yeah, so, funny story, i forgot to commission the layout designer to do the sheet. it's on its way, i'm really sorry.

Thank you! That's always so lovely to hear.

I have pushed back the deadline to UTC 03:00 on November 1st. Thanks to all the thirteen submissions we've had until now. If you submit it before then we will judge it, if not then sorry (but you can still submit late to get on the jam page).

Love what I've seen so far. Very eclectic mix!

If you're in this jam, it means you've not worked with the CoOp before, so you perhaps don't know how we roll.

Firstly, if you win our judged competition, we'll offer you the choice to come on board and work with us to get your thing published. We'll take your words, get them edited and proofread, and then get layout designers and illustrators to make it pretty. We'll publish it through platform pages, linked to yours on itchio too.

Everybody who touches the game gets shares according to their input. We've got a standard agreement we work with for this. The proportion of those shares of the total is how much that person receives as a proportion of the profit. Of platforms that don't pay out automatically, we split profits across our projects every quarter.

If it's possible (I.e. if it's not a strange format that we can't print efficiently, or if for some reason we lack the funds immediately), we'll work with our print partners to get a modest number printed and into distribution in the US. Everybody on the staff roll for the project gets a copy too. Again, we split profits on this according to what people put in.

To publish something, we'd want a product that we think can be published or expanded into a zine-scale product. We usually define this as 2000-5000 words; a bit above or below is fine, though. We might consider bigger products, but the undertaking is bigger.

Secondly, you can refuse our offer if you like, either by opting out of the judging at submission, or just by telling us you don't want to take us up. We won't be offended. We'll offer the second place entrant the same deal instead.

If you need a place to discuss the jam, or what you want to make or do, or contact me, or just hang out with your fellow jammers, the public part of the Far Horizons CoOp Discord server is at your service! 

Link here (active for thirty days)

See you there!

The jam goes live today! I've sent out most of the prompts, mostly through BSky private messages, so check your inboxes! If you contacted me on Discord then it's there instead.

If you've not received your prompt then it's because I couldn't find you on Bluesky, or that I wasn't able to message you there. If you see me (Marx S) adding you, then I'll DM you the prompt if you add me back.

People I haven't sent prompts to yet:

• Entity358
• BittyBee123
• KingInYellow
• Dicey Vim
• Seeker8998
• Kakodaemon
• Pandacabra
• Euan
• edem3017

But I have sent most of those friend requests. If you see your name on this list but ya ain't heard from me, add me on Bluesky or message me on Discord.

Thanks,

Marx //

Nice! It's a really pretty game, and one I enjoyed reading. I've just packed all my zines up in a moving box but I'm hoping to crack this one out when we're in our new place. My kids would enjoy it!

Hey! I wrote a deep-dive review of this game for my blog, Hark At Them!. You can read it here.

Hey! I wrote a deep-dive review of this game for my blog, Hark At Them!. You can read it here.

Hey! I wrote a deep-dive review of this game for my blog Hark At Them!. You can read it here.

Hey! I wrote a deep-dive review of this game for my blog, Hark At Them!. You can read it here!

I wrote a deep-dive review of this game at my blog, Hark At Them!, and you can read it here.

Thank you so much, this is a lovely stream that really showcases the game. Anamnesis is as ever excellent (disclosure: I'm the editor on that game).

Hi! I'm so glad you enjoyed this. If you play it on stream, please let me know where I can find it so I can link it back here!

I intend to revise this to be Better™️ but that depends on time!

Hearing this episode made me buy the game. It's so good - thank you Luka for the game and LT for the playthrough. Things I can hear: my printer, chugging through the pages; things I can see: a long-arm stapler, ready to bind it; things I can smell: the anticipation of playing this myself.

That's so good to hear, thank you! Sorry for the late response. The answer is in the revised edition, which is currently in layout and illustration: "ignore that prompt and use the next, the previous, or one of your choosing." They're vaguely in the order of least destructive to most destructive.

Yeah! I spoke to Thomas Manuel about exactly this idea - sending a message into the void in the hope that someone reads and appreciates it. In a week where de-prioritisation of unpaid users is happening on Twitter, this feels very relevant. Unexpectedly so.

just listening now, thank you so much!

thanks! it's actually a suit for ghostbox but you definitely could play it with Anamnesis, like you said, replace the closing questions with this maybe.

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I'm just playing through it again and I wish I'd been clearer on that. If I revise this at some point I'll take that onboard!

Removing the Kings is just to make sure it's not on top, yeah. I probably should have been clearer about that. I try to make sure they're in the lower half of the stack. I thought it would feel like how you do this in The Quiet Year but the piles are too small for it to feel natural.

Thank you Philippa! Love the video, especially seeing the handwritten letters. I hope you had fun with ghostbox.

