New year, new projects
January '25
Hey everyone,
It’s been a while since my last newsletter—I’m keeping my promise of sending these out just a few times a year.
Welcome to any new subscribers! I’ve got loads of news, so let’s get on with it…
Heavy Weighs the Crown is coming to Kickstarter on 1st February for ZineQuest!
Yes, a brand new game and it’s launching in less than two weeks!
FOLLOW THE PROJECT HERE TO BE NOTIFIED AT LAUNCH
Heavy Weighs the Crown is a game of magical crowns, the monarchs who wear them and the realms they rule over together.
👑 Based on the critically-acclaimed solo RPGs Bucket of Bolts and Artefact by Jack Harrison (my collaborator on this project!). Featuring Artwork by Torben Bökemeyer (Bucket of Bolts, Orbital, Notorious).
👑 Play from the perspective of the crown—watch monarchs come and go and help to decide the fate of the realm.
👑 Witness the founding of a kingdom and an age of glory. Meet naive and ambitious usurpers who oversee its decline. Then describe its ruination at the hands of great and terrible monarchs.
👑 Play on your own to enjoy the mindful process of solo journalling or play with your RPG group and create the history of a ruined realm together.
I originally wrote Heavy Weighs the Crown for the Lost & Found game jam in 2021 but I’ve always wanted to build on the idea and commission some artwork.
Jack and I have tried to keep it affordable, with free shipping on physical orders and some discounted digital bundles available as addons.
I hope you get a chance to check it out!
Here’s that link again to follow along
Speaking of Lost & Found games…
The other big project I’m working on at the moment is co-writing the new card-based Lost & Found Collection with Jack (late pledges still available at the link!).
We’ve been making some excellent progress and we’re close to completing Artefact before moving on to writing Bucket of Bolts and Counterpart.
It’s been really fun to work together more formally and I’m hoping we’ll be able to collaborate on more games in the future.
I’ve already pitched one big idea to him that looks like it may happen later this year or early 2026…
More on that some other time!
What else have I been up to?
I attended Dragonmeet in November, sharing a table with Jack (hence the Mousehole Press banner) and having a great time selling/chatting about my games.
It was only a one-day event but I was absolutely shattered by the end—it’s a lot of talking and standing.
But I got pretty good at pitching my games to people who have never heard of them before.
My biggest takeaway was Revolt! being way more popular than Notorious (which is easily my most widely-known game online).
I think there’s something about having a big table presence that draws people in who want to know what they’re looking at.
If I met you there, thanks for stopping by!
itch.io review drive
If you own (and enjoy) any of my games on itch.io I would love it if you could take a few seconds to give them a 5-star rating by following this link to your itch.io library.
It’s not that obvious how to rate games and reviews are hidden from the public, but it really helps to boost them (and feels good for designers, hah).
Links & miscellany
You can now follow me on Bluesky here as I move away from Twitter/X.
Revolt! made it onto the Indie Game Reading Club’s Roundup of 2024 as one of their Most Interesting Games with Notorious/Outsiders named as one of their Prettiest Games.
Lin Codega name-checked Notorious as one of the games they would save from a fire in this thought-provoking article on Rascal. Hope anyone who may have been affected by the LA fires is safe.
Physical copies of Outsiders recently sold out on the Always Checkers Publishing store, but I’m hoping to reprint before I head to UKGE in June.
Thanks for continuing to subscribe!
I’ll be back later in the year with updates on projects new and old as I finalise a few plans for exciting collabs and potentially, maybe a Notorious expansion.
Don’t forget to follow Heavy Weighs the Crown here before it launches on 1st Feb!
-Jason