Many things! It's been an extremely busy few months for yours truly: too many projects, myriad gigs and contracts, a spot of summer teaching, traveling for conventions, traveling to see family, and more.
As for my lack of updates, I am sorry about that. I am afflicted with a particular neuroticism, one that whispers in my ear, always saying "You should just wait until it's done! Why bother updating until you have something real to say? Just finish the damn thing and update them all then!"—and I admit I am often too confident in my own abilities, meaning I listen to that voice, feeling that surely this time the finish line is just around the corner. Obviously, as many of you have reminded me, I owe you more updates. I am sorry again about the silence.
It's also just been a very hard summer in my own personal life. The season opened with a breakup, then a dear friend moving away, then the sudden death of another. All those make it difficult to stay productive.
But still, I should have updated you all sooner. I am very sorry, and you all have my gratitude for your continual support. Thank you!
What state is the project in? How's Paradise coming along?
It's close to done! Matt K., my sterling editor, is chewing through line & copy edits, I am polishing off the last of the revisions to the back half (with excellent assistance from the highly knowledgeable Archon), the gorgeous planet illustrations from Loch are all complete, and layout is in progress. While I'm hesitant to make hard promises, I expect—hope—you'll have the PDFs in your digital hands within the next few weeks. Thank you all again for your patience.
To whet your appetite, here are a couple of sample spreads, the 1d100 table of Market Events. You roll these events when you pull into a new starport (or conduct market research to learn the event ahead of time), which primarily affect the sale price of various categories of freight but also sometimes other variables. Naturally, upscale S- and A-Class Ports are more likely to get the fun rich-people-party events, and X-Class ports more likely to get the spooky ominous derelict events. Take a gander:
Content mostly final
Content mostly final
The result is that in addition to ports' baseline traits, new things happen each time you dock. Market Events are one of the primary engines of cyclical sandbox play, pushing your ship and crew in new directions as you chase wealth and success across the Setebos System (or others, if you're feelin' adventurous). "Okay, our research came back: Helicanus Base is in the middle of a huge fad, so with their baseline scarcity factored in, their Consumer Goods are up to plus eight! That means with even like an average roll, these containers of furniture we picked up on Fluellen can sell for like, 900kcr a pop!"
When will we hear from you again?
Most likely, once the project is done! Possible I'll release another update with more previews before then—especially if there are any further unforeseen delays—but my hope this time is satisfy the little laziness-ambition demon in my ear and, as I said, just finish the damn thing.
If you want to make sure that I, Sam, am still alive, you can follow me on Bluesky, listen to Dead Letters, or check out my blog.
Thank you again for your patience and support. Talk to you all soon!
Many apologies for my long silence! You'll have to forgive me, it's been a hectic few months for yours truly.
Today's update will take the form of a Q&A.
Are you dead? Is the project still happening? Have you forgotten us?
No, I am not dead. Yes, Paradise is still happening. No, I have not forgotten all of you.
Naturally, I continue to appreciate your enthusiasm and support. Thank you.
Where have you been? What have you been doing all this time?
Busy!
In rough chronological order: recovering in cryosleep from OVER/UNDER (you can now read nearly all of lin codega's day-by-day diaries, if you're interested in one perspective); spending time with family over the holidays in a couple different states; finishing off various freelance gigs and contracts (like directsun's excellent A Familiar Tower); working on Cataphracts; teaching game design to students at the New School here in town; recording episodes of a podcast with my friends and fellow-academics Misha & Walid (it's called "Dead Letters," and you can listen to it now); noodling quietly on a few secret projects; and, of course, writing Another Day in Paradise.
How's Paradise going? What state is the project in?
Writing, writing, writing. The draft is still in progress, but well on its way. I'm chewing through rules, tables, and filling out the hexcrawl; Archon is helping me with planets and research; Matt and Luke stand waiting in the wings to descend with their developmental cleavers. Because I'm also doing the graphic design, I've been doing a lot of field testing to make sure the layout plays nice with the text, which has led to many revisions, but I think I've got a template that's mostly working. Likewise, I think I've finally started to crack certain rules snags—you would not believe how annoying it is to try to model planets that move and orbital mechanics—and so things are now going more smoothly.
Furthermore, now that many of my mid-winter projects are wrapped, shelved, or back-burnered, it's much easier to focus and work in earnest on Paradise. I don't have much to show off yet, as it's all still buried in a bunch of unlovely Google Docs, but rest assured that it's coming.
Expect juicier production updates soon.
What's the stretch goal patch going to look like?
This:
Design mostly (but not entirely) final.
It'll be a 2" iron-on patch, just like the others. Should be real cute as a set.
(If you're wondering, "Why a platypus?" I encourage you to go review your Shipbreaker's Toolkit, hehe.)
You mentioned an illustrator. Who's that going to be?
My good friend R. Devlin, better known as Locheil, whose work has appeared in my previous Mothership project, Time After Time, as well as others (like Archon's Owe My Soul to the Company Store).
April! I should have a little more to show off by then.
If I'm worried you're dead, where can I find signs of life?
I tweet on Bluesky with embarrassing frequency. I also sometimes post on my blog. If you're on the right Discord servers, you might well see me around, too.
Talk to you all soon. Thanks again for your long patience and support.
Funded! Almost instantaneously! Astounding! Thank you!
I'm extremely excited to share Another Day in Paradise with you all! I've been letting it simmer for many a month now, so it'll be delightful to have out in the world at all of your tables.
Tomorrow, I'll get the stretch goals updated, since it seems like we're smashing through my previous estimates.
