Was That The Sun?!
An update on a grey af february
Big News
We’ve got 6000 books arriving this week and I’ve had to rent a storage unit and clear out my garage to make room for them and I still don’t know if it’s going to be enough.
The shipment apparently weighs 1.96 tonnes and that’s not including the 1000 Apothecaria, and 500 RISE, 500 UMBRA, and 200 Apawthecaria that have all arrived this month. I live in a world of boxes.
Once we’ve got all the books in, we can work out what size of mailer we need to order and order boxes of boxes to unpack our boxes into.
For now though, you can grab PDF copies of all 3 For Small Creatures Such As We expansions over at blackwellwriter.com or at Itch.io.
I also just revealed that my Chinese mythology inspired tea-making Apothecaria hack, Spirit Tea has had a secret agenda all along! I’ve been making it as a way to help fund the amazing Wandering Warrior Kung Fu school here in Glasgow. You can read more about that here. The TL;DR is that our teacher is awesome but running any sort of class nowadays is hard and I want to help him buy equipment, cover rent, and potentially fund more classes/ workshops.
And finally, the Apothecaria: Dragon’s Lair expansion is finished and will be up on itch and blackwellwriter.com later this month! This was one of the earliest expansions I started working on but for some reason it got sidelined for 4 years. I’m really proud of how it has turned out and want to thank Shanice for taking on so much of the design work on it. It was her idea to have the expansion be about rescuing baby dragons and I’m kicking myself for not having thought of that before as it is so good.
Like other Apothecaria expansions, Dragon’s Lair introduces a host of new Ailments, Reagents, Locales and a new storyline centred around a mysterious attempted kidnapping by someone that looked like you. All of the dragonlings have been scattered across the known world (you can find them in any Locale from any Apothecaria book) and it’s up to you to track them down and bring them back in order to help clear your name. As you play, you’ll discover clues much like you did with the missing witch in the base game and eventually manage to calm and maybe even befriend the Great Dragon.
What’s Next?
This week coming is going to be a lot of moving boxes then packing and sobbing over my bank account as shipping is going to be a nightmare.
Some KS backers have been incredibly generous and donated to my gofundme which is amazing. For USA backers alone we’re looking at a shipping bill between £6000 and £10,000 depending on whether or not we can get a few things to work out.
After that, I’ll be finishing off Spirit Tea with the hopes of getting it ready in time for UKGE.
And I’m making a fun zine with my friends at Sleepy Sparrow Games. It’s a nice mixture of articles, fiction, and games which we’re aiming to put out once a quarter with our first issue debuting at UKGE. We’re not quite ready for a proper reveal so keep it under your hat ;)
Media of The Week
Fiona from Sleepy Sparrow Games started up a Project Zomboid server to celebrate the new unstable multiplayer update (this game is like 15 years old and they’ve just sorta added multiplayer) and I have been obsessed with it.
My character is an ex-cook for the fast food chain Spiffos and has been trying to build one at the base as a sort of coping mechanism. It has taken a long time to even get to this point XD
Project Zomboid is a very tedious zombie survival game that goes in for realism in every aspect of its design which makes it a very hard sell for all but the most die-hard roleplayers in my experience.
Gamey Bits
Apothecaria
Intermediate Ailment
A) Zodithropy — [CURSE ⭐⭐⭐] [MOOD ⭐⭐] [SKIN ⭐⭐] — Timer: 8
This patient was cursed so that they transform into whatever animal matches the current calendar year. They’ve just had a tolerable animal but the next one promises to be something terrible.
Extra: If the potion isn’t drank at the end of this week, they will have to wait an entire year before they can try again!
Consequences: If you fail to cure them in time, they transform into the next animal in a zodiac of your choice or creation. How does this go for them? What troubles does the transformation cause?
Apawthecaria
5 — Forest
A Terrible Racket
Strange droning and wailing fills the forest here as some beasts have found an old pair of bagpipes and are trying to make music with them. They ask for your help. What are the animals who are trying to play like? Do they have any other instruments around? How did the bagpipes get here?
Conduct — If you agree to help, Draw a Card: Red — You manage to guide the pack of misguided musicians into making a bit of music! Gain 2 Reputation. Black — No matter what you do, it still just sounds like a racket! Lose 1 Reputation as the rest of the forest blames you for encouraging them.
Dang, I LOVE Project Zomboid! I think the longest I ever survived was 13 days haha.