Another Note from the Cmich Press Team
We know this is the second announcement in succession from us…but keep reading! We have some BIG news!
New Series Launch!
Last year, Executive Editor Jon Truitt was talking to Tim Hutchings about how our Scholarship and Lore series uses double-blind peer-review methodology to bring games into the realm of academic scholarship. Many games were already doing this sort of work, but we wanted to offer academics who were creating games a press that treated their game work with the seriousness of traditional research texts. Tim pointed out that we had missed the needs of artists, experimental designers, and people in the game world who are doing interesting work about the medium itself.
To rectify this, we asked him if he would join us as editor for a new series.
Hutchings agreed – and long story short, he is now an affiliate professor at our center and lead editor for our forthcoming NEW series, Art and System: Games for Expanded Play, launching October 1st on BackerKit!
This new series is named for the seminal Rosalind Krauss essay, “Sculpture in the Expanded Field.” It has two parallel goals: to preserve indie games which have had an impact on game design discourse, and to showcase new work which pushes the boundaries of games even further. Our prelaunch page is already live! Check it out and click ‘follow’ to receive an alert when we start the official crowdfunding process!
The series will open with Dog Eat Dog (2012) by Liam Liwanag Burke, Princess with a Cursed Sword (2025) by Anna Anthropy, and The Mountain Witch (2005) by Tim Kleinert. Intrigued? Keep reading for a short summary of what you can expect from each game!
Dog Eat Dog: A Game of Imperialism and Assimilation in the Pacific Islands
If you are unfamiliar with the 2013 IndieCade Impact Award-winning RPG, it creates a social and narrative space at the table which echoes the power imbalances of colonialism. As such, gameplay is unfair and unsettling.
As Serban Ionita so succinctly put it, Dog Eat Dog is “a post-colonial RP about the occupation of an island, [is] a striking demonstration of how minimal game mechanics can be used to convey a rich thematic experience…. Burke consciously created the game not merely to replicate, but to elicit from the players the dynamics of power in colonization and occupation.”
This will be the first time the game is available in physical print form in a decade!
Check out the current draft cover by artist Samuel Araya below!
Princess with a Cursed Sword
Princess with a Cursed Sword is a compilation of related solo games about duality, self-discovery, and revolution.
The game has been available as PDF one-sheets in the past, but CMich Press will publish them as a single bound volume.
The game book will include Princess with a Cursed Sword, Tavern at the End of the World, The Empress and Her Seer, and Magpie by Moonlight. Additionally – and for the first time – players will gain access to an entirely new adventure: Thaumaturge! To add to the fun, we invited five people to write up a playthrough for each of the games, and these narratives will be included in the game book.
This edition of the game will have still more exciting new elements…but we will save those for the launch!
Check out this interior art from the gamer book by artist Evlyn Moreau below.
The Mountain Witch
The Mountain Witch builds a narrative around trust, betrayal, and hidden goals. In the game, you take on the role of a ronin samurai hired to kill O-Yanma, the Mountain Witch of Mount Fuji.
When it was originally published in 2005, this game was praised for its trust mechanic and how it centered character relationships. It was crowdfunded in 2018, but final physical fulfillment could not happen due to unfortunate circumstances. Now, as part of our crowdfunding campaign, we will be working with Tim to make sure his 2018 crowdfunders who would have received a physical copy of the game book will get their game book now. We are still working out the specific details on how this will work, but the 2018 physical backers will be able to get a copy of the game.
Interested in what we’re doing? Show us some social media love on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, TikTok, and YouTube!
We’d love to chat in person, too! Come find us at Gen Con this summer on Community Row or swing by Booth 2759 in the Exhibit Hall. We’ll have our current lineup of games ready to play, plus (fingers crossed!) prototypes of the games Making History, Witch Hunt, and Keep the Faith.
We’re especially thrilled to talk about our upcoming new series—and if you’re as hyped as we are, make sure to click here and hit follow on our Art & System series prelaunch page so you’ll be the first to know when the campaign goes live!