If you want even more Mothership Month action, you should check out OVER/UNDER. The game started earlier this afternoon and we've already got something like 800 players active and running around. I've seen multiple competing news services, a casino, oddball phishing scams, numerous cults and sub-cults, complex political organization, an escrow money transfer service, somebody offering oxygen insurance, and probably more that I've missed. If you like play-by-post games or weird complex social-economic-political simulators, come on by.
Many things! It's been an extremely busy few months for yours truly: too many projects, myriad gigs and contracts, a spot of summer teaching, traveling for conventions, traveling to see family, and more.
As for my lack of updates, I am sorry about that. I am afflicted with a particular neuroticism, one that whispers in my ear, always saying "You should just wait until it's done! Why bother updating until you have something real to say? Just finish the damn thing and update them all then!"—and I admit I am often too confident in my own abilities, meaning I listen to that voice, feeling that surely this time the finish line is just around the corner. Obviously, as many of you have reminded me, I owe you more updates. I am sorry again about the silence.
It's also just been a very hard summer in my own personal life. The season opened with a breakup, then a dear friend moving away, then the sudden death of another. All those make it difficult to stay productive.
But still, I should have updated you all sooner. I am very sorry, and you all have my gratitude for your continual support. Thank you!
What state is the project in? How's Paradise coming along?
It's close to done! Matt K., my sterling editor, is chewing through line & copy edits, I am polishing off the last of the revisions to the back half (with excellent assistance from the highly knowledgeable Archon), the gorgeous planet illustrations from Loch are all complete, and layout is in progress. While I'm hesitant to make hard promises, I expect—hope—you'll have the PDFs in your digital hands within the next few weeks. Thank you all again for your patience.
To whet your appetite, here are a couple of sample spreads, the 1d100 table of Market Events. You roll these events when you pull into a new starport (or conduct market research to learn the event ahead of time), which primarily affect the sale price of various categories of freight but also sometimes other variables. Naturally, upscale S- and A-Class Ports are more likely to get the fun rich-people-party events, and X-Class ports more likely to get the spooky ominous derelict events. Take a gander:
Content mostly final
Content mostly final
The result is that in addition to ports' baseline traits, new things happen each time you dock. Market Events are one of the primary engines of cyclical sandbox play, pushing your ship and crew in new directions as you chase wealth and success across the Setebos System (or others, if you're feelin' adventurous). "Okay, our research came back: Helicanus Base is in the middle of a huge fad, so with their baseline scarcity factored in, their Consumer Goods are up to plus eight! That means with even like an average roll, these containers of furniture we picked up on Fluellen can sell for like, 900kcr a pop!"
When will we hear from you again?
Most likely, once the project is done! Possible I'll release another update with more previews before then—especially if there are any further unforeseen delays—but my hope this time is satisfy the little laziness-ambition demon in my ear and, as I said, just finish the damn thing.
If you want to make sure that I, Sam, am still alive, you can follow me on Bluesky, listen to Dead Letters, or check out my blog.
Thank you again for your patience and support. Talk to you all soon!
With the pre-order store come and gone and with digital files starting to appear, I was wondering if you are available to provide an update? Very excited to see what this module has to offer. Even Google Docs!
Many apologies for my long silence! You'll have to forgive me, it's been a hectic few months for yours truly.
Today's update will take the form of a Q&A.
Are you dead? Is the project still happening? Have you forgotten us?
No, I am not dead. Yes, Paradise is still happening. No, I have not forgotten all of you.
Naturally, I continue to appreciate your enthusiasm and support. Thank you.
Where have you been? What have you been doing all this time?
Busy!
In rough chronological order: recovering in cryosleep from OVER/UNDER (you can now read nearly all of lin codega's day-by-day diaries, if you're interested in one perspective); spending time with family over the holidays in a couple different states; finishing off various freelance gigs and contracts (like directsun's excellent A Familiar Tower); working on Cataphracts; teaching game design to students at the New School here in town; recording episodes of a podcast with my friends and fellow-academics Misha & Walid (it's called "Dead Letters," and you can listen to it now); noodling quietly on a few secret projects; and, of course, writing Another Day in Paradise.
How's Paradise going? What state is the project in?
Writing, writing, writing. The draft is still in progress, but well on its way. I'm chewing through rules, tables, and filling out the hexcrawl; Archon is helping me with planets and research; Matt and Luke stand waiting in the wings to descend with their developmental cleavers. Because I'm also doing the graphic design, I've been doing a lot of field testing to make sure the layout plays nice with the text, which has led to many revisions, but I think I've got a template that's mostly working. Likewise, I think I've finally started to crack certain rules snags—you would not believe how annoying it is to try to model planets that move and orbital mechanics—and so things are now going more smoothly.
Furthermore, now that many of my mid-winter projects are wrapped, shelved, or back-burnered, it's much easier to focus and work in earnest on Paradise. I don't have much to show off yet, as it's all still buried in a bunch of unlovely Google Docs, but rest assured that it's coming.
Expect juicier production updates soon.
What's the stretch goal patch going to look like?
This:
Design mostly (but not entirely) final.
It'll be a 2" iron-on patch, just like the others. Should be real cute as a set.
(If you're wondering, "Why a platypus?" I encourage you to go review your Shipbreaker's Toolkit, hehe.)
You mentioned an illustrator. Who's that going to be?
My good friend R. Devlin, better known as Locheil, whose work has appeared in my previous Mothership project, Time After Time, as well as others (like Archon's Owe My Soul to the Company Store).
April! I should have a little more to show off by then.
If I'm worried you're dead, where can I find signs of life?
I tweet on Bluesky with embarrassing frequency. I also sometimes post on my blog. If you're on the right Discord servers, you might well see me around, too.
Talk to you all soon. Thanks again for your long patience and support.
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