Sat May 14 '22 Announcement
almost 2 years ago – Sat, May 14, 2022 at 09:16:15 AM

Hi folks! This is a really short update (the May update will be coming in a couple weeks) but I wanted to let everyone know that we haven't sent the Backerkit link out yet.

We were hoping to in late April but we encountered significant delays (basically, Backerkit has never done a project of this scale from Indiegogo, so there's been a lot of logistics to convert everything over) and so we haven't sent the links out yet.

We will soon! Once Backerkit is sent out you'll have around a year to update everything, so do be patient — you'll have plenty of time once it drops.

If you can't access your One More Multiverse closed beta email, and it's not in your spam or promotional folder, please check the FAQ or join their Discord for tech support. Someone there will be able to help you. 

Thanks everyone for being understanding and for reaching out! I'll have more updates within the next few weeks.

— Jay

Mon Apr 25 '22 Announcement
about 2 years ago – Mon, Apr 25, 2022 at 12:33:06 PM

I’m writing this update while staring out the window at my backyard. The grass is brilliantly green, but the trees aren’t ready to bud yet. It creates the impression that the mountains around my house are coated in a downy blanket, sluggishly waking up and getting out of bed. It’s a sleepy time of year, when you know you ought to get out of bed, although you don’t want to.

For those who haven’t heard from me before, hi! It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jay Dragon, the editorial director at Possum Creek Games, and one of the writers on this very project. I’m also the project manager, which means I handle and direct a lot of the logistical back end. I’m going to be writing most of these Indiegogo updates, which will serve to keep you both informed and placated as the team creates Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast. 

If you’re new here, and aren’t familiar with my style of update from the Wanderhome Kickstarter, I tend to be long-winded and personable in these updates–I like to talk a little about my life and how the weather is. I also will sometimes shoutout other projects in the Indie Tabletop RPG world or important humanitarian fundraising or mutual aid projects. 

This update has an announcement and two explanations — first, it’s going to talk about One More Multiverse and the support they’re providing (including Closed Beta access right now), the project timeline for the next year and a half of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, and finally the Backerkit rollout, what that will be like, and how it can help you. 

One More Multiverse Closed Beta

So as you’re well aware, we’re partnering with One More Multiverse to create the digital version of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast. (and if you’re not aware of this, check out my article on the topic) The plan is to create a full reflection of the book in the virtual table of OMM. 

Now, the OMM version of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is obviously not ready yet. However, One More Multiverse is offering a free access key for closed beta to everyone with the digital edition, so that everyone can try out the system and explore how it works before Yazeba’s is ready. Later today or tomorrow you’ll get an email that explains how to access the download key, how to use it, and where you can find games.

Here's more information from OMM on what they're like:

One More Multiverse is a new way to run TTRPGs online. Play games like never before with the freedom of tabletop and automation of video games. A true one-tab experience: in game chat, character sheets, maps, notes, and story all in the same place. Create custom characters, levels, and worlds to explore with thousands of assets from the OMM library. Use dynamic lighting, thrilling animations, and atmospheric settings to create cinematic moments.
Anything you make, you can also share with others. Add community creations seamlessly to your games and offer your own! With nostalgic and vibrant pixel art, powerful GM tools, and ways to create alongside your players, One More Multiverse captures your imagination and shares it with everyone at the table.

Project Timeline

So, before I get into the project timeline, please be forewarned that this is an estimate, and even best-laid plans have a tendency to crash and burn. We’ve built in a lot of flexibility, but please don’t be weird if the actual timeline fall out of sync.

Spring-Summer 2022

Within the next few weeks, M Veselak (the creative coordinator) will be handing off the full manuscript version of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast to Dom Dickey (the editorial coordinator). Dom is going to read the game through, figure out the best ways to break up its responsibilities, and then hand those off to LD Lewis (the narrative editor) and Kazumi Chin (the mechanical editor). They’ll edit the game over the next few months.

Meanwhile, all the artists will send over all their art for the game, and the digital team at One More Muliverse will start building the groundwork for the digital edition.

