Oh my gosh y'all, today is the day my game, Snake People: A Game of Anticipatory Grief went up on Kickstarter as part of #ZineQuest! Threading unlocked.
Sit down with your friends to craft a shared world of mortality and hope.
Snake People is a zine for a 6-scene storytelling game that takes maybe 45-90 minutes to play.
A playtester just described as "if you enjoy making things up and talking about heavy shit in a fun way with your friends, THIS HERE is for you."
another:
"playtested this, and it's really good at enabling players to feel and evoke genuine feeling in others. Highly recommend!"
💚 🐍
The game came into being after my father's death last march, and as I watched the climate marches and realized how a whole new generation was coming into its own.
It's a game of death and generations.
but it's funny too. The game's name come from the idea of Millennials as these "Snake people" and the browser plugin which changed the word, as well as called the recession "The Time of Shedding and Cold Rocks" which got into the NYT 😅
Check out the cover art by Jey Pawlik, every draft of which has FLOORED me.
I would have to 😭 and then pull myself together every time I responded to their art drafts.
Also, a fun thing in the game... You can play whatever kind of snake person you want!
And that can be really cool and personalized.
I made the game about "snake people" because of the Millennial joke, but also because if we're gonna grapple with hard things, it may be easier to imagine ourselves in a different, fantasy-esque world and as different people.
But I don't tell you who you have to be...
one playtester:
it's amazing because the game isn't just about "what are you gonna do", it's also fundamentally about "what are you like" and how that influences what you're gonna do.
You want to be a group of Silurians emerging from the underground after humans have made the planet virtually unliveable for themselves, but nice and warm for you?
Choose your species, choose your apocalypse.
I can't put that in the book, of course, because Silurians are copyrighted, but whatever concepts live in your head, whatever concepts your group shares -- these are concepts you can use together to craft a world.
In one game, we did use the Silurian concept but not in any way connected to the Whoniverse. It was a shared jumping off point for creatures who counted their aging through shedding skin... and things got dark after humans set off a nuclear apocalypse.
Because I have Snake People on the brain, top 5 media with Snake People:
1. Babylon 5. I love G'Kar so much.
2. Doctor Who. Specifically: Silurian. Lady.
3. Skyrim. I've played an Argonian!
4. GRIG FROM LAST STARFIGHTER ADOPT ME I HAVE NO PARENTS <333333
5. Star Trek. Various!
so um holy heck this is funding well which means it's very close to unlocking a stretch goal of --- more zines! My two kudzupunk gaming zines available in new backer levels in print or just as digital add-ons. Both tiers discounted from what I normally ask for print or PDF.
/dance 🌱
@platypus "Put your face. In the book."
You want to be kobolds, confronting your new reality because a bunch of adventurers slew the dragon who'd ruled over your clan for generations?
Choose your species, choose your apocalypse.