This is such a great update to write, you have no idea how happy I am to write it!
SHIPPING UPDATE The pallets of books have arrived at White Squirrel, and they are shipping out books very soon(maybe even this week)!
I have put every Special Edition (that filled out their survey) into the mail! I hand-packed every single one of these orders and it was really wonderful to see familiar names on the shipping labels.
I wanted to send you a picture of the final PILE OF PACKAGES, but I'd have to redact so many visible addresses, so here is my assistant in her new USPS raincoat instead (it was a rainy day the day we shipped).
a small scruffy dog (her name is Bug) wearing a USPS padded priority mail envelope as a raincoat
(When I say things like "your package was packed by me or my assistant," I also have a human assistant; your packages are not covered in dog hair.)
All orders are now locked for fulfillment, but if you want additional copies of the book, they will be available after all the crowdfunding copies have been fulfilled. Copies of the Special Edition will also be available in my store after fulfillment, but due to some significant manufacturing errors of the book boxes which are basically impossible for me to reorder right now for both logistical and financial reasons, the edition is actually smaller than intended(there will only be about 150 copies of the full Special Edition after fulfillment, for a special edition of about 500 copies). The manufacturing errors really lower my margins on this project, but that's okay (it's not like...extremely okay, but I'll deal).
Next, I'm building custom altars for the highest level backers. These take several days each, and are hand-carved(I can't sustain carving for 8 hours a day, obviously).
SHIPPING I accidentally overcharged for shipping. Shipping costs HAVE gone up*, but especially at the Special Edition level, you were charged too much! I'm trying to figure out if I can batch process refunds...but it sounds like I have to do that manually so please be patient with me (I'll try to do them all in the next month)! If you backed at the book level in the United States, you'll get a refund in the $5-8 range, and Special Edition backers will get refunded around $10.
International backers were all undercharged - it cost me an average of $50 to send a Special Edition package internationally. I am sorry, international shipping really is difficult and costs a lot.
*and all other costs...let me tell ya', it is really not a good time to be making physically manufactured objects.
SURVEY STRAGGLERS After fulfillment is complete, I will be doing a check about every month for backers who have newly filled out their backer surveys. White Squirrel checks semi-regularly too. At the end of the year, I will likely bring fulfillment to a close and cancel all remaining orders (with refunds, if relevant). Remaining copies of the book will still be available via my store and any distro that carries it!
It's just me, there is actually no assembly line. I did miss getting the print order in before the Lunar New Year print factory break(my fault!) but it is in now(it is technically still Chinese New Year).
That said, the special editions are being assembled at my woodshop right now! I am personally assembling every single one of them! They look so nice, I am so excited. Also the gold foiled book boxes have been sitting in my studio space for years(they were the first thing I designed) and I am so excited to be ushering them outwards.
A reminder - if you got the special edition(or the very fancy edition), you are getting multiple shipments! I am shipping the special edition components; my fulfillment partners will be shipping the books.
Do you want to see some pictures?
the paper ephemera, to use in your journals. artisanally hand separated and stacked by yours truly.
the brass divination spinners, hand assembled by me or one of my assistants!
My little assembly station. I would not say I have a lot of space.
The first batch of shipments go out next Monday(If you live in California and your shipping charge went through, and you ordered the special edition, you're in the first batch! Sorry to other states, it was easier to segment by state and almost 20% of the special edition orders came from CA.)
I really love doing this, especially at a time where being an artist(and especially being a non-binary, queer, immigrant artist of color) feels like a very tenuous way to exist. Putting these together reminds me that there are people in the world who value the work of human hands(that are paid a not-high, but reasonable, wage), and making art slowly and with specificity. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for letting me make art for you.
Thank you for your patience. My city is also on fire right now and while my household is currently fine, the air quality is not great and we all know friends who're in more dire straits who have evacuated or lost their homes. To keep things easy and not fumble around with itch.io codes(although those will be sent out so you can add this to your itch.io libraries), I am simply giving you a link to the final(pending some very minor edits) digital version of the Bird Oracle game via Dropbox. There is a version in pages(better for printing) and a version in spreads(better for reading on a screen). I am planning on sending this off to print next week but may have missed my window to avoid the Chinese New Year break at print factories. I'll keep you updated on when the book will ship, but I am hoping that it will be by the end of February!
The cover of The Bird Oracle. I had to revise it from the crowdfunding mages, but I like this one better
Meanwhile, almost all of the special edition objects have arrived at my studio, and I'll be assembling them starting this week! If you pledged to a special edition, your special edition items and your book will be arriving separately(I'm covering the extra shipping).
