2 Hours Left!
almost 6 years ago – Thu, May 10, 2018 at 11:17:32 AM

Thank you, everyone! This is just a final reminder that we adore you, that every last share and post counts, and that this has been a wonderful ride <3 

Story Time Comes to a Close

Sean Nittner and Kira Magrann share one of the earliest and most memorable Star Crossed playtests, in which a peace negotiation between Werewolf and Vampire clans went terribly awry. They are so generous and insightful! Thank you, backers, for letting me do this fun little series. I kinda love interviewing ^_^ 

Thank you!

We'll send a final total update in a few hours... until then, join us in some pointless but exhilarating number-watching. As one backer pointed out on twitter, it's a little like pulling the 20th brick... 

-- Alex and the Bully Pulpit Crew

24 Hours Left!
almost 6 years ago – Wed, May 09, 2018 at 07:55:19 PM

We have two sparkling surprises for you today, friends! Pins and praise!

You Did It! The Pins Will Exist!

Thank you so much, everyone!!!!! I am overjoyed to make these available to you, our generous backers. We are so grateful for all your support. <3 

We will have these beautiful enamel pins, available for all backers at the BackerKit stage of fulfillment. They will be free to anyone who backed at the Beloved Edition or above, and available at cost to Internet Crush Edition backers as well. We'll be selling them at full price as well, to those who missed the KS! 

If you want to be Pin Pals with all your friends who haven't backed SC yet, now is the time to remind them that tomorrow is the last day of the campaign! 

A Few Words From our BFFs

Over the past few weeks, Jason has been doing a game design residency in Olympia, Washington at fellow small games press Heart of the Deernicorn. While there, he and Deernicorn founder Ross Cowman put together this video full of kind words for both Star Crossed and their newly Kickstarting game BFF: The RPG of Girlhood, Friendship, and Adventure. 

 Watch the video, heed their wise words, and check out BFF! 

Speaking of Film,

Curious about some of the cinematic inspirations behind Star Crossed? I have so many to recommend! A whole filmography! Let me list them one by one, with a thorough explanation of their themes and dynamics. 

Ha ha just kidding.

Just Find Something Directed by Wong Kar-wai.

I don't know what happened to this guy, but he gets unfulfilled desire. Two neighbours, whose spouses are having affairs they both consider abhorrently wrong, slowly (and I do mean slowly) develop feelings for each other in In The Mood for Love. A man on a train in 2046 waits forever to hear if the robot attendant he just confessed to loves him back or not. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on between Li-zhen and Tide in Days of Being Wild, but it's definitely not what they want. 

If you watch only one thing to prepare for a good game of Star Crossed, watch The Grandmaster. You will be shown the true meaning of flirtation.

--Alex and the Bully Pulpit Crew 

Play Star Crossed Online!
almost 6 years ago – Tue, May 08, 2018 at 11:06:19 PM

With just 3 Days left in our campaign, we've got virtual play developments, some amazing media coverage, and a few reading suggestions for you on top of that. 

Star Crossed Online

Friends Jenn Martin and Gerrit Reininghaus, building on Dana Fried's work for online Dread, have developed a way to play Star Crossed over any video call! You can find their rule set here, and check out their charming actual play below. Thanks Jenn, Gerrit, and Dana!

In the Media Once Again

During our campaign's final sprint, we're getting some flattering coverage! Polygon, my personal favourite website for digital game coverage, took their eyes of the screen for a sec to notice us here in tabletop town. That's pretty cool.

Unarguably the most powerful website covering the towering artistic and commercial behemoth that is romance fiction, Smart Bitches Trashy Books, gave us a nice shout-out in their recent link roundup. 

And finally, we have one of the best written interviews I've been a part of. Angie over at Sidequest asked me some insightful questions, and I bared my soul (read: answered at 2am.) The result tells you a lot about my intentions for Star Crossed, and dreams for roleplaying as a medium more generally. Absolutely worth a read. Speaking of which...

Star Crossed Reading List 

Following yesterday's musical selection, let me give you some books to inspire your next SC pairing. Today, let's talk about the essential ingredients of my favourite stories: 

Ambiguity

In Gengoroh Tagame's "My Brother's Husband," a Japanese single dad is visited by his late brother's Canadian husband, and forced to confront his own unconscious prejudice and mourn a relationship that was lost long before his brother's untimely death. Believe it or not, this manga series is a slice-of-life story that holds as many sweet moments as sad ones. 

Most importantly, the relationship between Yaichi and Mike is nuanced and ever-shifting. Are they bound by Yaichi's sense of familial obligation, or Mike's eagerness to learn about his lost love? What do they actually want from each other? Am I the reader compelled or upset by their increasing intimacy? Why does Tagame keep drawing them both either in the bath or working out? When will the English translation of the next volume be available???

Desire

This one comes from Jason Morningstar, whose instinct to keep Star Crossed grounded has been instrumental in its flourishing. Jack London's "The Sea Wolf," however, is all fantasy. A bookish young man, definitely not a stand-in for London at his absolute thirstiest, gets pressed into service as a ship's doctor on a seal-hunting vessel, doomed to helplessly lust after her captain, a ruthless demi-god of virility, Wolf Larson: 

“I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the Ghost carried, and while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things ready for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and chatting, and examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had never before seen him stripped, and the sight of his body quite took my breath away. It has never been my weakness to exalt the flesh—far from it; but there is enough of the artist in me to appreciate its wonder.   

I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen’s figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. ... Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in his perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great muscles leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to say that the bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to his Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest woman’s. I remember his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, and my watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I could not take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor.  

He noticed me, and I became conscious that I was staring at him.  

“God made you well,” I said.  