Autumn 2022

At the end of the summer, Ruby is going to take the edited text and all the art and spend several months working her magic to transform everything into a finished PDF version. Meanwhile, the Digital Team will be in full swing developing the OMM version of Yazeba’s. 

We’ll also do something special for Septembewr 15th (Gertrude’s Birthday), although we’re not sure yet what that’s going to be.

Winter 2022-2023

We’ve given ourselves three months (December, January, and February) to be flexible with people’s needs and get the whole project together. This is when beta-readers and the typo brigade show up, as people comb through the text to clear out imperfections. It’ll be around this time that we send the book file to Panda Manufacturing, and the 6 month manufacturing period will begin. 

As Winter ends, the digital edition will become available, and the game will finally become widely available.

Spring 2023

We release the digital version of Yazeba’s! Everyone with a digital tier will receive a fully screen-reader accessible PDF and Yazeba’s on One More Multiverse. This is also when Ruby will finalize designs the merchandise and the paperback.

Summer 2023

The books will finally arrive from across the sea, and with our distribution partners we’ll work on sending out copies around the world. It’ll be a huge coordinated distribution project, but we’ve done bigger and we have a lot of practice at this point! We hope to have copies of the game for people by August 2023.

Backerkit

Backerkit is in charge of the following stuff:

• Keeping track of what we’ll be sending each of you. If you want to modify your order in basically any way (including upgrading your pledge, changing your add-ons, or making choices about add-ons and merchandise with options) that will all be through Backerkit.
• Collecting your shipping addresses for distribution later. We won’t be charging shipping or asking for your shipping addres yet — we want to wait until we have realistic shipping costs, can do stuff like factor in VAT, and can charge to Paypal without Paypal yelling at us for late delivery.
• Collecting other information about you, such as your name for dedications, or confirming perks that you qualify for.

We’re going to be trying out a new feature with Backerkit that lets us send out the add-on surveys independent of the shipping surveys. This means you’ll be able to set your Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast pledge in stone by the start of next week, but that we won’t finalize shipping until closer to our fulfillment date.

Once the Backerkit links get sent out (in a week or so), there will also be a Backerkit customer support service, which will be a dedicated resource for technical issues. If you have any troubles with Backerkit, please direct your energy there — they know the system better than we do, and they can help!

Wrapping Up

Just a few things before we go — Jonathan Sims (of Magnus Archives fame) and Sasha Sienna operate McGuffin & Co., a tabletop RPG publishing house that has just released a new game called PITCRAWLER! It's a 2-player game inspired by Choose Your Own Adventure games, it's wildly inventive and cool and it also has a special version that's intentionally de-luxed (so it looks more like a cheap CYOA paperback). It's really cool and you should go support it!

Also, while you're here — my dear friend and collaborator Rae Nedjadi is raising money for HRT and top surgery. It's incredibly expensive to access trans healthcare in the Philipines, and not only is Rae an amazing game designer, he also has made this great bundle! You should check it out and snag a copy — it's eight outstanding games for a really affordable price. 

That's the last thing I wanted to mention for today! In the meantime, you can follow along with Possum Creek Games on Twitter, Tiktok, or Patreon. And if you’re a Wanderhome fan, be sure to keep an eye on the Patreon specifically — we have some big treats on the way. 

— Jay

For six dark days and six cold nights, pounding rain beat the windows of the Bed & Breakfast, making such a racket that a witch could hardly think. It was so thick in the air that you couldn’t see through it, and the storm roared like it would never end. But then it did end— as endless things tend to do.

Sensing the sudden silence, the Moon Prince pulled aside the curtain to peer out of the attic window, lifted up the heavy glass pane, and looked out at what had been—less than a week before—a patchwork quilt of fields, hills, and forests. The flood had swallowed it all: in every direction as far as the eye could see, the world had become a flat and shimmering ocean, except where the tops of trees and telephone poles poked up stubbornly from the water. Low-hanging white clouds were perfectly reflected in the smooth mirror of this brand new sea.

