They were real! And I agree, I love the idea of sharing asynchronously with other players in a game like this - we actually did a whole episode of our podcast where we riffed on ideas for this sort of mechanic, and I'm keen to build some more prototypes that use it. (Tell me if you want a link to the podcast episode, I won't post it immediately to avoid being spammy, haha)
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Sure thing, here you go! The podcast is an improvised video game podcast, so we come up with new game ideas every week: https://www.bitstormcast.com/episode/secretly-sassy-shrubbery