🎲 Issue #9 - SURVIVAL GOTY: SILKSONG??

Okay, even if you never go and click the Read Online button (top right of this email), you’ll want to do it this time- the featured image for this issue is adorably funny.
(I still don’t even know what that thing is, btw.)

Anyway.

I was invited to join a very prestigious institution, but (somehow) their email ended up in my Spam folder.

Joining new clubs is always kinda awkward and anxiety-inducing, but a friend said she’d come with me, so there’s that.

Creator Stack

Here’s a developer thought nugget for ya. One of the newsletters I read is Game Dev Report (link), and in a recent email, the author, Code Monkey, mentioned that Roblox is absofuckinglutely huge. Bigger than Fortnite! (I say this as if I have any idea how big either game is, given my negative interest in both.)

Anyway, he goes on to say-

This is an interesting thought process to me. I get it, in a way. Becca (my wife, for the new folks here) loves Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, and there are about a billion similar-looking games popping up daily on Steam and Kickstarter. I understand the appeal of trying to cash in on a smash hit. (Do we have close Valheim clones? I guess things like Enshrouded, though it’s interesting, they don’t seem to go as close as some of these cozy farm sims. Anyway, back on track.)

Maybe I just find this weird because, living in the early access survival space as I do, I’m used to-and absolutely fucking tired of-hearing OMG THEY JUST COPIED X GAME constantly.

This game has coconuts? WOW, WAY TO COPY GREEN HELL.
You have an axe? WOW, RIP OFF THE FOREST.
On an island/in water? SUBNAUTICA/STRANDED DEEP CLONE.

Maybe in other genres, the shrieking about “copycats” isn’t as rabid? Or maybe his “build upon it” line is doing a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF HEAVY LIFTING?
Idk. Thoughts??

Hashtag Last Week

On the website, I added a new About Page and made Frostrail the second game listed under the Upcoming Games section. I also gave Discord Server Boosters a monthly poll to choose a title (this month, they are now the S’mores Sluts), and made a post on Patreon for the paid backers. It was a good spot to bullshit about the consequences of dying in survival games. (Apparently corpse runs are very MEAN!)

I’m really happy with how the changes have smoothed out the onboarding experience for folks who are new to the Hashtag ecosystem. Though, oddly, lately we’re getting a lot of new folks off of these 2-4 year old Reddit posts about Survival Game Discords, so that’s a problem for future Jordan to puzzle out.

Gaming

First and foremost, I actually shifted the Group to a Public Group. (Before, it was a closed group.) Dunno why I never did this earlier, tbh, because there really is a rabid Steam forums fanbase for some reason. (The backend is dogshit and I will never change that stance.)
So, I’ll tweak that over the next few weeks and see what we can do with it. I’ve never used the Event Calendar…I wonder if that would work better than my Calendar idea on Carrd.

Additions: Lunar Strike, Witchspire, Neolithic Dawn, Restore Your Island, Long Drive North: Co-Op RV Simulator

Quick plug:
Rogue just launched—a worker-owned, subscription-backed gaming site built by ex-Polygon folks. Different crew, same idea: no ads, no corporate leash, just reader support keeping it alive.
Patreon is how I keep Hashtag running and how I back projects like Rogue, so your support here has ripple effects. If monthly subs aren’t your thing, consider Ko-Fi for one-offs, gift something from the wishlist, or just share the newsletter link around.

Channel 4 will air the social experiment show Apocalypse - where a group of strangers fight for survival following an apocalyptic event - in 2026. What makes this both relevant and neat is: The civilians starring in the eight-part series - which is set to air in 2026 - need to survive for 28 days without running water, heating, or electricity, as well as scavenge for food and supplies by reusing and repurposing anything they find.”

SOUND FAMILIAR?!
It’s one thing to be dumped (or crash, or sink, or whatever) and be in the forest/jungle/that one island that looks like all the others. It’s incredibly off-putting to be deprived of aspects of your day-to-day life in a familiar environment. Ever go through a week-long power outage? It fucking sucks.
(And then you keep flipping the light switches out of habit…)

One of the experiments I’m running with the newsletter is pulling back from straight-up patch note regurgitation. Don’t get me wrong, patch notes are great when they actually add something cool or fix the shit that’s been driving you insane. But they’re also fucking everywhere. Steam blasts you with them. They live in the News feed and forums. Devs tweet them.

Then you’ve got the YT crowd reading them verbatim, “ADDED RED SHIRT”, cut to them in-game, wearing the red shirt: “Yup, that’s a red shirt!” Sites like Gameoneer slap together the same notes into “articles.” And yeah, even Hashtag used to run Snippets, but even then I was picky: no hotfix spam, just the ones worth poking at.

So! I’m only going to pull patch notes or dev blogs when they’re actually juicy. The rest of the time, I’d rather use the space to spotlight upcoming games, or mechanics and features worth paying attention to, instead of being the 700th person to tell you “Game X got patched.”

Anyway! Speaking of changing shit up: what’s the biggest survival gaming or EDC problem you’re currently trying to solve?

- Jordan