Aficionados of the Secret Histories may recall that Blaine was killed in a duel. There were no duels in the British Isles after the middle of the nineteenth century, so Blaine’s information is probably at least one feasting-hall out of date. If it was ever true to begin with. Although when I was fact-checking dates just now I learnt that the most recent non-fatal duel was apparently 1994, when a lutenist by the name of Salfield fought another gentlemen with antique cavalry swords over ‘an insult made to a lady’.

The only source given for this is ‘Radio Cornwall’, no details or audio, so it’s not clear whether (a) Salfield was avenging or upholding the insult (b) someone made the whole thing up. It happened in the town of Battle, which as UK-dwellers will know is a real place, though the name is suspiciously appropriate. It’s been widely assumed that Battle is not far from Kerisham, which might I suppose be relevant.

The moral I draw from this: it’s easy to overlook things. 2021 was a chaotic year for us as for everyone, and all our plans were repeatedly upset as yours probably were too. But we got a lot of stuff done. Here’s a quick roundup:

• Cultist Simulator rewrite. This took up an appalling amount of my time and is the least interesting thing on this list. I needed it to address some horrible issues left over from the game’s breakneck development in 2018, to add some QOL features, to support more modding, and to provide a solid base for Book of Hours. The rewrite’s on the beta branch now and I’m damned well going to get it live before January ends.
• Book of Hours. Yup, we’re still making it. Coming 2023.
• Against Worldbuilding, and Other Provocations. A good-sized collection of the essays and columns I’ve written elsewhere.
• The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Delusions. A new very long essay or very short book about game design and its dangers. It’s about the size of one of those reworked Orwells or collections of uplifting cat poetry that you buy on impulse at a bookshop till.
• The Lady Afterwards. Lottie’s first project as creative lead: a luxury boxed TRPG experience not quite like anything else I’ve ever seen. You can’t buy it at the moment. The first run of 100 copies sold out in literally a minute, the preorder run of 500 copies sold out a few days later, but we’ll probably do another run this year.
• The Lady Afterwards digital edition. First time a TRPG’s been sold on Steam, which has confounded some buyers who thought they were getting DLC, thank gawd for refunds, eh.
• A whole nother season of our Skeleton Songs podcast.
• The Weather Factory Catalogue. It’s ongoing.

That’s a longer list than I realised when I started writing it, honestly. What we plan for 2022 is a lot more focused.

• Book of Hours limited preview release. It’s not early access, we’re not calling it a paid beta, it’s the Secret Historian’s Pack. More on this soon.
• My third book.
• The Lucid Tarot. Lottie: “… a world-first: we’re making a stained-glass-window-inspired deck, opaquely printed on transparent PVC. This means light (candlelight; moonlight; King Crucible) shines through some parts of each card, but they have an opaque back so you can’t see the image on the other side.”

• And the Locksmith’s Dream, but we’re working with a partner on this one, so Lottie and I really are focusing on three projects between us this time around.

And I’m back on to that as soon as I’ve posted this and trudged through two weeks of support emails. See you in the feast-halls of the Hours.

We have a new BOOK OF HOURS roadmap available here where you can see the outlines of next year. I’ll add more detail as we get further along with BoH and our other projects (The Locksmith’s Dream, Lucid Tarot, The Lady Afterwards second run, Sex, Lies and Video Games, etc). But it should be an interesting year.

Speaking of BOOK OF HOURS, AK and I are committed to making the game as mod-friendly as we can, as we’ve loved seeing how modding has blossomed on Cultist Simulator. So we’ve published a new page on getting started with modding, here.

AK’s new game design book – The Snare of the Tree – finally went live in paperback form on our Etsy shop, along with a Kennedy Combo bundle inclduing Snare and Against Worldbuilding, saving you some shiny spintriae. The shop is still open for business, but will close for Christmas at noon on Monday 20th December. Get yer cursed gifts sooner than later!

Cultist is currently on sale in GOG’s Winter Sale, we make slow but steady progress with the pre-order Lady Afterwards boxes, and if you missed it we published a postmortem on TLA here. Lots more coming in the new year – look after yourselves and be merry and loved for now.

