Okay, so my birthday was yesterday.... the point still stands. I'ts going to be another busy year for Otherverse Games. A handful of Galaxy Command releases, my last works of 2009 will be on sale soon. The first of these releases, Space Mafia seems to be doing pretty well sales wise. It's EXTREMELY goofy, a tribute to the cartoon space-criminals in Silverhawks, Voltron and other 80s toons, not to mention a few concepts borrowed from DC Comics. If you look close enough, you'll find some pretty interesting Tharok (of the Fatal Five) and Lobo (of crystal meth) analouges in the splatbook.
So what's next?
Well, I've currently got a few ideas for some Lifer sourcebooks on deck, however I can't quite determine what format I want to do with them. Namely, should I create a bunch of smaller, lower cost phamplets or combine the conent into one big ass mega-splat? I'm leaning slightly towards the latter, though the smaller/more concept has its appeal. Right now, I want to cover a few Lifer settings, namely Pensacola circa 2107 and Solomon Station, which orbits Jupiter. Those two location-based ideas might end up being stand alone products, though as mentioned in a previous blog post, I want to play with Lifer culture in the same way I delved deeper into the Choicers with Coven of Bast. So you might end up with one book, but you're just as likely to get multiple splats. Either way, I'm hoping I can continue the trend from Coven of Bast, with more attractively laidout, professional looking products with every release.
I am kinda hesitant about doing a deeply Lifer soucebook, for reasons owing more to magical theory than the market place. A common thread of belief among many pagan authors I respect is that writing is a magical act, in terms of the concentration, will power and imagination necessary to create a fictional reality from nothing, and that's something I believe. Another facet of the belief in writing-as-ritual is that the working can create physical changes in the universe, above and beyond the psychological and political impact good writing normally has. That I believe about 50-60%.... a little more since my lovely little feline companion Bast appeared literally as I was laying out a sourcebook in 'honor' of the goddess Bast. You could argue, and I wouldn't disagree too strenously, that my cat's appearance was a change in reality brought about by my writing this soucebook.
So if spending months thinking, studing and creating something that glorifies Bast and puts the old goddess back into public consciousness, even if only in a very, very small way, I can produce a cat.... what the hell is spending months studying anti-abortion terrorsits, evangelical nutjobs and writing about their place in the world of the 22nd Century going to produce. On my materialist hand, I know that anti-abortion terror and crime is inevitable, and sooner or later it's going to happen again. But man, I really really hope that the next terror-strike doesn't occur right as I'm laying out page 75 of 76 total pages or something, because I would feel really, really shitty. Less magically, coming up with Othervere America stuff is harder work than writing fantasy, or goofy kid's sci-fi.... it's alot more emotional and personal to me, and requires alot more care and research.
In other news, Otherverse America got a 3 star over on RPGNow, which is interesting in that the reviewer compared the setting to the classic version of Deathrace. Cool, but very odd. Out of all the works of fiction and pop culture I've compared Otherverse America to, I never even thought of Death Race. I guess the analogy works, since they're both violent satire, but it still kinda threw me. (Still, I'm far from upset, because I own the remake of Deathrace and enjoy the hell out of it). Thanks for the review though, and the time you took to read through O.A.
I've also got some fantasy ideas I'm hankering to explore, and I think we'll be one of the first companies with a working psionic system for Pathfinder. the question is of course, how much to keep from the old SRD Psionics system and how much to scrap. Maybe I'm the wrong guy for the project since I've always hated D&D psionics, but maybe that's my qualification right there... I'm not going to be too sentimal about keeping old mechanics.
Okay, enough talk, enjoy your post-holidays and look for alot of interesting stuff from Skortched Urf and Otherverse Games this year.
Blessed Be,
CHRIS
No comments:
Post a Comment