Hello! My, how time flies. I suppose you’re wondering how things are going here at Pugsteady? Well, it starts on a somber note….
Remembering Lee Garvin
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been slowly getting rid of books and games I don’t need in preparation for a move in the vague future. I’m still keeping some that have personal meaning for me, but I try to check the boxes of the games before I send them out. And one ended up sucker punching me without warning.
See, I Kickstarted a game called Killing Lee Garvin, which was a dark comedy game about murdering game designer Lee Garvin, as a way to raise money to help Lee’s medical bills and to get him an apartment (he was living out of his car at the time). I backed it at the time just because I wanted to help Lee, who had become a friend of mine over the course of his illness, but I never played it, so I was planning on letting it go.
I had forgotten that Lee wrote me a letter and included it in the box.
If you can’t read the image, Lee’s handwriting is pretty rough, but I believe it reads as follows:
Hi Eddy! My pacemaker didn’t malfunction so much as get infected with MSRA. During the episode I had a fever of 106 degrees and I kept hallucinating a “guy in a hat” in my hospital room. Scary stuff. Thanks for your help, Lee. P.S. I hope I can play Pugmire with you some day.
Taking a step back, I have been very fortunate to meet just about all my game design idols, and they are both cool people and also friends of mine, or at least good acquaintances. Lee was one of them, because Tales of the Floating Vagabond was one of my game design influences. I even snuck a small reference to it in my first White Wolf work, Mind’s Eye Theatre: The Awakening. And he is one of a disturbingly large number of my idols who liked Pugmire, so hearing that he loved my game was very important to me.
Unfortunately, I got the letter after he died of a heart attack on June 28, 2019, so I never got to play Pugmire with him.
Obviously I’m holding on to the game now, but it’s got me thinking about how so many of us are getting older, and how we’re not exactly a healthy bunch at the best of times. A couple have even died during the course of projects I was working on, which brings a whole host of logistic challenges on top of the emotional ones. And because writing and game design is so often a solitary pursuit, the passing of a designer sometimes means that their knowledge and skill is lost forever.
So here’s to Lee Garvin, and all the other designers that have come and gone. Know that your work and inspiration still puts smiles on our faces even today.
News Roundup!
Oof, the past few newsletters have been pretty dour, huh? I guess I’ve just been in a bit of a melancholy mood lately. But let’s move on to more fun things, like news of what I’ve been up to!
Speaking of Pugmire, it’s been five years since it was published by Onyx Path, and not even dog years! That means I’ve been working on it even longer — closer to seven years, most likely — and where does the time go? But I continue to be thankful and appreciative of the support that Pugmire fans have given my funny little dog game for all these years. Here’s to another five!
I made another appearance on the Design Club show on the ExtraCredits Twitch channel! It’s always fun to talk about whatever comes to mind… oh yeah, and the topic, too… with the EC folks. The video-on-demand is still on the channel, so go check it out!
Another video series I’m on is Building Character on the Onyx Path Twitch channel, and our latest episode just went up on YouTube! Pugmire fans might be particularly interested in this one, as Dixie and I made rabbit and hare characters from the upcoming Squeaks in the Deep Companion! So if you’re hoping for a nibble of what’s coming up, check out the video!
If you’d like to hear me talk about comics, I’ve been doing a six-episode breakdown charting the course of Green Arrow as a DC character from the 60s to recently. You can listen to all of them (and a lot more) on the Genreless podcast!
I mentioned that I was nominated for an ENnie Award last month, and it turns out I’ve won it! Two, in fact: a silver for Best Free Game/Product, and a silver for Best Rules! The latter was a surprise to me, as I only really consulted on the rules for Haunted West, but Chris Spivey was adamant that I was part of the team, and went out of his way to mail me one of the awards, which is now on my desk.
My Media
Honestly, I’ve fallen down a weird rabbit hole exploring, of all things, Sonic the Hedgehog comic books. It’s not a property I have any particular fondness for, but I did stumble across a new podcast called Sonic the Comic the Podcast, which covers the UK exclusive Sonic comic. And it’s exactly the kind of comic that probably would have inspired me to make Pugmire if I had discovered it thirty years ago and been born in the UK. It’s been really fun to explore nostalgia for a time and place not my own, while also enjoying a new trickle of inspiration for my own work!
But I’m going to break with formula and talk about another nostalgic feeling, this time a positive one. Rich Thomas, the owner and Creative Director of Onyx Path Publishing, is in the process of moving to a new house. Some people may not know that he was also the person who hired me to work at White Wolf/CCP back in 2007. And somehow he held on to my resume and writing sample from back then! Here’s the photo he sent me, so you can see how Baby Eddy was trying to market himself fifteen years ago!
So I’ll leave you with that. Have a great September, and I’ll see you next month!