I'm hoping to send out backer surveys soon - setting up the Backerkit pledge manager took some time(god, I miss the simplicity of the Kickstarter system, and will be returning to that with my next project), and I haven't gotten approval from Backerkit to send out those surveys yet. Please keep an eye out for them - I really want to send them out and begin shipping special editions next week!
The introduction of the game explains a little why I ended up delaying the game by a couple months, and ultimately, putting out a project that I’m not absolutely delighted with. Don’t get me wrong - I think many things about it are good - but this project was meant to be an end to my larger Oraclebird project, a project which has spanned the end of several relationships, a couple moves, and six years of inhabiting a character that is a version of myself - and that was ultimately, too much for one small game too hold. Working on this game for longer would not make it the game I thought it could become. This game here is the game I promised, a short game about oracles and finding community; I simply expected it to be a container for too many feelings and too many parts of my life, and that was an unreasonable expectation.
Fundamentally, a lot of my work as an artist is the work of process, and sharing this with you is part of my process. I think a lot of people who follow my work know that, and are interested in the very fallible process of making work and being an artist. Perhaps there will be a variant or expansion on this game in the coming year(you will get it for free, of course) where I continue to figure out my feelings regarding this game - but in the meantime, I feel paralyzed by not fulfilling my material obligations to you, and I would like to deliver this game.
The Bird Oracle will be late! Not too late, just by about three or four months, which I think is honestly pretty good by games crowdfunding standards. I've got some progress pictures if you scroll down but I'm about to offer you some apology FREE STUFF so don't scroll too fast.
This delay, while not egregious, does means that I will almost certainly miss holiday shipping deadlines. Most likely, the books will be able to arrive *just in time* for rush shipping, but in order to avoid overtaxing my fulfillment folks AND myself(I am shipping the special editions myself) around holiday shipping time and risking all sorts of post office issues, I will choose to delay shipping until January/February. However, the digital versions of the book will be ready by December, probably earlier!
As an apology for the delay, I will send a limited edition card print to you or your recipient(or to you). But this is an OPT IN, and you can fill out this form to get this card/print: https://forms.gle/FwbATZLVBqqF2RuV8
This is not your address collection, just where you want this card/print to go to. It will be accompanied by a little note apologizing for the delay! (The card will be in-world and you can use it in the game, if you choose to scrapbook.)
Okay, here is some progress on the game...
Here are some of the images in the game, although they are somewhat without context(intentionally)!
an image of a small cottage, labelled Cottage No. 51
A letter from the Association of Oracles
A rooster appears on a postcard.
A typewritten entry in a "divination tracker" from the Association of Oracles
The actual reason for the lateness is because I was going to make this game solo, without any guest writers or artists, because the Oraclebird was a project that took up so many years of my life, and was so deeply personal, and it felt like I should keep this end of the Oraclebird project close to me. But I kept on meeting amazing people(both new and old) with incredible ideas and I kept on being surrounded by art and artists I love and it simply did not feel right to make a game without some of them. So, I had to ask them, and I had to extend my deadlines(and rework my budget to pay them), but I do think the game is going to be so much more lovely and nuanced with these additional voices in it.
Here are some of them:
Jameson Alea is making letterpress prints. that will be used as part of some epistolary work in-game(most of the game is epistolary). They are also the creator of the Tarot of Sorts, which is one of my fave Major Arcana decks. Here are some images from their letterpress printing process, which is extremely analog and slow - which is why I like it.
Jameson's letterpress blocks!
One of the prints, fresh off the rollers
I just met Younes Rabii at an unconference hosted by a mutual friend, and watched them perform a "pocket divination," which was so deeply elegant and simple that I begged them to please document it for this game. I did not take a picture of the spread because it was very dark(the lighting, not the tone), and the divination included some credit cards(it will make sense when you see it), but here is a website of an card-based Oracle they made recently that uses paint chip cards(this is in turn, an idea by Em Haverty).
Emerald Barkley and Nicole Gustafsson are two of my absolute favorite illustrators and they’re graciously allowing me to license some of their bird art! Here is one of Emerald's pieces.
I've been spending a ton of time assembling divination spinners for the special editions. They are so nice, though. The book boxes(not books) for the special edition have actually been in my studio for over a year. You can rest very assured that I am desperate to ship this game because I want these boxes OUT. I'll send you pictures of all those in the next update; my studio is under some serious reorganization.
