This is a mostly intact copy of the newsletter I sent out this morning. I'm curious if it is going to post because I tried to share the last newsletter here and it didn't actually appear. Anywhere.
Long story short: Item 3 mentions that the printer I was testing is not up to snuff so now I have to find a new printer. Finding a competent, trustworthy printer in the USA is seemingly impossible and I think I'm going to have choose a reputable place overseas. I still expect the two books will be printed this summer but if it's overseas then that pushes the actual shipping date back a month or whatever.
I'll try and keep better track of the Backerkit comments, too.
If you want to sign up for the newsletter direct it is here: https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/pages/newsletter-sign-up
-tim h
ITEM 1: UNSTEADY PROGRESS
I'm very, very happy with the second game I'm delivering alongside So You've Met A Thousand Year Old Vampire.
The game is about your character having a series of conversations with a vampire* who is, in some way, constrained by a third party. It's distinct enough from SYMA and TYOV that it was weeks before I realized that there was a clear connection between it and SYMA via "You are meeting a vampire and learning about it". It's painfully, embarrassingly clear connection that just didn't click because they feels so different in play.
Back when I was teaching I'd tell my students to say the most obvious things about whatever it was we were discussing. The most obvious things can be nearly invisible because they are so obvious we don't stop to think about them. In this case, I failed to see the obvious thing about the two games and I am suitably chagrined. But, to be fair to me, it is more of a discussion technique than something you do alone in your garage.
Toward the end of my teaching I also tried to sell my students on "question harvesting", meaning that when you are listening to a lecturer or speaker you should be very intentional about finding and writing down questions you can ask the speaker about at the end of their presentation.
I'd tell them that they don't have to even be that interested in the questions they were preparing, they just needed to generate questions to have them ready in case no one else asked a question at the conclusion of the talk. Having a question ready was a courtesy to the speaker. It's polite.
Another obvious thing I took far too long to notice about the vampire-conversation game was that "question harvesting" was itself a mechanic in the game. Each round is made up of a chunk of dialogue which, hopefully, generates a new capital-Q Question that you can ask your interview subject.
Final obvious thing I missed: I worked on this for weeks before I connected it with Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, a book I think I read when I was a kid. I didn't make that connection until I started worrying about a name for the second game and Interview with a Thousand Year Old Vampire suggested itself. "Ah," I said to myself.
* In both SYMA and VAPR (that's the arbitrary code name for the second game) vampireness is a spectrum. I really, really want players to let the Prompts and narrative building tell you what the Vampire is rather than the player insisting on writing their own idea of vampireness onto the Vampire. The best games I've had of SYMA are the games in which I'm not quite sure WHAT that person was, and just maybe they were just a very willful character with odd values.
ITEM 2: WOMEN IN REFLECTION
Above are two collages I put together in Photoshop that will go into one or the other of the two books. Neither is quite done.
I've said before that I easily fall out of working on words and, if I'm lucky, I get caught in the safety net of working on pictures to go with words. Sometimes, though, the picture work is a comically large butterfly net that catches me and takes me away from wordworking.
Pictures are good but I got enough of 'em, I gotta focus on putting words in the proper order.
The two collages above pushed my "this is interesting" button, though, because they are combinations of figures from photographs and realistic paintings/sculpture. But this isn't about the nude/naked thing as much as the "photographic record blurred by mixing in a painting that reads as real in the photographic context."
I'm also looking for a new printer, which sucks. Worse than that, I think I'm throwing in the towel on printing in the USA. I've seen some stunning-yet-affordable books coming from printers in Eastern Europe but, honestly, I am through with trusting unproven printers. I'm going to find an established company in Asia and trust them to do good, consistent work.
ITEM 4: ...AND SPEAKING OF CHINAThe folks producing a Chinese translation of TYOV did an -incredible- job. Visually, I mean, because they translated every darned word in the book–including the inserted newspaper articles and things. Seamless job. I have no idea if the actual translation is any good.While reviewing the translation PDF I realized I'd inadvertently hit a life goal that I didn't know I had: A translation of my work needed footnotes.
