Missive 16 - regulations, revelries, robots

Mid December 2024

Greetings Horizoners,

What a month. We did a successful Kickstarter (Paranormal Freelancing) and got that out to backers in what must be record time for a small-time TTRPG creator. We finalised the crowdfunding campaign for We Dig Giant Robots and got that launched, go back it if you too dig giant robots. We got Bare Your Soul (see below) to the line and are ready to take that live. And there are a few other projects, little and big, in the pipeline for the next year or so.

GPSR Woes

Meanwhile, TTRPG creators and publishers selling into the EU have been bamboozled, befuddled, and befrustrated at the new General Product Safety Regulations framework, which sees all games and books (including, as far as we can tell, digital books) requiring a risk assessment and an EU representative. All at extra cost to the creator in an industry with thin margins.

In general I support consumer protection, and more specifically I think product safety is massively important given the influx of low-cost, low-quality products into markets. But unfortunately this is going to add to the cost of putting things into the EU market. It’s a shame! Of course it affects the big names, but they’re more capable of absorbing costs; really, it means that small producers will either further reduce their profit selling into the EU, or else they’ll just stop doing it, which I’ve seen from some bigger names already. And that just means that right now, the EU’s anthem should be Ode To Less Joy (you’re welcome).

A lot of stuff will no doubt come out in the wash but we’re all watching this space with baited breath. But fundamentally the EU is a protectionist economic hegemony, which tries to big up the members of the club and shut out those outside of it, and that means that even nominally Good Things like the GPSR feel like they’re leveraged unfairly on people outside the club.

I dunno what F.H.C. will do with sales into the EU. Since Outliers was published before the cut-off date, we can still sell it without an R.A. and a rep, but newer stuff? Not so sure. Again, watch this space.

itch.io vs Funko Pops

The other big thing (in my mind) that happened was itch.io being “domain-stomped” by an “AI-powered brand protection agency” acting on behalf of none other than global trash collectible giant Funko Pops.

I can scarcely believe this, but every single update by itch.io’s lead dev leaf was just absolutely golden, both adding comedy and inducing rage. I mean, seriously, what the f***.

It’s a little chilling, though. Our little indie niche depends on two relatively small platforms: DTRPG, which has questionable community moderation practices and takes a massive cut of sales; and itch.io, of which we’re a tiny part, and which is also managed by a very small team. One of these two sites going down impacts small creators massively, even in the short term: a lost sale because the website is down isn’t necessarily going to be picked up again later.

So that sucks, and it’s a warning that we probably ought to diversify? But that’s hard for small creators who can’t afford to have their own sites. That said, if you can think of a way to do it? You should definitely do it, right away if you can. Because sometimes it feels like everyone is out to get small indie creators.

Including, apparently, the makers of frankly incredibly ugly plastic dolls.

Project Updates

Paranormal Freelancing

True to word, Paranormal Freelancing was completed to schedule and has now gone out to backers. I hear tell that it’ll be out to general public release this week. Grab it if you’re interested in paranormal LUMEN-based games about helping vampires and sorcerers do dark deeds in the big smoke.

We Dig Giant Robots

From the creator of Friendship, Effort, Victory, We Dig Giant Robots is a beer 'n 'pretzel, one-shot focused mecha game inspired by the cult classic, Megas XLR. This radical new title takes inspiration from classics in comedy gaming, Mike Pondsmith's "Teenagers From Outer Space" and Ryo Kamina's "Maid."

Focused on getting you into the action quickly, this lightweight title has rocket-fast character generation and simple gameplay. For the Game Master, a series of tables are designed to come up with a "monster of the week," a setting, an inciting incident, and a villainous plan to stop. Take the role of one of the Hooligans, a group of teenagers or young adults who found a super robot from the future in the modern day. The Prototype is suped up with all sorts of radical tech. Too bad the Hooligans don't know how to use it. Every time they want to do something, they'll have to take a change on the d66 table and hope they get something good. More likely, they'll blow something up.

Not that they'll need help blowing stuff up. Every time you roll the dice, you have a 2 in 6 chance of massively over doing it. Whether it's an epic fail or something badass depends on which end of the die you landed on. Either way, you are going to cause a lot of harm in the background. But, it's going to be pretty freakin' awesome either way. I mean, what? If you wanted to save the city safely, you wouldn't be doing it in your giant robot car. This is all about looking cool!

The Hooligans will have to work together (or against each other, who knows) to try to stop the Villain of the week. Every Villain has a series of Aspects making up their character and their goals. The Hooligans will need to uncover what those goals are and stop them to finally take this sucker down.

Now listen here, you may not want to play a normal Hooligan. That's cool. At the moment, We Dig Giant Robots comes with three special characters:

• The Best Friend: The snarky bro who's just along for the ride. His main power is plot armor and common sense.

• The Future Warrior: A hero who followed the robot back in time. This badass sci fi asskicker is always the coolest thing around.

• The Reformed Villain: Hey, turns out this bloke wasn't a complete jerk. You're chill now and he's got his own mecha to crack some skulls.

We Dig Giant Robots is live on Kickstarter now! We hope to see y'all there to help support this little project of ours.

Bare Your Soul

Kyle Tam’s game Bare Your Soul of fashion, clothing, and rebellion, will be released ASAP. Like, early next week. The platform manager needs a couple of hours to get it up on itch.io and

Sic Itur

James Barton’s Sic Itur, a bronze age tarot-based game of duels and tournaments, is through edits and into the next steps. We can’t wait to see it.

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That’s all there is. Remember: make cool games. wage class war.

Marx // F.H.C.