, before the end of September.
The two things I want to touch on this update are a follow-up for the Certain Fathoms Soundtrack and an explanation of the delays. Read on to find out more.
Certain Fathoms Soundtrack Now Streaming, Lossless Files Coming This Friday (9/11)
Last we chatted, I teased how the soundtrack was going to be streaming on a few major platforms. Well, as it turns out: music distribution is pretty dang easy! And cheap!
So, Certain Fathoms (Original Game Soundtrack) is available basically anywhere that you can get music. You can listen to it on all the big, popular ones. You can listen to it on Pandora like it's 2011. You can even add it to the background of your TikToks, Snapchats, Instagram Reels, etc. Truly, more options than you could ever want.
NOTE: Bandcamp is coming soon - it's the only one on the list that isn't automatically distributed and instead requires a bit of background work. I have to manually set prices for tracks and the entire album, design a page, and do the nitty gritty work to make sure everybody's getting what they paid for.
As for Lossless files, everybody who added the soundtrack to their orders will be getting FLAC, WAV, and updated MP3 files. As a reminder, the soundtrack is officially licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0, which means you can use all fifteen tracks on the release however you want—whether it be in your games or in commercial products.
The only restrictions are that you must give appropriate credit (in this case, it would be Colin Whitehurst and Nate Whittington) and that if you distribute your adaptations or remixes, you must do so under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Since the soundtrack is licensed for reuse, here's the exact credit line to use so you stay compliant and we stay credited. Copy this as-is:
[Track Name]" by Colin Whitehurst and Nate Whittington, from the Certain Fathoms (Original Game Soundtrack), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
For the whole album rather than a single track, swap the track name for Certain Fathoms (Original Game Soundtrack).
One more note on the soundtrack: Those of you who have been listening to the original MP3s sent out a while back will notice some differences between those tracks and these updated ones. Those original MP3s you can consider "demo tracks" and the new ones the "official tracks". In creating the lossless files, there was enough editing required across the board that Colin elected to simply re-record the files in all their modular synth beauty.
Some tracks are nearly identical to their originals. Others are quite a bit different. For those who want both versions, you have until this Friday, September 11 to download the MP3s before they're overwritten with the new versions. Call it our gift to you for being so patient with us.
Okay, time for the elephant in the room: obviously we're running a little behind schedule on things.
Part of that is outside of our control, but there's absolutely a bit of it that's on me and that's the communication on the delay. Trust me when I say that releasing things a few months later than what was initially planned IS the right decision, but it's a tough one to make and you ought to be looped in when that happens.
Sorry for keeping you all in the dark on that! Files ARE coming soon, I can promise you that. And as a bit of a peak behind the curtain, here's a couple (relatively) spoiler-free pages ...
... AND the MS Word manuscript final counts (post-edits, pre-final-layout)...
Work continues on Certain Fathoms! At this point, many of you should have received the first smattering of files (including the soundtrack, which we're talking about below). Regarding the zines, while it is a bit slow-going, I am confident that we're still within our windows and timelines and all that.
More updates to come when there's more than "Still working!" to share. For now, however, I wanted to highlight a few quality of life things regarding the soundtrack.
Certain Fathoms Soundtrack News (FLAC, Streaming Platforms, and Licensing)
For those of you who purchased the soundtrack, new FLAC files will be headed your way in the next week or so! This was part of the initial product promise, so apologies on it being a little late; life's been a bit of a whirlwind.
A quick note on logistics: the FLAC files will be delivered through BackerKit's digital downloads. When they land, you'll find them alongside the files you've already received. If you bought the soundtrack and don't see them by end of July, leave a comment and I'll get it sorted.
For those of you who didn't purchase the soundtrack, I've got great news: the Certain Fathoms Original Soundtrack is coming soon to the following major streaming platforms:
Amazon Music
Apple Music
Bandcamp
Spotify
YouTube Music
Finally, I'm happy to announce that the soundtrack is officially licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0. That means you can use all fifteen tracks on the release however you want—whether it be in your games or in commercial products.
The only restrictions:
You must give appropriate credit (in this case, it would be Colin Whitehurst and Nate Whittington).
If you distribute your adaptations or remixes, you must do so under the same CC BY-SA 4.0 license.
Since the soundtrack is licensed for reuse, here's the exact credit line to use so you stay compliant and we stay credited. Copy this as-is:
[Track Name]" by Colin Whitehurst and Nate Whittington, from the Certain Fathoms Original Soundtrack, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
For the whole album rather than a single track, swap the track name for Certain Fathoms Original Soundtrack. Go wild.
Reception to the soundtrack has been really stellar and both Colin and I are happy to see folks enjoying it. 150 minutes of ambient, sci-fi music is useful in a lot of different scenarios—we hope that adding it to your Kickstarter video or remixing it for your own releases is another use you can take advantage of!
