It’s like doing a sick kickflip over a curb but instead of a skateboard it’s a crankbait & instead of a curb it’s the destruction of ecological systems by capitalist industry & instead of a kickflip it’s crime.

Also you're gay.

***Reference Sheets are free! Check the "Demos" section below to download Playbooks, Situations, and The Job, everything that players would need. Please do still buy the game but if you own it and want to play with your friends, they don't have to also buy it, they can just download the reference sheets and they're good to go. (If they enjoy playing, maybe suggest they throw a few dollars my way though) ***

This game, though fictional in form, is based strictly on historical fact. Everything in it is real or actually happened. And it all began just one year from today.

In the Near Future, following ecological collapse, gangs of gregarious youths scale skyscrapers, commune with ghosts, and dodge mech police to engage in the high tech, high octane world of fish crime.

In this Belonging Outside Belonging game, you play as queer fisherfolk trying to make a life in a world where a dozen billionaires have killed the earth.

There are still fish that swim in the rivers of the world. Muddy brown perch that flop and writhe, coated in thin oils. Your grandmother tells you stories of reefs with dozens of different species and colors, busy patterns moving in stressful, choking throngs of life.

You don’t know what you’d do with one, but sometimes you wonder. A fish doesn’t do anyone any good when it’s locked up. As common as the rumors of the living dead are, so are the rumors of secret activists, elusive ecological warriors who’d pay big for a live specimen. Pay so good you could live easy, eat real cheese for once. So you get some friends together, some queer folks who live on the edge. Some ratty skater punks with hacker skills maybe, or some beefcakes with big arms and scars from pulling catfish out of their holes with their own fists. You get your gang of gregarious youths ready to engage in the high tech world of high octane fish crime. 

With a backpack full of landmines and a telescoping rod, you sneak through the tightest defenses. It’s funny how the most sophisticated mech police droids out there can still get gummed up with a well-placed Texas Rig. Scaling massive skyscrapers lined with solar panels, you reach into the heavens and steal angels, prying ghosts from the clutches of the elite. What you could never have expected was the active spirits of the dead, the echoes of near extinction, to call to you so strongly. 

This Is A Game About Fishing. You’re going to play some queer fisherfolk in a world that has faced ecological apocalypse. The world in which you live is doing… alright, I guess. People get by, although some people have it much better than others. Much, much better. The folks in charge of destroying the world have names and addresses, and this game encourages you to take back a little bit of the environment from them.

This is also a game about shitposting, about stretching the limits of credulity, and about how the absurd can offer shelter to those in need. When your world is inches from collapse it can be difficult to keep your head above water. The power of absurd humor is that it highlights how absurd the “serious” is. This game is not a pipe, but you should wield it like one to fight depression anyway. Be silly, be weird, be gay, do crime.

If the price of this game is a hardship to you, or you find yourself in financial hardship, please take advantage of the Community Copies down below!