— Chapter 37: Our Little Island

Fri Apr 22 '22 Announcement
about 2 years ago – Fri, Apr 22, 2022 at 11:13:06 AM

Wow wow wow wow wow, we did it! Thanks to all of you, Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is funded at more than a thousand percent, beating out Wanderhome to be our most-funded crowdfunding venture ever! 

I’m going to write a bigger update on Monday, where I’ll also share the Backerkit with all of you so you can modify your orders, add on merchandise you maybe didn’t grab during the Indiegogo, and all that sort of stuff. I’ll also share the timeline for the next year and a half, so you can get a sense of how this project will advance and continue. 

Indiegogo also has an InDemand feature that lets people continue to preorder certain tiers. This will continue to run, and I'll talk more about it on Monday.

For now, I just want to say thank you. We’ve been working on this project since November 2019, and it’s been a continuous and massive labor of love. When we started writing it, we didn’t know what form it would take, or that so many people would fall in love with these characters. I’m going to try and thank as many people as I can, but if I miss you I’m sorry.

Thank you Eaves, who came up with some of the first foundational ideas for Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, and who also got me into game design in the first place when we were roommates in college.

Thank you M, who entered a messy room filled with nonsense and then proceeded to create order amid the chaos. You made the mechanical heart of the game and figured out how to make all these pieces fit together in a way I genuinely don’t think anyone’s ever thought of before. 

Thank you Grubby, my business partner-in-crime, who has put her heart and soul into making our weird little company for weird little games become a work of art, and also for the amount of care and compassion you’ve given this bizarre sprawling object. You’ve filled the B&B with childhood memories and given it life in an invaluable way. In a few months, when the game is yours to hold, there is no one I would trust more with it.

Thank you Mercedes, who came into this project with a whirlwind of ideas and gave the book your vision. You’ve worked magic over these pages, and you took Amelie and elevated them from the cutting-room floor to the metallic heart of the game. Thank you for your love and your passion.

Thank you Lillie, who came into this project not even knowing what a TTRPG really is. You brought the characters to life, transforming them from game objects into people with thoughts and feelings and purpose. You looked into each character and found their hearts, and magnified them to an incredible degree. Your narrative vision shines through the entire project.

Thank you Aster, who created the concept illustrations that the whole game is built around. You gave Hey Kid their style, Moon Prince their moth patterns, Sal their sandals, and Parish their hawaiian t-shirt, along with way more. You made these characters real, and brought them from vague ideas into actual people with hobbies and fashion. Thank you for your creativity and vision.

Thanks to all the rest of the artists too — I know Grub will have more to say when the project is done, but thanks for taking this leap with us and bringing the Bed & Breakfast to life. 

Thanks to all the editors, too — I can’t wait for you to dig into the book and get your chance to leave your mark. You are genuinely a dream team, and I can’t wait to see what you bring to the table.

Thank you to everyone who brought the project together, including Jeff Stormer and all the players in the podcast, Jack Warren who directed and filmed a wonderful video through an incredibly hectic winter, Sofia Umarik for creating such a beautiful animation, Naked Lake for putting so much trans love into a theme song, and the folks at One More Multiverse for believing in us when we came to you with our weird strange game.

Finally, thank you to the first playtesters and fans of the Bed & Breakfast, who have informed its shape and filled this house with love. Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is fanfiction for a project that doesn’t exist, and you’ve taken that spirit and expanded it into what we always hoped it could be. I can’t wait to see all the awesome stuff you make and all the places you go. I cannot hope to shout out everyone but I wanted to give a special gratitude to Karma, Adora, Matt Gravelyn, Tony, Maverick, Reilly, Lunchbox, Geo, Molly, and Egg.

And with that, I gotta get back to setting up the Backerkit. We’ve raised the funds and we’ve got the plans, it’s time to build this house. 

— Jay

Hey Kid clambered up onto one of the stools in the kitchen and did a little spin. “Hey Parish Hey Parish Hey Parish where did that girl in the laundry room come from? Is she a guest? Is she going to go home someday?

Parish didn’t look up from his pierogies, as he patiently arranged them on the tray. “No, she’s not in the guest book. I don’t think she has anywhere to go home to.”