Here is my revised schedule:
December 2024: Digital copies of The Bird Oracle available:
January 2025: Shipping for the edition of the Bird Oracle(this is the real fancy one)
February-March 2025: Shipping for all other editions of the Bird Oracle
Thank you for your patience! I appreciate you very much and am excited to finish this game soon!
Thank you so much. I ran The Bird Oracle as an intentionally lightweight campaign and I am happy I did. I get to make this game for you, and it will be exactly the game I want to make, how I want to make it. I am constantly awed at how your support has made it possible for me to make work on my own terms, with the interesting material I enjoy working with, with a somewhat messy artistic process that still produces a strange little game at the end.
What's next?
Well, now I keep my head down and make the game. Expect an update in a couple months, but likely no sooner, because I'm really trying to get the book finished before the summer!
I'm also getting through the truly immense pile of mail I've been sent by people who wanted Oraclebird cards! The first batch of about a hundred has been sent out to the early birds, but I still have about another hundred or so to get through(most people were not early birds). It has been a joy getting all these little notes in the mail and it is one of my most treasured parts of this process, even if it does not make much sense as a marketing strategy.
Here are some pictures from the FIRST batch of mail I received by mid February! After this things got a bit less aesthetically appealing because they needed to go into a more practical workflow(involving ugly plastic buckets) but there is a lot more mail(about four times as much now).
First batch of mail!
little precious notes.
And the Oraclebird cards are going out - I've mailed about a hundred and have another 30 queued up to go out today! I'll be mailing them out until the end of the month.
If you are in the Los Angeles area, I am teaching a FREE workshop on Worldbuilding and Ritual Games at the end of the month at the Fisher Museum. This is the last day the physical Oraclebird installation is up too. It does require registration(I think "tickets" go up March 18th) and space is limited, though.
Again, thank you for your support. I cannot wait to share this game with you.
Thank you for supporting the Oraclebird(with some non-topical marionette content)!
We funded in an hour, and the total keeps on rising. Thank you so much for trusting me to make you a beautiful game and send it to you. I get a little teary sometimes thinking of the fact that I get to make weird personal work with my heart and hands outside the bounds of industry and people actually say “yeah, I am also interested in these things you are into.”
There are no stretch goals for this campaign - I don’t really like the vibe of constantly pushing to make more money by making unnecessary things and driving the final pledge amount up. The game, in its current form, at this current pledge level, is already the game I want to make. It is a strange and specific game, and if you know someone who might like it - please tell them about it! Word-of-mouth is truly crucial for a campaign like this. A higher pledge amount does give me more room to experiment with fancy book elements, and more ability to hire people to help me out with production, fulfillment at my studio, and other parts of the book and game! It makes my life and my work easier. I will not post too many updates during the campaign unless I have substantial updates to share(process photos, previews, etc), and I won't be posting any marketing-only updates. I'm so lucky to have a following that has kept up with collecting my work through so many medium and genre changes over the years and I respect their(your!) time and mine!
I’ve been working on different parts of the Oraclebird project for years, and one of its incarnations has been an interactive installation(its first incarnation, actually!). I’ve rebuilt that installation, added more cards, and it is actually up right now at the Fisher Museum of Art in Los Angeles, as part of the Scene Shift exhibit until mid-April. If you are in Los Angeles, you can visit it and get your fortune!
In other art museum/gallery news, I am in Alabama right now on a visiting artist fellowship with Auburn University and if you are in the area, I'll have a new collection of marionettes up next Thursday in a show in Biggin Gallery(in Biggin Hall). The show is called beasts and serpents, and the opening is 5-7 CST, Feb 8th(artist lecture at 5pm, gallery reception afterwards).
A beetle marionette
It is not precisely Oraclebird related, but if you pledged for or follow this game I have to assume that you like rooting around in libraries and old books, so I want you to know that I got to visit and touch a very old book that my new collection of marionettes was inspired by(Topsell's Four Footed Beasts and Serpents, in the Auburn Special Collections)!
A dragon marionette, in front of the illustration it was inspired by.
Some other game projects I am excited about!
The Magus and the Oracle: I think momatoes is one of the most interesting designers and artists working in the TTRPG space today. This is a bit of a reboot of her earlier RPG The Magus, and adds an oracle deck to the game. One of the things that makes momatoes' work unique is that her games tend to crunchiness, which is pretty rare for solo journalling games.
Your Friend in Witchcraft: Kay Allen, who is on my Discord, designed this game and it looks absolutely charming. I love letter-writing games and this seems to have really lovely, cozy vibes.