I mean, lookit this. We've come full circle.
ITEM 5: STATISTERSTICS
(I just editing this out of the Backerkit posting because it is too long and too boring and because I have to go through the copy-and-pasted text and put back in the line breaks and I don't think it is worth it.)
ITEM 6: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THING?
I was poring over the Chinese TYOV PDF and saw the thing up above. A taped piece of paper tucked into the gutter in the appendices.
"What a weird mistake," I though. "It looks like InDesign substituted one image file for another."
People. Friends. It's been like that always, from the first PDF file I released. That's the final layout in TYOV. I clearly made a mistake or didn't notice when InDesign substituted one file for another.
Hilarious.
ITEM 7: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS THING? (PART 2)
(I removed this part, and the "other business" stuff too. You ain't missing nothing.)
Let's see if I can post the whole newsletter in here...Oof. It doesn't paste in with the carriage returns. Well, I'll leave it below as an experiment and so you can look at the picture.
Summary: Gotten lots done, solved an onboarding problem that was hanging me up, making too much art. I expect the games to ship this summer.
New news: I might have to try a different printer.
If you want the deluxe version of the newsletter WITH hoity-toity return-button presses you can sign up here: https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/pages/newsletter-sign-up
Last news: I'll be at GDC this Friday as part of the Warped Inputs event. Come say hello, should you be so inclined.
Unreturned newsletter follows sign off.
High fives, Tim H
ITEM 1: UPDATERYAll is well. All is really good, actually. I mean, not all-all. There are all sorts of horrible things happening in the world–Kansas, religious end-times hysteria being ginned up in the US military, all sorts of terribleness that is all the more terrible because it is unnecessary. That falls outside the scope of my ‘all’. You can measure the ‘all’ I’m referring to above as whatever is within arm’s reach of me, or that I can wrap my arms around. It is a small, incredibly selfish allness I speak of, and it is doomed to failure because I shall eventually sicken in increments and die. “I am good” will become greasier, sliding from “I am pleased with my productivity and am somewhat happy” to “Today I am not experiencing as much pain as usual” and onward.Fuck. I started out to share good news and just look at me. I just wrote “Okay, okay, okay” which in itself rattled my personal sense of wellness. It was what I used to say to the class when we were on an interesting topic that had diverged too far from where we needed to be. It used to be how I signaled that we needed to refocus our thinking and now it just reminds me that I miss teaching.So let’s not talk about allness and wellness but just focus on the business we really care about. Here’s the opening page spread of So You’ve Met A Thousand Year Old Vampire. It ain't finished but it is finished enough to share. You might consider it a “proof of life” showing that the book is underway but it could just as easily be an ear sent in the mail–no indication at all that anything is alive but just that I had the body at some point. (Holy shit, I’m really in a mood.)I’m proud of the opening page spread. The opening “drop cap” was a real problem. As you can see I am following TYOV’s look because, duh, that makes sense in a sister book. TYOV’s intro paragraph started with an awesome bleeding letter T. Behind the T is a child being harassed by a vulture. Perfect. Too perfect–I couldn’t figure out how to make anything that measured up to it. I couldn’t even figure out what sources I cobbled that handsome T out of it. Stupid shit like this sticks with me and the solution, like with shit, is to let it heap up and slowly turn to rich dirt. That takes time, though. There have been a hundred little composting-style hang-ups slowing up this book and I’ve been blazing my way through them over the past month or so. It’s been great and allowed me the attempt at the “All is well” up above. But yeah, I’m super happy with the floral letter C drop cap. Here’s an early version so you can see what I started with:(That is a big letter C graphic. Shopify changed the layout tools and I can't figure out how to make it smaller without going all the way back to my desktop.)Anyways, I dug this C out of a book or some old magazine. Can't remember. The mouse came from a fancy title calligraphy thing I did for a Chinese translation of TYOV, I dunno if they are going to use it or not but I am using the mouse here, too. It's my shrike-impaled mouse, I can do what I like with it.From there the drop cap grew organically. I had no plan but followed the logic of what was offered. The mouse's tail