Time for your monthly ARC Worlds round-up!
Teh Internet
Spotify went on a podcast acquisition binge. The results so far don’t look great.
An oral history of the making of the movie Contact. Probably Jodie Foster’s greatest acting performance. I’m OK to go! Also learn why Francis Ford Coppola is a dick.
If you don’t want to read Ed Catmull’s book about the founding of Pixar, Katie Baker at The Ringer has an in-depth profile on Pixar that hits the highlights of the book.
So that’s how it got its name:
The Broken Age Kickstarter: 10 years later
Tim Schafer, developer of Day of the Tentacle, set the adventure game world on fire by launching a Kickstarter campaign for an unnamed adventure game. It went on to smash through the initial $400K funding goal pretty quickly and eventually raised almost $3.4 million. A pretty incredible result for a campaign whose basic pitch was “we’re going to make a point-and-click adventure game after this campaign is over and you get to watch how it unfolds!”
The project was beset with delays, with the overfunding acting as more of a curse than a blessing, pressuring the company to increase the size and scope of the game. Eventually the decision was made to split the game into two parts, with the first part released in January 2014 and sold via Steam Early Access to pay to finish developing the other half of the game, which was released in April 2015. There was also a documentary detailing the creation of the game from Kickstarter to finish.
Unfortunately, Tim Schafer hasn’t returned to the genre since, and with his studio being purchased by Microsoft, it’s doubtful that he ever will. Were you one of the Broken Age backers? Did you enjoy the game when it eventually came out?
ARC Worlds Recommends
The Freelance Familiars is a complete series of six novels, with the sixth book, Apex Familiar, launching exclusively on Kickstarter. Want to explore magic through the eyes of a snarky mountain lion? Enjoy the beauty, grace, and dingbat behavior of cats? Rejoice with a squirrel gleefully attacking with heaps of explosives? If any of these questions made you smile, you need to read Freelance Familiars.
A. Guardian Volumes 1 and 2: The mysterious Tomb of Livia rests high in the Windy Mountains of the Middle Kingdom of Kanoc. It has been protected for centuries by Aylward, an ancient and stoic, axe-wielding guardian of unknown origin. As the three kingdoms of the Great Sphere plunge into a three-pronged war once again, what truths will be revealed when the Tomb’s entrance is finally breached?
This Month on ARC Worlds
Guild of Tokens: Trainee
Guild of Magic, Chapters 12-13
Because Guild of Tokens has come to a close, I’ve shifted to weekly releases of Guild of Magic chapters going forward. You can read all of the first arc now, but I’ll be emailing out chapters from the beginning as well. New chapters will continue to be released weekly for paid subscribers.
With the full release of Guild of Tokens, I’ve reorganized the posting schedule. Check out the full details here.
I debuted the new comic section of ARC Worlds, Amazing Journey! Stop by to check out my weekly comic picks and share what you’re reading.
I revealed a new piece of artwork that will be featured in the Guild of Magic Kickstarter campaign, launching July 19!
Looking for more stuff to read?
Two fiction giveaways to check out:
The Sample is a newsletter recommendation engine that will send you a sampling of newsletters customized to your interests (and some random ones to boot).