It was really about the juxtaposition of the flower and the starfish, and the way that implied some kind of strange, new life through the simple act of laying one image over another. This resonated with my ideas about textual juxtapositions giving rise to new imaginings (I talk about this a bit in my Yes Indie'd interview.)
I also made that image within days of coming out and starting to transition (more than 2 years ago now), and this notion of blossoming into as-yet-unknown life, felt very personally important to me. As I talk about in the Preface to the hardcover, the game is really intertwined with, and emerged from, my first experiences of transition and queerness. That image capture those experiences for me.
Yes ! I've recently finished work on a compiled, expanded and redesigned hardcover version, which will be coming out on Exalted Funeral in the not-too-distant future. And I will update you all here when there is a release date.
I'm so glad you're enjoying it with your kid. This made me smile : )
I won't be updating this version. I've recently finished work on a new revised and greatly expanded version of the game, which will be released on Exalted Funeral soon-ish. And I appreciate your suggestion, and will look into converting it to a computer readable format.
The plans for the remaining print volumes are a little in flux at the moment. Here is what’s certain: vol 1 & 2 are released in print on EF, both contain some revised and new content. Vol 3 should be out in the next couple months and will contain new content from me, as well as an adventure written by Iko (Lost Bay) and illustrated by Evlyn Moreau.
After that there are some exciting plans in the works but it’s a little too early to talk about them now.
In terms of saying thanks, beyond buying print copies from EF, the best thing you can do is rate and review the game and share it : )
At the moment the expansions and updates are only available in the Exalted Funeral versions (which come with PDFs). After the publication of vols 3 & 4, which I hope will be out by early 2023, I'll consider next steps for the project, including updates to the free Itch version.
That's a great question. In fact, Between the Skies emerged from my attempt convert Any Planet Is Earth to weird-science-fantasy. In brief, I went through all the setting material in APIE, essentially a series of tables, and create science-fantasy versions of each element/table. In the process, I ended up expanding things, adding new approaches etc. But the skeleton that I built from was extracted from APIE. And I think you could absolutely do the same thing with BtS. I can't say it's not a ton of work haha - but you can, at least, use it as a guide for all that work.
Omg, can’t tell you how much I appreciate your read through. Of course, I’m so glad that you like the book. But even more so, you really captured so many of the things I’d hoped to accomplish with the spark tables, biblio, etc etc
We we will see about a hardcover, I would certainly like to see that happen ;)
Thank you so mucb, dozens, for such a kind and thoughtful review! You really got to the heart of core elements of what I was hoping to achieve - very happy it came across
Thanks for the very insightful comment, Côme! Troika! was certainly a big reference point for me - and I would say 'you can play as a swarm of mutant bees aboard their flesh-cloud shaped ship' is a pretty good summation of one of my design goals :)
I hope that BtS will serve as a good resource for players like me who like Troika! and 1) prefer FKR/ultralight play and 2) would like some extensive procedures/tables for developing and exploring their own weird worlds. I should note, I've also included a set of procedures for using Troika! backgrounds and converting them to be used alongside other BtS PCs (p. 39–40).
