Hi friends,

May has come and gone so it’s about time for another update. I’m currently sitting in Spelkollektivet for a very short stay after Nordic Game in Malmö. Anyway, here is what’s new since my last message:

It’s now been just over a year since the breakup pulled the rug out from under my feet and I tumbled straight down into depression. If I look back, I can clearly see the different strata/phases of my depression.

It’s only now, ~13 months later, that I feel like the best version of me (the me that I really enjoy being - open, playful, social), starts to emerge again, here and there. At A MAZE it felt like I couldn’t really access that part of me, which was depressing and frustrating. I was at a festival I love with lots of interesting people, both known and unknown, but I just didn’t have any energy to make the most of that.

But somehow during Nordic Game I managed to coax my best me out a little more. Maybe it’s just luck, maybe it’s the fact that A MAZE went by and left me sad at my inability and the wasted opportunity, or maybe it was simple being outside of Germany again.

Speaking of traveling: I turned 45 this year and I didn’t want to spend that depressed at home so after EVENTUALLY overcoming my gigantic paralysis, I manged to book a pretty last minute flight to Valencia to meet some gamedev friends. And while that too was challenging in parts, I don’t regret it.

But I do find myself thinking about location. I’m still based in Ludwigsburg but it does not feel like there’s a future there for me. It was never intended as a permanent stay and my depression left me back quite disillusioned and unhappy (which is its own topic that goes beyond the scope of this mail) so I wonder about my future. Maybe it is time for me to develop a vision for what my life could be.

But since that’s not that easy to answer (for me), I’ll use a patented technique to find an answer to a question: Prototyping. So now this summer I will spend a few months in Vienna to see if this feels more like a path forward.

So while traveling to A MAZE in Berlin and Nordic Game in Malmö I am somehow also running a Kickstarter for Crownbreakers. It’s been going pretty well so far.

The entire campaign is framed as a way to help make the game better because the development of the basic version of Crownbreakers is fully funded. So why am I running a crowdfunding campaign while I’m depressed and exhibiting at two conventions? Well the money is obviously a reason, but that alone would not be enough of a justification.

My goal for the campaign is to reach out to fans and to build up a community of engaged, curious and interested folks. Particularly to use that group of people to begin alpha testing in the near future. The first access phase of Nowhere Prophet was a time that made the game so much better and I want to replicate that but without properly launching anywhere.

So my hope is that the alpha testers will be active and share their thoughts and feedback with me to sharpen the game. It’ll be nice to get feedback and breathe some more life into the Sharkbomb discord.

Oh yeah, and that’s not all: I’ve also spent a lot of time in April and May to reach out to find support for Crownbreakers.

On one hand I have been searching for a publisher. I’m confident I could publish the game myself but I would rather focus my energy on the game itself and have someone help with marketing, porting, localization and QA. A publisher fills these roles pretty neatly.

I had a number of calls and meetings, both remotely and at Nordic Game. There’s even a few offers so things are moving along. It’s slow going because I have so many responsibilities but it’s nice to have options.

I’ve also been searching for a game designer. April and May were planned to have me focus on adding content (cards, bosses, unlocks etc.) to the game. However things were going much more slowly than I had hoped. I think mostly because doing that by myself just wasn’t a lot of fun.

It took a while but I’ve found someone to round out the team here. They’ll be joining part time for a bit so I have someone to collaborate with: Coming up with ideas together, implementing them, testing, discussing, and then repeating until everything is golden.

I’m excited to kick that off, once I’m back home.

I mentioned it before but I did go to A MAZE again this year, for the umpteenth time. But I also went to Nordic Game for the first time. It was an interesting conference. My takeaway is: Good size to meet the people that are there, weird last day of talks while the booths are being dismantled, and mid talks.

Honestly, if you’d ask me what the best part of Nordic Game was, my answer would clearly be Nått Nordic. This indie-focused counter event was in a basement the middle of nowhere. A former air raid bunker and now art space was the host for a lot of indies from the Nordics, complete with tea ceremonies, handmade fortune cookies, playtesting and hypertalks.

I had a wonderful time getting to know new folks and running into some old friends, even some I had never expected to be there. All in all a greatly successful event and one that makes me want to organize similar things. Maybe the old Indie Arena Assemble party (anyone remember that?) that ran during Gamescom could be evolved into this at some point? Getting back into organizing things has definitely been on my mind.

Oh, and I decided to do a quick detour to Spelkollektivet. It’s been FOUR (!) years since the last time and it’s nice to meet old and new people.

And while I’m talking about events: I will be in Mannheim for Geekworld. The Kokolores Creative Collective, the coworking community in Ludwigsburg I am a part of have a booth on site and I’ll be there with Crownbreakers and my TTRPG books.

Any good newsletter has some well defined calls to action for the audience. So in an attempt at making things easy for you I’ll list the actions that you can take RIGHT NOW to support me and my work:

And here’s the things I’ve seen and played in the recent weeks and months:

And yeah, that should cover everything.

Take care,

💚Martin