The Snare of the Tree

LUCIDITY. ATTENTIVENESS. GENEROSITY. VITALITY.

What makes us glad we’ve played some games, and regret we’ve played others? What are the game design equivalents of ‘savoury’ and ‘sweet’? Why is a working title dangerous, what menaces lurk in model railway dioramas, and what is the Snare of the Tree?

First up, Alexis has released what I happen to think is his best non-game writing yet: a short, punchy treatise on what makes games savoury called The Snare of the Tree, and Other Perilous Seductions. He says I’m not allowed to say it’s a book about what makes games ‘good’, but it is certainly a book about criteria and response: how different people (developers, gamers, activists, scholars…) look at games, and if there’s one consistent, objective way of evaluating games when everyone’s coming to them with their own #beeeff.

Fear not: if this sounds like the difficult first essay English students are asked to write in their first term at university, it’s not. I can confirm it is (a.) short, spicy and extremely readable and (b.) thought-provoking without the density of French philosophy and/or decades-old Christmas cake.

Here’s an indicative extract:

“…The more a game allows a player to feel like they’re engaging with another human mind, the more valuable and exalting an experience it will be. And the best way to allow a player to feel that way is for them to engage with a game that embodies human qualities. The most obvious route to this is actual engagement with another human mind. […] This doesn’t mean multi-player games are better than single-player games. Single-player games have a steeper hill to climb. But despite increasingly sinister efforts from large tech companies, it’s not yet possible to distribute friends in a box, or to power them off when you don’t need them. And not all of us want company all the time. And there is of course a virtue in making art against challenges and under constraints…”

The Snare of the Tree is out now on Kindle and paperback on Amazon. The paperback will be coming to Etsy on its own and as part of a book bundle with Against Worldbuilding next week – just as soon as we get physical copies in. 🙂

AK and I elaborate on the best laid plans of mice and keyboard in a new Skeleton Songs episode, “A City Is Not A Tree”. Listen to us talk about Jack Cohen and Brian Aldiss’ fight over speculative xenobiology, how to avoid the perils of categorisation and diamonds, and simply to hear Alexis fake his own death. Literally. As usual, it’s available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or a host of other places all findable at the bottom of this page. Enjoy!

Announcing: The Locksmith’s Dream

Now, ah yes – we have an entirely new game to announce! Well, it’s sort of a game. We’ve been talking about this behind the scenes for a while, and are spinning off a new business to manage it next year. But we can now officially announce The Locksmith’s Dream, a series of invitation-only live events coming in 2022!

Since these are live events, places are seriously limited. Many people won’t be able to get tickets, and many others wouldn’t be able to travel to the UK anyway (particularly if the pandemic rages on – we’ll deal with that as it comes). So we intend to offer a physical Lady Afterwards-like home edition for people to run their own private embassies of night. More on that when we have more concrete details to share.

What does this mean for BOOK OF HOURS, I hear you ask? Absolutely nothing. BOOK OF HOURS is happily underway and we’ll have an updated 2022 roadmap for you next sprint. You’ll see a lot more movement on that project next year, including an expected early alpha and public beta. This year has been, well, a funny one – next year, we hope, will be more focused.

For anyone waiting on their pre-order box of The Lady Afterwards, you can now track your box’s progress here. It’s looking like a ship date of (probably!) February 2022, but we’ll keep pre-order customers updated as suppliers finish the various components that go into each box, and email with a confirmed ship date once we have it. Thanks for being patient!

For everyone else, you can get your Christmassy mitts on The Lady Afterwards: Digital Edition here, on Etsy or a number of other places listed on The Lady Afterwards page. But if you really want a physical box – and I have to say, they do look pretty darn shiny when I pack them up – I’m delighted to be able to confirm that we’ll be releasing another batch of physical edition boxes next year. We’ll confirm the date they’re launching in advance so you can get the date and time in your calendar. They went pretty fast last time…

Hope you’re as excited as we are for BOOK OF HOURS, The Locksmith’s Dream and AK’s most excellent musing on the umami of games. We’ve a lot of dark, delicious things to look forward to. And it’s basically already Christmas. <3