I’m back from my secret mission, and deep in deadline mode—the usual holiday hysteria. Publishing isn’t that different from many other industries in this way: folks press themselves to finish projects “before the holidays.” Unfortunately, everyone thinks this way: the author sends the manuscript to her editor with a sigh of relief—just as the editor sends the edit letter back to his author, and the production editor sends page proofs to the editor, and the agent sends contract notes to legal... It’s all a bit Gift of the Magi, but ‘tis the season for doing our hysterical best!
Something really special is brewing over on BackerKit. I don’t think I’ve mentioned my adoration for Star Crossed, a sort of selfcontained life-alteration engine of the type we call ‘game’ because we lack the tongue of angels1, designed by hyperdimensional brain genius Alex Roberts, also the organizing power behind For the Queen, Til the Last Gasp, and Precious Little Animal. In Star Crossed, you and a friend (or someone you’re about to know much better very soon) play as star-crossed lovers in the classic R+J mode—people with some profound chemistry, parted by the forces of the world—two houses both alike in dignity etc. Time traveling secret agents on different sides of a war for the future, you know, maybe some of you are into that sort of thing. You and your partner sit opposite a Jenga tower. You take turns describing things that happen in the story, turns shaped by a few basic rules. Every turn you take, you make a Jenga move. When the tower collapses, your characters act on their repressed desires, and their success against the forces of the world arrayed to part them is determined by how many moves you’ve made as a group. Your characters can only speak directly to one another while you are physically touching the Jenga tower.
Right? RIGHT?? That mix—tactility, gentleness of touch, decisive action, commitment, fear. The tower sways. You hold your breath. Or: is this the moment when you throw caution to the wind, reach out, and push the whole world over?
I have played one session of Star Crossed. We went with a ‘High Priestess/Year-King Style Sacrifice’ pairing, a bit of a riff on one of the included connections. I was! Not prepared! By which I mean I was prepared, the game is amply supplied with safety features and so on and so forth, but. Man, that game went places, deep ones, good ones. I’m pretty sure I still owe Someone a hecatomb in thanks.
So: consider how I may have felt when Alex asked Amal and me to contribute a pairing to the new expansion book, Star Crossed: Love Letters. Excited? Awed? The game is (as the middleman says) elegance in its sheer simplicity—imagine being asked to add a surplus Commandment? But we hit on the idea of a Dragon-Knight pairing and well—the rest practically wrote itself. You can get a glimpse over on the Backerkit page—and, if you back the project, an eyeful of Sovanny Vorn’s illustration.
And—on with the work! Your next missive from me may be a bit late, due to delivery dates etc. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, friends, and of one another.
And the tongue of angels itself is necessarily incomplete, because Gödel.
Very excited to see Star Crossed!! I had no idea what it was, and was absolutely delighted when I read your post :)