Thank you for your patience. My city is also on fire right now and while my household is currently fine, the air quality is not great and we all know friends who're in more dire straits who have evacuated or lost their homes. To keep things easy and not fumble around with itch.io codes(although those will be sent out so you can add this to your itch.io libraries), I am simply giving you a link to the final(pending some very minor edits) digital version of the Bird Oracle game via Dropbox. There is a version in pages(better for printing) and a version in spreads(better for reading on a screen). I am planning on sending this off to print next week but may have missed my window to avoid the Chinese New Year break at print factories. I'll keep you updated on when the book will ship, but I am hoping that it will be by the end of February!
The cover of The Bird Oracle. I had to revise it from the crowdfunding mages, but I like this one better
Meanwhile, almost all of the special edition objects have arrived at my studio, and I'll be assembling them starting this week! If you pledged to a special edition, your special edition items and your book will be arriving separately(I'm covering the extra shipping).
I'm hoping to send out backer surveys soon - setting up the Backerkit pledge manager took some time(god, I miss the simplicity of the Kickstarter system, and will be returning to that with my next project), and I haven't gotten approval from Backerkit to send out those surveys yet. Please keep an eye out for them - I really want to send them out and begin shipping special editions next week!
The introduction of the game explains a little why I ended up delaying the game by a couple months, and ultimately, putting out a project that I’m not absolutely delighted with. Don’t get me wrong - I think many things about it are good - but this project was meant to be an end to my larger Oraclebird project, a project which has spanned the end of several relationships, a couple moves, and six years of inhabiting a character that is a version of myself - and that was ultimately, too much for one small game too hold. Working on this game for longer would not make it the game I thought it could become. This game here is the game I promised, a short game about oracles and finding community; I simply expected it to be a container for too many feelings and too many parts of my life, and that was an unreasonable expectation.
Fundamentally, a lot of my work as an artist is the work of process, and sharing this with you is part of my process. I think a lot of people who follow my work know that, and are interested in the very fallible process of making work and being an artist. Perhaps there will be a variant or expansion on this game in the coming year(you will get it for free, of course) where I continue to figure out my feelings regarding this game - but in the meantime, I feel paralyzed by not fulfilling my material obligations to you, and I would like to deliver this game.