“Did he?” he answered. “I have often thought so myself..."

More sea-faring Star Crossing please!

And, Yeah, Sci-Fi

In one of my favourite novels, Ursula Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness," a Terran man is sent to survey a planet where people are born without gender, and experience sexual desire and fertility during a recurring period called kemmer. (I know what some of you are thinking. Pon Farr in a cave.) Suffice it to say that it was Jess Fink's fan art of this book that assured us here at BPG that she was the perfect illustrator for Star Crossed. But instead of that tent scene, which may or may not end the way you may or may not hope it does, I'll share another snippet from the text, again on the subject of beautiful, imperfect epilogues. Read on if spoilers are okay with you. Otherwise, bye! Thanks, everyone! <3 

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"For it seemed to me, and I think to him, that it was from that sexual tension between us, admitted now and understood but not assuaged, that the great and sudden assurance of friendship between us rose: a friendship so much needed by us both in our exile, and already so well proved in the days and nights of our better journey, that it might as well be called, now as later, love. But it was from the difference between us, not from the affinities and likenesses, but from the difference, that that love came: and it was itself the bridge, the only bridge, across what divided us. For us to meet sexually would be for us to meet once more as aliens. We had touched, in the only way we could touch. We left it at that. I do not know if we were right." 

-- Alex and the Bully Pulpit Crew

We're in the Final Week! Let's get inspired.
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 07, 2018 at 04:58:29 PM

There's so much love and so little time. Your support continues to knock us on our butts at every turn. Here are some audio expressions of gratitude!

Reminder! 

If someone you know has been thinking of supporting us, or if there's a higher-level reward you have your eye on, go for it before 12:00 PM EST on Thursday, May 10th! 

The success of this Kickstarter means more than just our game in your hands - delightful as that is. It also means we can put this thing in distribution! On game store shelves! It means that next time some rookie designer like me has a cute, sexy, or just plain queer idea like this, a publisher (even one less boundary-pushing than BPG) can look at Star Crossed and say, "Well, they did okay."  

Am I flattering myself a little? No, I would never do that. This flattery is for backers only.

Story Time #3  

Our penultimate Star Crossed Story Time has psychologist Jessica Schoolman and larp scholar Sarah Lynne-Bowman in a workplace tangle. It's nice to remember that in Star Crossed, the ordinary can be just as tantalizing as the fantastic.    

Star Crossed OST

Many people have asked me about musical inspiration for Star Crossed. Though a thorough and complete playlist has yet to be assembled, here are the essentials: 

The Mood

Like a dystopic version of the Beach Boys' Wouldn't it Be Nice, Gene Pitney's anguished purr highlights the miserable edges of Ned Washington's Romeo & Juliet lyrics in Town Without Pity. 

If we stop to gaze upon a star  People talk about how bad we are
Ours is not an easy age
We're like tigers in a cage
What a town without pity can do...

The Story

Loneliness, devotion, desire, impossibility, and connection are the key ingredients for a perfect Star Crossed set up. In one of the post poetic pieces of game crit ever composed, He Poos Clouds, Owen Pallett confesses his love for a prototypical hero figure. (It's not entirely clear who, but my money's on Link.)

All the boys I have ever loved have been digital  
I’ve been a guest on a screen, or in a book
I move him with my thumbs, I move him with my thumbs
I write his name in nothing, he whispers to the author
That I will be the only one

The Epilogue 

I'm a sucker for a tragedy, but I think a story that ends with characters going their separate ways isn't necessarily sad. Maaya Sakamoto gets the wistful cheer of Uchuu Hikoushi no Uta (The Astronaut's Song) across in tone of voice alone, but I encourage you to find a translation of the lyrics after you've listened. 

After being seen off by your straw hat  I took off in high spirits
The blue of the sky, the weightlessness, the endlessness of time, the distance of Earth The faint hum of the computer 
And the scent of the tomatoes you grew

What Do You Think? 

What songs have inspired your play? What captures the Star Crossed mood for you? And what else are you curious about, as I prepare the last few in-campaign backer updates? (Cuz you know I'm going to give you a few movie recommendations too, at least.) 

Our Final Stretch Goal is Shiny and on Trend
almost 6 years ago – Fri, May 04, 2018 at 01:09:13 PM

Pins! Pins! Pins! 

Reaching $50,000 on a Kickstarter for a roleplaying game about the joy and anguish of love that cannot be is pretty much impossible. It's ridiculous, at the very least. So let's do something ridiculous. 

Our final stretch goal: at $50k, we will make these beautiful Star Crossed enamel pins available in BackerKit so that you can add them to your final shipment.

We plan to put them up for sale after the final game release, but all of our Beloved, Potluck, Wizards' Tower, Patron of Letters and Patron of the Arts backers, can add a pin to your reward shipment for free! For Internet Crush backers, the pins will be available at a discount and will be sent out when we send the other physical rewards. 

Alex on KARTAS  

Ken takes a break from Talking About Stuff with Robin to enjoy a delightful mini-interview with Alex, recorded at a cozy kitchen table in Chicago, about love and sex in RPGs. Absolutely worth a listen.  

There's even more to be heard on Pod of Love, where possibly the sweetest couple ever to exist asks about the structure of the game, where it came from, and exactly which Avenger Alex is most likely to become lawfully wedded to.  

Have a Wonderful Weekend!  

And don't forget to tell your friends about the soon-to-be-finished Star Crossed Kickstarter. It's been an incredible journey so far. We're getting BackerKit set up now, and buzzing with excitement about all the goodies we'll soon be getting ready for you. If we can add some sparkly accessories to that list... well, this whole thing is already a dream come true, so what can I say?  

<3  

--Alex and the Bully Pulpit Crew