it’s the weekend.

happy friday march twenty-seventh two thousand and six eleven zero eight a.m.! how’s your weekend shaping up? what are your plans? are you going to your local library? you should really visit your local library. are you putting your phone down and going outside? how many subscriptions do you have? could you do with one less? are you going to support local art or see a local band? maybe you should!

here’s my first newsletter and if you forgot even signing up for this, my name is aura and i make games. i have a website: aurabellemakesthings.com where you can find them and other things i make (maybe poetry, music, or other instances of writing are your thing?). it’s a little vacant right now because i just got it going, but give it time!

a baby fell from the sky.

i re-visited a game from forever ago, a larp called a baby fell from the sky, about a twilight zone-esque nightmare situation where an alien baby visits a small town in tennessee and abducts one of its citizens. it’s creepy and fun and terrible in a lot really great ways. anyway, the second version is out in cool physical zine format and you can get a copy absolutely free! you don’t even pay shipping! i just send you all the things to your actual address. head on over to aurabellemakesthings.com/a-baby-fell-from-the-sky/ for instructions.

physical games.

i’ve made the switch from creating digital products to free, physical, in the flesh art, and i’ve talked about this elsewhere. i missed having weird objects i could own with my hands and i always like receiving personal mail. when you pull out a board game or pen and paper and rulebooks or a kit for your favorite hobby, there’s a magic to having all these tools and toys at your disposal, able to share around, arrange on the table; or put in your pocket and get going. even more so when the items were made by someone else - a person, a friend, or a fellow artist.

zines, crafting, and small press also share a particular joy, which is why the physical books i’m making are printed and arranged by hand. i hope you will enjoy the ugliness and the rough edges as much as i do. here’s something tom waits said that i think is apt:

"You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. Your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they've been. You have to break them of their habits or you don't explore. You only play what is confident and pleasing. I'm learning to break those habits by playing instruments I know absolutely nothing about, like a bassoon or a waterphone." - Tom Waits, 1994

there’s some pros and cons to this approach - accessibility and cost are both thrown into doubt. it’s pretty cheap, to be honest with you, to produce these things (living in an art school city means we are never without cheap stationery or supplies), and shipping ain’t that bad. and accessibility is an issue: you have to wait now, for me to print, assemble, and mail your order, and then for the mail to deliver it, instead of just getting it immediately. there are things to wrestle with, and i’m analyzing stuff, but overall i’ve been very happy with this!

when you make an order with me, i print, arrange, bind, and package your entire order at that time. it takes a bit longer as i’m just a girl and not a company, and international orders can only feasibly go out once a month at this time, but the scramble is lovely and fulfilling.

upcoming projects.

time for the sexy stuff.

i’m working on re-releasing kirigami dominatrix display simulator in new zine format as well in time for the upcoming freaks & geeks nsfw art market here in savannah, ga. if you’re not familiar, it’s a solo papercutting game where you play as a sci-fi hologram dominatrix and you enact your brutal and terribly hot art on your clients, as represented by specially decorated sheets of paper. cut here to do this to them, fold here to make them say that, use staplers or tear with your hands, etc. this will go up on the site as well, soon.

next i’m working on a strange mech game that uses custom oracle cards to tell stories about the crew of a mech and the breaking point of their work. what i like about this game is once you understand how it works, it becomes extremely easy to make your own oracle cards for it and keep it fresh and personal forever. i’m already thinking of different settings to adapt it for, hacks upon hacks upon hacks.

finally, i have a thing that’s brewing called bitter tea, about bog witches sharing tea with one another. there’s not too much here to share, and i like to think this one will be experimental to the point of not only being system-agnostic or setting-agnostic, but game-agnostic as well, but details will come soon!

good-bye.

that’s all for now. thank you for taking an interest in my work! i do this all for absolutely free, just for the passion of it, so word of mouth is very helpful - if you like something you see of mine, tell your friends!

please have a wonderful rest of your march! keep making weird things!