We hope that this one scratches the itch. Choice-heavy, procedural, and deeply cynical with enough humor to keep the scars shallow. It's gonna be cool as hell.

A deeply boring YouTube tie-in does numbers. Again. Time to trot out my favorite PbtA move...when you can't think of anymore D&D content to make, roll +Clout.

The distinction is everything.

The Churn. The compounding debt rolls felt good; clean and elegant. But this game is not about predictable curves or manageable risks. The Churn is a fallout generator. The better you do on a run, the more all of those factions are looking to get a piece of you. Sometimes it's even good news.

When we start working on a game, the first thing we do is go out to breakfast. There, we pitch, refine, and make a list of "nonnegotiables." For Dead Net: Retro-Cyberpunk. No clean lines, no slick interfaces. Plug the computer into your brain, it's got ASCII graphics.

"If we want the Downtime and the Churn mechanics to be the thing people are constantly worried about, then we need to make sure they survive their first dive." You know what, Navi? Fair.

Following a round of internal playtest, you'll be happy to know that Dead Net has reached the "too mean" stage. Fiddling with knobs and dials until we hit the exact right amount of mean for our high-tech lowlife game of desperate hackers scraping a living out of the cruelest internet. Soon.

I'm particularly excited about this one. Because it dove-tails into the story of my own personal Doskvol boogey-man perfectly. My Friday night crew will flip when they hear that The Man Jack is back...

Garage sale distraction free writers have successfully kept me from buying one of these fuckin' things.

You're not gonna believe this...

"I can smell you, feel your air." -a Midland Texas lineman, just woken up from a nap.

Update, Dead Net, an inheritor to Dead Belt is about 70% done and I'm still in love with it. Get your mirror shades ready. Queue up your favorite synthwave soundtrack. We've got a Net to burn.

It’s the old Genesis Shadowrun game. Moving through the network map, dodging hostile ICE, and stealing data for big corps? That was my jam.

The last seven boxes of HEDGE are headed out the door and in the grand tradition of our House, Navi and I are going to go grab sushi and talk about what's next. The big wheel keep on turnin.' When you get your books, snap a photo and show me my kids made it home safe, okay? Makes it all worth it.

It's got the occasional crunchy bit in, but yeah.

In a word?

Enough of this merry banter. Time to send you all your copies of HEDGE...

Advertise my account with a Simpsons Image? Yeah, okay.

Finally a bunch of proofs that actually justified their astronomical cost. Big production run is ordered, now we try to forget the small fortune we just spent on printing by going out for celebratory coffee! Yay!

Stand by. Weirdness incoming.

Basically.

I refuse to become e.e. cummings to prove that I'm not a robot. My nonsense is way too out of pocket for a machine to properly immitate.

Druids are mad-eyed wilderness prophets, the sort who long ago learned that in this dark forest of a world you need not decide between tiger and human.

Getting subtle hints that I should be writing a gothic novel. Behold. My town.

I'm here for the leafy sea-dragon energy-catchment skiffs... Fish are so freaking cool.

Smooth Trunkfish!