Hey Kid lit up, and pawed a pierogi off the tray. “Well that just means her home’s here, like me!” They declared, mouth full of potato and cheese.

— Pierogies (a snippet)

Tue Apr 19 '22 Announcement
about 2 years ago – Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 10:43:40 AM

Hey gang, Ruby here with the new merchandise mockups for our quarter of a million dollar (!!!) stretch goal. All of these are available now as indiegogo add-ons, or you can add them in backerkit after we wrap.

Guest assortment pins! These are available individually, or as a pack at a discount. You can also snag one of these for free–keep reading below!

Hotel keychain so you’ll always have access to your preferred room at the BNB.

Yazeba’s Rules mugs–so you remember how to behave.

On the front door of Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast, there is a sign which reads: “No soliciting, trespassing, romancing, snooping, snitching, or unnecessary smalltalk welcome." Yazeba reserves her temper for those she catches violating these rules.

Underneath that sign is a second, smaller sign which reads “Room For Everyone.”

The House Itself shirt, with Katie’s beautiful art! As always, available in sizes S-5X. We can’t update the Indiegogo add-on, but if you choose the T-shirt, you can pick between this shirt and the original Room For Everyone shirt (or both) on Backerkit after the campaign ends.

Three Days Left

We wrap at 11:59 EST on Thursday! It’s been a wild month and we’d still appreciate your help in giving the campaign one last promotional push. Personally I want an OST but I’m being calm and managing my expectations…..mostly.

As we mentioned in the last update, if you refer a friend who backs us we’ll give you a free guest pin. We have the data on the backend so we can see how well people are doing. Shoutout to friend of PCG Matthew Gravelyn for already referring the most people lol–thanks Matt :) Y’all can check out his games (including one I did layout for) here.

Of Course More Art

As always here’s some sneak previews of more guest art from the inimitable Val Wise–I’m really excited to start seeing some dirtbag representation in Yazeba’s. I want to go to a Philly punk show with Grackle and Vyra.

Ok bye that's all for now but certainly we'll be back soon, lots of updates for a big week !

xxoxo

grub

Thu Apr 14 '22 Announcement
about 2 years ago – Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 10:42:41 AM

Hey everyone, it's Jay. It's a sunny day out today (the first one in a while) and I'm writing this update while sitting next to the creek outside my house and thinking about the weather. I'm glad this project is happening during spring — it feels like, as we continue, that the whole world is waking up. It's nice to watch sprouts burst from the ground and the birds arrive back during their southern migration. 

In this update I want to talk about a new thing we're trying out with Indiegogo just this week, give everyone a heads up on our potential limitations, and show off a bit of new art.

Come Help Us Share The Word!

So if you look at the URL on the top of your Indiegogo page, there's a unique number at the end. This means when you send that specific link to someone else and they back Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast, we can tell! We want to try out a special referral bonus, which means if we reach a quarter of a million dollars (we're not that far away!) we'll unlock a new bonus for the campaign — everyone who referred at least one person through their link will get a free pin, one of the new ones that we'll be unveiling at the $250K stretch goal!

This is a new experiment for us, only possible with Indiegogo's technology. I'm not sure if it will work well or how it will be feel, but we really want to reward our fans who have been spreading Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast all over the place. This is an experiment — if you are or are not enjoying it, please let us know.

Now, sadly I don't have a mockup for you. This is because...

Where We're At

Possum Creek Games is a small business — the core team is literally two people. I wanted to give everyone a heads up that there's a lot of life events and health issues going around, and I'm going to need everyone's patience while we make it through this last week. If we don't have a mockup for you right away, if there are fewer updates than you might expect in the last week, it's just because things are hard and we're a small team tackling a big project. We are incredibly gratefuil for all of your support, this won't impact the development of the book, I just felt it was important to keep you all in the loop as we make our way forward. Thank you for your patience.

New Art

We did get some exciting new pieces of art, from Shannon and Val Wise! The first images are of some of the stickers in the game that you can unlock by playing chapters. The second set of images are some of the guest sketches Val is currently working on. I hope you enjoy, and I'll catch you all later!