Mutant Pizza

Hello there, Toppings and Crusts—

I mentioned in my latest design journal entry about Psychic Battles that I’m undergoing a rebranding of sorts. Initially, I said that I’d release a statement in January about this, but I’m simply too excited—and impatient—to wait until then. As the title says, Otherworld Games is becoming Mutant Pizza!

Let me talk about everything entailed in this change with a tried and true FAQ!

Why is this happening!?

Two main reasons:

• Otherworld Games & Greenwood Publishing sound too corporate for me and I’d like to be seen for who I am: an independent game designer, author, and illustrator.
• I’m tired of keeping my board games and fiction writing shenanigans separate.

If people can no longer understand or accept this “new me,” that’s fine. But I’m sick of the bland logo and name I slapped together years ago. I’m sick of running two separate businesses and websites. And I’m sick of feeling like a “brand” versus feeling like a “persona,” if that makes sense. I don’t identify with Otherworld Games, nor do I really identify with my self-owned publishing company Greenwood Publishing.

Why Mutant Pizza? What is a Mutant Pizza?

I illustrated the logo—not as a logo but as a wacky doodle—a year ago and liked it. I want to put it on a t-shirt and wear it around, showing off my weird, inedible slice of pie. There’s nothing deeper than that to it. I like the name, I like the logo I drew, I think it’s fun and funny and weird and it absolutely represents who I am. So I’m making the change. That’s all there is too it.

As to what Mutant Pizza is? It’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more. It’s your childhood best friend. It’s your neighborhood and community. It is love. It is life. It is also a sentient slice of pizza that has been mutated into a sentient creature. It’s there for you when you need it, just don’t touch it or you’ll get mutant cheese on your hands. Is that what you want?! You want people to start calling you Mutant Cheese Fingers?! Didn’t think so.

Is this website going to turn into something that I don’t understand and therefore am immediately afraid of?

Not really. The way the site looks, the navigation, and all that will stay relatively the same. However, I’ll be combining my other profession as a fiction author with my board games stuff, making sure to give everyone who reads my stuff the ability to customize what you want to get alerted about.

If you’re not interested in reading scifi and weird fiction, you won’t be alerted on that. (Or at the very least, you’ll be able to opt out of future alerts on that.) Vice versa, for folks who aren’t interested in board games, you can opt out of receiving those updates.

Are you going to stop blogging about your board game development?

I’m not changing any of the games I’m making to be centered around this new moniker, nor am I discontinuing my journal entries accounting my various design journeys.

In fact, I want to increase my overall newsletter cadence such that I provide a main newsletter once a month to provide a more consistent feeling to my major updates.

I will eventually replace the logo on Nine Muses to Mutant Pizza, and removing Otherworld Games from my itch, gamecrafter, and limited social media presence.

My main monthly newsletter will contain some author stuff and some board games stuff. If the people grab their pitchforks in open revolt to this new medley, I’ll consider sparing my life by separating the newsletter content out a bit more. But I ask for y’all’s patience, understanding, and support as I try to put some peanut butter in my chocolate, so to speak.

Will I have to go through the torturous task of replacing otherworld.games in my bookmarks??

You should be able to gain access to the new site with your old bookmarks for a while. I’m not sure if I’ll ever give up the otherworld.games site, really.

BUT…otherworld.games will eventually redirect to a new domain. So will my author site, shainegreenwood.com.

You can always bookmark the new domain (I’m still in the process of acquiring a new one) once the domain becomes active!

So this website is going to be about your stupid books now? Like books without pictures in them? Ew.

Kinda. It’ll still be about my stupid board games, too. But I want one place where I can share what stupid board games and stupid books I’m working on, and where you can spend your hard-earned dollars on one of my books AND one of my board games.

When will this transition take place?

It’s already happening! Over the next few months, you might notice small changes in the site content. I’m already migrating things over and combining things, consolidating everything into one presence. Some other stuff might take longer or I might have to make a new account for certain things, but I expect this transition to be relatively quick and hope it’s mostly painless.

All right, Toppings and Crusts, that’s it for now. If you have any questions that weren’t covered in the FAQ—write those questions down on a piece of paper. Then take that paper, crumple it into a ball, and throw it into the recycle bin. (It’s always good to recycle.)