Emerald Barkley's new Fever Dream merch collection is not a game, but I think their work is gorgeous and I pre-ordered a print for my studio. And they did write a game for my tarot zine, which I hope to get online as a free .pdf soon!
Alright, thanks for reading and supporting me! I appreciate you!
Hello,
Life got away from me this year and I have noticed that my Special Edition is still pending in the manager. I go the standard book from White Squirrel but I was wondering if I got lost in the shuffle or my delivery was lost in the post.
Thank you for your time,
Patrick
Hi there! I asked in comments to the last update but haven't received a response, so thought I'd try again here. When will the Community Play Month take place? Thanks!
This is such a great update to write, you have no idea how happy I am to write it!
SHIPPING UPDATE The pallets of books have arrived at White Squirrel, and they are shipping out books very soon(maybe even this week)!
I have put every Special Edition (that filled out their survey) into the mail! I hand-packed every single one of these orders and it was really wonderful to see familiar names on the shipping labels.
I wanted to send you a picture of the final PILE OF PACKAGES, but I'd have to redact so many visible addresses, so here is my assistant in her new USPS raincoat instead (it was a rainy day the day we shipped).
a small scruffy dog (her name is Bug) wearing a USPS padded priority mail envelope as a raincoat
(When I say things like "your package was packed by me or my assistant," I also have a human assistant; your packages are not covered in dog hair.)
All orders are now locked for fulfillment, but if you want additional copies of the book, they will be available after all the crowdfunding copies have been fulfilled. Copies of the Special Edition will also be available in my store after fulfillment, but due to some significant manufacturing errors of the book boxes which are basically impossible for me to reorder right now for both logistical and financial reasons, the edition is actually smaller than intended(there will only be about 150 copies of the full Special Edition after fulfillment, for a special edition of about 500 copies). The manufacturing errors really lower my margins on this project, but that's okay (it's not like...extremely okay, but I'll deal).
Next, I'm building custom altars for the highest level backers. These take several days each, and are hand-carved(I can't sustain carving for 8 hours a day, obviously).
SHIPPING I accidentally overcharged for shipping. Shipping costs HAVE gone up*, but especially at the Special Edition level, you were charged too much! I'm trying to figure out if I can batch process refunds...but it sounds like I have to do that manually so please be patient with me (I'll try to do them all in the next month)! If you backed at the book level in the United States, you'll get a refund in the $5-8 range, and Special Edition backers will get refunded around $10.
International backers were all undercharged - it cost me an average of $50 to send a Special Edition package internationally. I am sorry, international shipping really is difficult and costs a lot.
*and all other costs...let me tell ya', it is really not a good time to be making physically manufactured objects.
SURVEY STRAGGLERS After fulfillment is complete, I will be doing a check about every month for backers who have newly filled out their backer surveys. White Squirrel checks semi-regularly too. At the end of the year, I will likely bring fulfillment to a close and cancel all remaining orders (with refunds, if relevant). Remaining copies of the book will still be available via my store and any distro that carries it!
I just came here to verify my address for the book. I didn't need to change anything. But when I looked at the shipping it seemed like a lot more. It increased from $10 to $18.
I really wish you had made an announcement about the shipping increase. I just was making sure my address was the same. Why the steep increase?
It's just me, there is actually no assembly line. I did miss getting the print order in before the Lunar New Year print factory break(my fault!) but it is in now(it is technically still Chinese New Year).
That said, the special editions are being assembled at my woodshop right now! I am personally assembling every single one of them! They look so nice, I am so excited. Also the gold foiled book boxes have been sitting in my studio space for years(they were the first thing I designed) and I am so excited to be ushering them outwards.
A reminder - if you got the special edition(or the very fancy edition), you are getting multiple shipments! I am shipping the special edition components; my fulfillment partners will be shipping the books.
Do you want to see some pictures?
the paper ephemera, to use in your journals. artisanally hand separated and stacked by yours truly.
the brass divination spinners, hand assembled by me or one of my assistants!
My little assembly station. I would not say I have a lot of space.
The first batch of shipments go out next Monday(If you live in California and your shipping charge went through, and you ordered the special edition, you're in the first batch! Sorry to other states, it was easier to segment by state and almost 20% of the special edition orders came from CA.)
I really love doing this, especially at a time where being an artist(and especially being a non-binary, queer, immigrant artist of color) feels like a very tenuous way to exist. Putting these together reminds me that there are people in the world who value the work of human hands(that are paid a not-high, but reasonable, wage), and making art slowly and with specificity. Thank you for your patience, and thank you for letting me make art for you.
