Wow! No Images? Click here Happy New Year, all!Hello, and welcome once more to the Fullbright newsletter! It is 2019, and wow oh wow... there are a bunch of new ways to get your hands on both our games! On your phone, in new physical editions, Fullbright's everywhere these days! First up: countdown to the Limited Run physical edition of Tacoma! It's almost here...Considering that we make games designed for digital download, it's always thrilling when we get to release physical editions of our stuff (like Gone Home on Switch and the vinyl soundtrack via iam8bit). And in just a few short hours (or, if you're reading this tomorrow, right now...) TACOMA will receive its very first, deluxe, Limited Run collector's edition physical release! Tacoma for PS4 will be available for a limited time in this awesome physical edition! The standard version is Fullbright's second game on blu-ray in a snazzy physical case-- and the very limited ODIN EDITION includes three physical, mailable postcards of the Venturis Belt ads found in the game, plus a sweet little ODIN plushie to hang from your rear view mirror, or wherever your little heart desires! JUST LOOK AT THAT SWEET BOY!!! We didn't get a ton of the ODIN plushies made, so that edition might go fast; jump on Limited Run's site as soon as the countdown ends to grab one for yourself! We hope everyone who orders a physical edition of Tacoma will find a place of honor for this lovely commemorative edition of our second game. Thank you again so much for supporting what we do, in ways big and small! Awesome! But, didn't I say something about... Fullbright games... on your phone?? Oh, that's right: Gone Home is available on iPhone and iPad RIGHT NOW!Back in September, in partnership with Annapurna Interactive, we released Gone Home on Nintendo Switch-- and we're thrilled to share that now you can also explore the House on Arbor Hill right on your iPhone or iPad! Annapurna released Gone Home on iOS in December, and it's been so exciting to see folks experiencing the game who might've never gotten to play it on computer or console, or fans who get to revisit Gone Home in this new, pocket-sized form. This is the full-featured story exploration game you know and love, including every detail from the original game, all the modifiers and Commentary, and new input and UI improvements to make this the best experience it can be on touchscreens. And that's not all... Check out these adorable Gone Home-themed iMessage stickers you get included with your download!!! Good gosh those adorable ducks! Spooky! Steggy! S+L Forever! Thanks so much to everyone who's grabbed this lovely little bundle of content on their iOS device-- and if you have a friend who might love Gone Home but hasn't taken the leap yet, we'd be ever so grateful if you passed the link their way! Come see us, live!We here at Fullbright are big into Doing Talks, it seems-- and in the next couple months, there'll be a few opportunities for you to see folks from the studio out there in the wild talking about their work! First up... me, Steve! And a bunch of other amazing speakers! In Zurich, Switzerland! Ludicious is a really exciting conference that brings together developers from all around the world to talk about the art, craft, and philosophy of their games. I've been lucky enough to be invited to give a talk on how our work at Fullbright deals with real-world issues in ways that strike a chord with players, thoughts about why we even do that, and hopefully some new ways to think about your own work and the games you play. I'm also scheduled to be on a panel discussion at the end of the festival with Richard Lemarchand, Anita Sarkeesian, and Rami Ismail, talking about our work and what it means to be part of the larger discourse surrounding game development. It should be fun, and I hope to see you there! And of course, the Big Show is coming up... GDC 2019 is right around the corner! ...and a couple of Fullbrighters are gonna be speaking there as well! Nina is part of the always-popular microtalks at the Indie Game Summit! She'll be joining a host of excellent speakers to talk about dealing with Personal Experiences As Games-- a subject her work has dealt with extensively. It's a great lineup; if you'll be at GDC at the beginning of the week, make sure you don't miss it! And our Art Director Leighton will also be at the Indie Game Summit, doing an (as-yet-unannounced) talk about her experience shipping her last game, Dream Daddy, and thoughts on managing the aftermath of sudden success in the internet age. And now... Portland Stuff!!This time around, I'll share a little piece of recent Portland civic history, which I think says a lot about the spirit of this very good, very silly town. It is about full-grown adults riding children's bikes down a steep hill, and how it resulted in a piece of public art being erected in the heart of downtown. This edition of Portland Stuff is about... ZOOBOMBERSIn the early 2000s, for some reason, a group of weirds in Portland started taking the MAX light rail up to the Oregon Zoo on Sunday nights, and then riding down the very steep, very windy hill back into town on children's bikes. This came to be known as ZOOBOMBING. As you can imagine, a bunch of goofuses blasting down the hill on a Sunday night might not be the safest thing in the world, and it was certainly frowned upon by folks living in the neighborhoods along the route. Over the years, police involvement became frequent, not just along the Zoobombing route itself, but also right in the middle of the city. For quite some time, the above was a common sight across the street from Portland's iconic Powell's Books. The Zoobombers commandeered a single city bikerack and chained all their mini-bikes to it throughout the week, then unlocked the bikes on Sunday and hauled them up the hill for their weekly bombing run. As tensions between the police and a group of grown-ups who liked to ride children's bikes down a hill escalated, this pile of bikes was more and more frequently cut loose from the bike rack during the week and impounded by police-- only to be replaced the next week by a new pile of Goodwill-sourced children's bikes and a new heavy-duty chain on the rack. Where would this all lead? To an official ban on biking down that hill on Sundays? Police barricades blocking the Zoobomber's routes? The removal of the problem bike rack, CCTVs installed to keep these miscreants from getting up to trouble? No, this is Portland, so the city put up $10,000 to commission a piece of Zoobomb-themed public art, which also acts as an official bike lockup forZoobombers to use instead of that chaotic, unsanctioned pile. In 2009, Mayor Sam Adams officially unveiled the People's Bike Library of Portland, a 17-foot sculpture topped with a gold-plated children's bike, only a few blocks down Burnside Street from the former bike pile across from Powell's. On the day of the unveiling there was a brief parade of civic leaders and current and former Zoobombers, followed by remarks from the Mayor and a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The sculpture still stands, shining gold on West Burnside, piled with dozens of mini-bikes waiting for their weekly bombing run down the hill. The spirit of Portland is a spirit of compromise-- and, lucky for us, the weirds usually come out on top. Thanks once more, friend, for subscribing to the Fullbright newsletter! We always appreciate you joining us, and we hope you'll enjoy Gone Home on iOS and our Limited Run of Tacoma on PS4! It may be a bit til our next missive-- we're mostly hard at work on our new game, which we won't have a lot to say about for a while-- but when there's more Fullbright news, we'll be in touch. Feel free to drop us a line anytime at hello@fullbrig.ht. Til next time!
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