It's been awhile, huh

The last newsletter I sent was last year March, right before Celestial Bodies crowdfunded. The last proper-update newsletter I sent was November 2024. I sure hope nothing's changed in the world since then.

If you're on this list, it's because you either were on my buttondown newsletter or you subscribed to my substack like a year after it was shut down in favor of said buttondown newsletter. (Or both.) In any case my various posts will be here going forward (or in your inbox, if you subscribe there).

My archive of previous posts is still here for now. Maybe I'll port it over, maybe not. It's a new day.

In case you don't follow me anywhere else, hi! Let's get up to date with what I've been doing since November 2024.

Crowdfunds and Releases

I sure did a whole lot of both of those.

Celestial Bodies

​The Celestial Bodies crowdfund was a great success! We overfunded by about $20,000.

Since then I've overhauled a few key systems in the game - mission generation and faction relations, in addition to widespread mechanical tweaks - and updated/inserted all of the new content. It's gone through dev editing and is almost out of line editing. I'm hoping to release a bare-bones version so people can at least, like, see the new rules by the end of the year.

NULL_SPACE and VOID_SHIFT

I released two games in my Bad Times In Space Extended Universe! (It's not actually called that, but they're sister games in the same setting.)

​VOID_SHIFT released fall 2025. It's a solo card game where you assemble a crew (e.g. build a deck) and do some repair, retrieval, or similar blue-collar task in space for an employer. Finish the job in time or you're fired! It's sold in a cassette case with five dice, if that gets your attention.

​NULL_SPACE itchfunded last February to great success! It's an RPG in the same universe, but instead of working for someone in particular, you're freelancers with a ship trying to get by in a universe that doesn't care about you. It comes with the main book, two pamphlet jobs, and two larger jobs.

I've also released a half-laid-out version of NULL_SPACE's first supplement, Supplement #1, Violence - which is about, well, violence - and a fifth job that I released separately (for free!)

Total//Effect SRD v2

I released version 2 of the SRD. It's on my website and also I made a proper laid out version this time around.

Death Has Come to This Town

For Minimalist TTRPG Jam 4 I screamed a game into being: Death Has Come To This Town is a fairly rigid 3-person theatrical game about the likely demise of a town. The original version was extremely minimal, but I eventually made a laid out version, which you can get on my shop (it's printed on newsprint, which feels very cool).

HARDPLACE and HARDFACE

I released HARDPLACE and HARDFACE, the former in December of 2024 and the latter in June of 2025! These were a lot of fun to write.

Trespasser v2

I revamped Trespasser, one of my older games, for the re-release of Breathless!

Writing

I've written a bunch of stuff since November 2024.

Blogwagon Entries

An event and a deadline is the only way to get me writing short-form.

• ​Valiant Horizon, Magic, Nature, and the Elements is about why magic in Valiant Horizon is the way it is. (Blogwagon: The Elements)
• ​Religion is too good for Clerics. is about how much I dislike the concept of the D&D Cleric and how it warps the religion of a setting around its presence. (Blogwagon: Clerics)
• ​The Hole at the Center of the Mech gets into why I don't have social anything in APOCALYPSE FRAME (Blogwagon: Holes)
• ​An (incomplete) Appendix N is, well, it's that. (Blogwagon: Appendicitis N)
• ​A Clock with Discrete Faces is a very quick hit about roll-under clocks (Blogwagon: randomness)

Devlogs

I also love navel-gazing about my own games. Love it to death.

• ​Staring into the (Liminal) Void, 2 years in is an early called shot about the direction of the game that would eventually become NULL_SPACE.
• ​Combat Without Combat was the one that really served as the proper foundation for NULL_SPACE's biggest tech: the removal of a combat system as such.
• ​Devlog Has Come to This Town is one I wrote right after playtesting Death Has Come to This Town's initial version. In the end I took some of these notes to heart and ignored others.
• ​On Space and Cyberpunk is a post I wrote during the NULL_SPACE itchfund to get into why my vision of space looks so much like cyberpunk, and what I want out of it generally. (It also just gets into what modern-derived instead of retro-derived cyberpunk can even be.)
• ​And Now For Something Completely Different is a post I wrote about a project that stalled out, Valiant Horizon Tactics, a new direction for it, and then something went off the rails and I made a bunch of input-to-output flowcharts for RUNE, REAP, VHT, and this new thing. (Which has since changed a little since then. So it goes.)
• ​Violence Without* Combat outlines my goals in making NULL_SPACE's first supplement, Violence.
• ​Five Years in the Apocalypse is about the five year anniversary of APOCALYPSE FRAME being published, and a stealth announcement of APOCALYPSE FRAME 2E.
• ​Post-Apocalypse #1: Rolls and risks, in-game and out is about how I'm changing rolling in APOCALYPSE FRAME 2E.
• ​Post-Apocalypse #2: The Death of Tags is about how I'm changing armaments, systems, and enemies in AF 2E (hint: it involves killing tags).

Long-Form

I write about one or two Big For-Real Posts a year too. I'm due for another one soon, I suppose.

• ​Conflict as Motivation and Resolution melds a lot of ideas I've had over the years about the shape that combat and conflict can take in a game into one post. It got nominated for a bloggie! (And then knocked out round 1. That's life.)
• ​2025 Year In Review (not by numbers) is out. The numbers version will probably be next year because due to the crowdfund skewing things hard (and the fact that I'm still waiting to spend a lot of that money) it's kind of hard to write in context of one year.

Community

This has been an odd couple of years for a lot of reasons. I've had a lot more time to do things though!

• I co-founded Paper Cult Club, a TTRPG forum. It's still going a year and a half later!
• I've been working a lot with Designed in the DMV to help further the local dev community in its first full year. To that end, I laid out a Free RPG Day zine for Designed in the DMV in spring/summer 2025, and helped distribute it to a few stores, as well as a few little zines for various events.
• I went to a few local events and met a bunch of people. I even helped run one in 2025 and spoke on a panel there!
• I ran Minimalist Jam, twice.
• I ran Total//Effect//Jam.
• I helped run Paper Cult Club's anniversary jam.
• As of right now, I sent this newsletter. I'm counting it.

Looking forward this year

So that's what I've been doing. What am I going to do going forward?

• Celestial Bodies will keep rolling on. As mentioned, my hope is that I'll have something out by the end of the year for backers.
• I'm continuing to develop AF 2E, and will keep writing about that.
• An unreasonably large swing is coming for Minimalist Jam - so ideally in the next 2 weeks.

That's All

Hoping to have another one of these out soon. Aiming for monthly or so, published mid-month or so. (This is probably a lie but like, I'll try.)