Link to giveaway! Apologies, this is an oversight from reading the rules and not processing them.

Five Star Review

In case you didn't know, Itchio doesn't show the written reviews that I get from people. So I'm going to share them here, with names removed. Loved getting this one.

I've played this twice already. Both times it's been for worldbuilding, although the first time it was also focused on catharsis for a character pulled from a different game. I truly appreciated both aspects.

I found it confusing on the first play through that clubs were red in the playbook, but that's the sort of thing that editing will catch. I can't wait to see the final project!

They're in the Osmosis rules text. Basically a Joker can stand in for any card but has no rank until a card in a lower suit relies on it. You can replace a Joker with the card it stands for, but when you do that you have to move it down into the first row where that rank is still needed, or remove it from play when it's in the bottom row.

I don't have the stats to prove this, but it will probably extend play by at least one round and possibly two or more.

dear ghostboxers,

because i'm a fool i forgot something important in my own template. every set of prompts has three questions that help you build the character and details of your sender or senders.

i added this to The Wishful with another helpful (?) explanatory comment. because that's a collection of senders, it focuses on the community from which they're drawn, not on individuals. but if yours is from an individual, then your questions might define who they are, and their motivations.

have fun,

marx //

absolutely. please feel as empowered as you need to to hack the game completely. that's what it's there for!

completely forgot that i am also going to make a second entry, The Shadowed, about writing to your past self after you uncover who you are following a period of amnesia. yes, it's also going to be submitted to the Anamnesis jam, it couldn't not be with Sam Leigh as our project editor. it'll be played with tarot cards.

my dearest ghostboxers,

welcome to the #DeadLetterJam. here's a place to introduce yourself and what projects you're thinking of making.

my name is marx shepherd. i'm the creator of ghostbox and desperately averse to capital letters. i'm making at least one entry to the #DeadLettersJam which is The Wishful, a series of letters from children to Santa Claus. it's the guided template for the jam, and i'm going to make it by hand with paper and glue and pencil crayons and my off-hand so it looks like kids have made it.

i hope to meet you all and remember - may all your post arrive.

yours with abandon,

marx //

thanks Albi! that's such a kind review. i'm so glad you enjoyed it. may your mail always arrive!

thank you! that means a lot to me and the team.

You've got 11 DAYS to finish your submissions!

Still got a Which DnD? game to finish! Get something up by the end of the month!

I'm planning to run a wee little co-op bundle where they're all neatly packaged into one passive aggressive joke, so if you want the opportunity to get in on that, then let's be having you!

Marx //

Hi everyone! Still 47 days to go apparently. We have a lot of entrants, and even some fantastic looking submissions! I'd love to combine all of these in a bundle once the jam has finished!

How are you getting on? Any snags? Any unexpected insights?

I'm about 80% of the way through my design and layout, and hopefully I'll be able to send it to my Risograph printer for a very limited print run in the next week or so. Very excited by that prospect!

Welcome to the Which DnD? Jam!

Here's a thread where you can introduce yourself and maybe hint at what projects you might be making.

My name's Marx Shepherd, they/them pronouns, of Marx of High Water. I'm principally a podcaster and TTRPG editor, but I also occasionally write cool games for weird people and weird games for cool people. I'm probably going to write something like Dragonlings and Daycare about young dragons just learning about getting by in the world, guided by Nanny Dragon (the GM). Given the amount of time I have it'll probably be a d10 Lasers & Feelings hack, and I'm aiming to write it so I can play it with my kids (6yo and 4yo).

So, now you know - introduce yourself!

https://marx-of-high-water.itch.io/sad-robot

Hello y'all,

Here's my entry for the jam: Cowpokes & Spyfolks.

https://marx-of-high-water.itch.io/cowpokes-and-spyfolks

It's a Lasers & Feelings hack of maverick spy-scientists in the deserts of New Mexico in the 1950s and 60s, inspired by the Tom Lehrer song The Wild West is Where I Want to Be (an absolute classic).

This is a pretty silly game but was inspired by serious things that actually happened (thanks to Kyle Hill for making videos about these).

My friend at https://katamoiran.itch.io/ did the layout and graphic design - they deserve the credit, and I deserve the blame.

I've extended the deadline by a week to give everyone a chance to finalise their games as much as possible!

I'm so excited to share all of these submissions with the community. So much good stuff has been created, I'm stoked!

We've got just six days left to run in the jam. How are we looking? Do we need an extension? Are we going to get some cool games launched?

I encourage you to check out the submissions to date. They're all very awesome!

Marx.

This is a very neat little game that you should check out. Leans nicely into superhero tropes and, of course, trans narratives. As a solo game it provides the right level of prompt and constraint - nice.

Kudos to the writer for adding it to the megabundle!