grew into a parallel set of floral decorations. The mouse-flowers pour blood in a manner that echoes the bleeding drop cap in TYOV. Perfect. Then I was all like "Oh hey, let's have the vines wander all the way over the page" and then I was reducing and modifying the introductory text to fit around the dropcap noise and this is exactly not how you efficiently make a book. Nonetheless, I was enjoying the making.This is not an efficient process. I bet I spent eight hours total on drop cap fuckery. And I'm sure I'll go back to it. There's room for more floralness in there. I'll both reward myself with making-vine-time and put it on my 'wheel spinning and do not know what to do' list.An old student of mine wrote me with a question about defining 'art games' and, in my response, I couldn't help but talk about my own game making in relation to the definitions I was offering.After offering up an over-wide definition of art games as "A game that uses or addresses critical tools/methodologies/goals usually associated with more traditional art forms or modes of inquiry" I reflected:This is where I live, I think. I produce idiosyncratic systems that are (ideally) inextricably tied to their subject–this is a late modernist/minimalist art thing. Fold in a little "self-awareness of the artwork and its maker" and we can argue that my games come from a maker whose practice (and self) has been pickled in the "general high culture" brine. Add in some additional stuff like the romantic "solo producer beholden to no one, making what they make uncaring of commercial success" and "experimentation and novelty over refinement of existing methods" and the art game label gets labelier.The above is extracted from a personal email so forgive its lack of rigor and cohesiveness.I'm sharing this because of the "solo producer beholden to no one" line. Because of the SYMA Kickstarter that isn't true. I'm working for all of you folks. None of you are giving me specific instructions on how to do my work but I owe you a thing that meets certain criteria. The "idiosyncratic systems" line refers both to what I've made and to how I make it, and my stupid "I will spend eight hours on the drop cap and will allow myself more time on it as a treat" is part of that. Idiosyncratic methods don't align well with deadlines.There's not really a solution to this that doesn't detract from the outcomes for everyone involved. Going forward I'm not going to do a Kickstarter until I have files ready for the printer. It is an easy, obvious solution that's good for everyone. In the meantime I will be idiosyncraticing away at highest possible speed and avoiding the miseries that will distract me from my appointed tasks.I'm expecting you'll get the SYMA books this summer.ITEM 2: ON COMPLICITYThe illustrations in the spread above originally had the captions "You can fuck it..." on the left one and on the right "...or dissolve it with carbolic acid. It's up to you."I was advised against using the captions not because of their flip crassness but because they were redundant when paired with the images.To talk about the "idiosyncratic" thing some more, SYMA is going slower because I'm trying to make a game that is more accessible to more people. Often when I make a game it is just for me and a couple of friends, like I'm putting on a little party–the vampire games have a wider audience and I'm no longer allowed that sort of laxness.A year or two ago a Reddit comment said something like "TYOV's character creation told me to just think up a guy and I couldn't do that so I put it away" and was I pleased because the collages are in SYMA to fix address issue with a bazillion visual prompts.The collages are a great overlap between "serving the needs of the many" and "I get to spend way too much time on my previously mentioned idiosyncracynessing."Complicity and the nature of evil also slowed down the book as I tried to wrap my head around the lightning fast evolution of cruelty and selfishness over the past year or two. How dare I make games when things are this awful? How dare I make games that make you feel bad at a time when we need to be practicing revolutionary joy and preparing to defend our neighbors when their doors are kicked in?ITEM 3: CARBOLIC ACIDI was rereading the TYOV rules the other day, admiring text that felt like it was written by someone else. Anyways, I was surprised to see that "carboys of acid" was an example Resource and up above one of the illustrations is of someone pouring carboys of what is presumably acid into a pit.A Lovecraft story ended that way, now that I think about it.ITEM 4: ONBOARDINGSYMA's rules are simple but they are hard to explain. I've been struggling with balancing too much and too little rules explaining. I took the character making "Begin Play" section and added step-by-step instructions on how to play your