Been a little while! What turned into a few delayed weeks ended up eating all of May as well. Apologies for the radio silence. Rest assured, work is rapidly accelerating towards the finish line for Certain Fathoms.
This is going to be a relatively short update because really, all I have to update you on is that: it's almost done! I'll go through line by line and illustrate what still needs to happen for each of the goodies.
But first, a bit of a breakdown on what each line item means:
Writing. The actual text of the zines. The meat and potatoes. Most of this is done in Obsidian and ported into InDesign, where it gets moved around for...
Layout. This is where the words link up with the graphics and artwork to make the book look real purty. I usually do this alongside the next step so I can get broad strokes for what a spread (two pages side by side) looks like.
Editing. This is me sending it to one of our talented editors for either development editing or line editing. The former is determining whether the content makes sense from a Mothership mechanical game-y perspective, whereas the latter is making sure I don't put too many commas in a sentence or looking for weird grammatical mistakes.
Production. This is when the files are shipped to printers and the digital becomes physical. Our vendors are in both the UK (the zines and paper products) and in China (the patches), and both have slightly different lead times and vastly different shipping prices.
Got it? Make sense? Cool, let's dig in.
Certain Fathoms
Work on Certain Fathoms has been pretty smooth! The writing and layout has been all me, so once that's done it'll be off with our fantastic editors who will tag-team the remaining work. Then its off to print!
Writing: 100% Complete
Layout: 90% Complete
Editing: 0% Complete
Production: 0% Complete
Hostile Takeover & Viewer Discretion
Layout continues on Hostile Takeover and Viewer Discretion, but thankfully all the writing is complete!
Writing: 100% Complete
Layout: 50% Complete
Editing: 0% Complete
Production: 0% Complete
Employee of the Month, Secret Levels, and Echo Chamber
These three digital zines are in the works, but due to them not having immediate shipping deadlines, they've been placed at the back of the queue. I made a bunch Thankfully, since they're digital files, once they're done - they're done! No need to wait on the mail, just keep an eye on your inbox for your downloads.
Writing: 50% Complete
Layout: 0% Complete
Editing: 0% Complete
Production: N/A
Extras
These are all complete and ready for production (if applicable).
Writing: 100% Complete
Layout: 100% Complete
Editing: 100% Complete
Production: 0% Complete
The general timeline is to have everything ready and with the printer by July. This follows the (re(re))revised timeline, so thankfully nothing is adjusted on that end.
My understanding is that some digital files will also be making their way to you as soon as this week - if so, you'll be getting the Soundtrack, Otto's Buy Bin, and Bookmark files. Then, as the others are completed, they'll be making their way to your inboxes as well.
Hope everybody is doing well as we head into summer! -nate
I've been waiting to update everyone on Certain Fathoms due to two factors:
Announcements should be coming from down the mountaintop on the mega-pledge manager this week (possibly as early as today!). I wanted to wait until I had some concrete information on this before I spilled the beans.
I've been writing and re-writing and re-re-writing! Positively in the writing mines. Down in the depths of the writing sea, along with all the other writing fish. What was I talking about? Oh, right, writing. It's happening. A bit slowly, due to some personal stuff (not all bad), but I'll break that down below.
The (New) New Writing Schedule
So, life's been kind of crazy in 2026 huh? Between new shows and games and sickness and work and blah blah blah, writing has been slow but consistent. With time allocated for editing and formatting and everything else, I've adjusted the following delivery dates for:
Certain Fathoms → Pushed to April 2026
Hostile Takeover → Pushed to April 2026
Viewer Discretion → Pushed to April 2026
Secret Levels → Pushed to July 2026
Employee of the Month → Pushed to July 2026
Echo Chamber → Pushed to July 2026
That's... a lot of adjustments! Thankfully, it's mostly due to some extenuating circumstances that are resolved. Also, another thing is that Tuesday Knight Games has an official deadline for writing / deliverability / etc., so things can only get kicked down the road so far.
This isn't a situation where the items will get pushed further and further away, is basically what I'm saying.
For the visual learners:
Stuff Coming (Very) Soon and Getting Back to Work
When the mega pledge manager is available, all the green items (the Soundtrack, Otto's Buy Bin, the Bookmark Reference, and the Welkin Orbital Personnel Dossier) should be available as digital downloads. As new items get published and sent over, you should get an email notifying you of new downloads.
I want to highlight that there is almost guaranteed to be some technical glitches with this so please be patient as the Powers-That-Be figure out which things to turn on and off again, blow the dust out of, or just smack with a wrench.
As for me, it's back to the writing desk! I'll do another update when I've got more stuff to say, likely towards the end of April / beginning of May.
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