A Slow Year Limited Edition

I started working on my Atari “game poems” project A Slow Year almost exactly three years ago. I had spent an idle summer afternoon writing 6502 assembly on the couch, and the first versions of the summer game took form. Slowly, over time, the work revealed itself to me: a set of four 1k games, one for each season, inspired by the poetic traditions of haiku and imagism. I would eventually decide to frame the work as a hybrid videogame and poetry chapbook. It’s a strange work, to be sure, but it’s just exactly what I wanted it to be.

The game was a finalist in the 2010 Independent Game Festival (Nuovo category), and won both the Vanguard and Virtuoso awards in the 2010 Indiecade Festival. In autumn of 2010 I released the “consumer grade” edition of A Slow Year, which you can buy for $20.

But for the last year I’ve been working on the limited edition of the game, a signed, numbered set meant to be an art object as much as a game or a book. And it’s finally, finally done.

The box is hand-crafted and bound in red leather, with printed image and foil-stamped gold lettering, and clasps magnetically. The matching hardcover book is printed with thick, bright paper, and includes color printed details and black endpapers. Everything fits together perfectly, and it’s ready for display—and play.

There are 25 of these total, and there will never be any more than that. They cost $500 each. Many are already accounted for, so contact me if you want one.