first few rounds, then moved it all up to the front of the book. It was a good move.This fixed the onboarding problem because the problem wasn't teaching people how to play, it was separating out the people who wanted thorough instructions from the people who could jump right in. The detailed rules are there for the people that want to read them all and can be easily referenced by the jump-right-in-ers who need to know how to Check the Coffin or whatever.ITEM 5: DO I GDC?I put the most practical and time-sensitive thing at the end, of course, because no self-sabotage is too good for me.I've been offered a free 'showcase' time slot at one of the GDC side tents and I'm thinking I'm going to take it. It'll cost me travel money and time and the misery of sitting in a busy con space being ignored, but I'll probably never get to GDC again so...What actually happens when someone is presenting a game at GDC? I'm almost clueless. What does one do in the wider con aside from go to talks and look at things? I went to PAX West and was so disinterested that left early.I also don't really know what I should be showing, or how.If I go I will probably be there Thursday and Friday. I'm interested in the Lost Levels unconference–is there anything else I should see?If you have advice you can reply to this email. If I get too swamped I might not give a good (or any) reply so apologies in advance.OTHER BUSINESS1. As a bad scary-game business guy I failed to write a newsletter for Friday the 13th last month and, because I'm sending this one now, I won't write one for the 13th this month.2. The cold weather has made the stain transfer art things (see below) impractical to make. Too cold to get my hands and clothes all wet. When it got into the 50s a couple of weeks ago I tried making some and the cold weather, I think, prevents the stain transfer process from happening as expected. Slows it way down or maybe inhibits it altogether.3. I still haven't gotten the NOTE notebooks back from the new printer. I'm running out of TYOVs and placed an order with the same new printer, maybe a dumb move but I had little choice.4. Did I share this link in which someone talks about how writing TYOV Experiences helped them figure out how to real-life journal better?: https://alexanderbjoy.com/two-sentence-journal/5. We have a small Portland, Oregon game design group that meets up once a week. Reply to this email if you want to be put on the invite list.6. I played the online game REPO with some friends last weekend. I'd never really played a 'friendslop' type game before and it was great fun.Okay, that's all! Thank you for reading this!Tim H
I've had talks with the printer and some industry folks and I've decided to break the 640 page SYMA book into two 320 page books. This makes a lot of sense logistically, I've been assured, and I think it is a better use of the page count.
The first book will be the So You've Met A Thousand Year Old Vampire as described but without as many collages. The 'text page' count will remain the same. The second book will be about turning into a vampire, which is the next game in the series anyways and this will all be very efficient.
You backers will get both books, of course.
This is good, I promise. If you are distressed at the changes I can refund your dough. Ain't no hurt feelings on my part.
In other TYOV news, there are now 'playable bookmarks' available which complicate your Prompt answering. You can buy 'em now, if you are so inclined, at thousandyearoldvampire.com. You'll probably get them by Christmas if you order today or tomorrow. Or you can wait and add them to your Backerkit pledge later.
So yeah, two books. The decision has me excited. Invigorated, even.
At this point it is unrealistic for me to expect that the game will be shipped by the end of the year. Heck of a bummer of a thing to say, but there it is. My guess is that it'll be at the printer by New Year's.
The good news is that everything has been progressing nicely over the past month or two. Something in me uncorked and I think I know what and I hope it stays that way.
Other news is that the notebook should leave the printer soon and I expect to have a copy in hand by the end of next week. That's the big test for the new printer because I'm sure as heck not trusting anyone with as big a project as SYMA without testing them out first.
I'll be sending out a newsletter soon talking about this in a slightly less "public facing professional" way. You can sign up for that the bottom of thousandyearoldvampire.com.
...and I'm waiting to hear back from them for a timeline.
After some really bad experiences with Sheridan I am taking it slow with the printer. I'm going to print the notebook first and when that goes right I'll send the main game book.
To be clear, the main game book isn't done. Needs layout finished, needs an edit pass.
