Look, a Sasquatch! And Primeval Thule!

Hi, everybody! For a couple of months now I’ve been hinting about a big announcement coming up, and today I can finally make it: Together with my partners Dave Noonan and Steve Schubert, I have formed a new small-press game publishing company called Sasquatch Game Studio. Sasquatch grew out of my long and deep ponderings as I commuted back and forth to Redmond over the winter and early spring. I had time to think seriously about what I would do if I could do anything I wanted to… and I started thinking about the sort of fantasy worlds you just don’t see these days, and asking myself what it would take to build and publish it.

Not being entirely crazy, I realized I needed allies to do it right. So I invited my longtime colleagues, friends, and Thursday night gaming buddies Dave Noonan and Steve Schubert to meet me at a dive-like brew pub close by my house. Together we decided to form Dark Cabal Games... except none of our wives liked the name, so we ditched that and went with something a little more Northwesty and lighthearted. Hence Sasquatch Game Studio was born!

Between the three of us, Dave, Steve, and I have something like 48 years of experience in game design and publishing. We’re building our business model around creating high-quality games with top industry talent—we aim to deliver great games for discerning and experienced gamers. Here’s a link to our site:

http://www.sasquatchgamestudio.com/

The site’s a little plain at the moment, but check back over the next day or two—we have a lot of great concept art and interesting new information about our first product on the way.

Speaking of our first product, I can now say a word or two about my mystery project that’s been simmering away on the creative stove for the last couple of months: the Primeval Thule Campaign Setting. Here’s another link:

http://www.sasquatchgamestudio.com/products/

Thule is a mythical age of the Earth, before the last ice age erased the legendary realms of the northern world. It’s a sword-and-sandal setting firmly rooted in the traditions of pulp fantasy adventure and fantastic horror: Conan, Tarzan, Atlantis, Hyperborea, and elder gods from the stars. But this is a D&D setting, and we use that as a springboard to brew up a particularly savage and intense brand of D&D adventure. I think it’s fun and compelling, and I hope you do too!

This is a setting I’ve wanted to write for twenty years, but the age of new D&D worlds ground to a halt early in the 3^rd Edition era. I argued many times that creating new worlds was something that we ought to be doing more of, but Wizards of the Coast (and many other publishers) became ever more focused on selling to players instead of DMs, and we stopped building worlds. As a small company, me and my fellow Sasquatches can do things that big companies can’t. For the first time in years, I’m back in the world-building trade!

(Oh, and in case anyone is curious: Yes, I still hold a day job as a writer/designer for Goblinworks, working on the Pathfinder Online game. Paizo and Goblinworks are pretty enlightened about how folks use their evenings and weekends, so I’m free to doodle around on maps of Thule or brainstorm up interesting Thulishness on my time. Helps pass the time on my looong commutes!)

About this Blog: While I hope to still keep up with Atomic Dragon Battleship as time permits, over the next couple of months a lot of my blogging (and, well, self-promotion) will be happening over on the News page of the Sasquatch site. I’m working up a whole stack of design discussions and sneak peeks for Primeval Thule, so that’s where you’re likely to find me through midsummer.

So, one more time: Come on over and visit us at sasquatchgamestudio.com!