Strange Chemistry Atelier

HOW IT STARTED

Plush Wonderland first reached out to me on February 6th of 2026 to ask for a collaboration; mentioning how they wanted to make a doll/plushie for my brand. I actually didn’t see this first email (it probably got lost in spam, at first) and only realized once they sent their second email on March 9th, 2026.

As you can see from the 2nd screenshot, I was really excited to collaborate with them; especially after having seen, from their website, that they had worked with many known indie devs who have wonderful games. I thought this was like a dream come true, ‘cause I’ve wanted a plushie of my characters for a long time, and the fact that a company was offering to collaborate with me because they saw potential in my games made me extremely happy.

After asking for the process of how things worked, this was the email they sent me. Right away, I noticed 2 things: that the plushie would need to sell FIFTY orders, and that the percentage I would get from the sales would be 8% (there are other things I noticed later but we’ll get to them afterwards).

I’m not going to lie, if they hadn’t already collaborated with several other indie devs, at this point I would have let them know that I wasn’t interested anymore. I know they’re not a huge company, but they still collaborate with many people and sell a whole lot of plushies; so giving 8% of the sales to their collaborators is rather LOW. I was thinking 15, heck, even 10% at least would have been good. Also, having to sell 50 units seemed like it would be a huge challenge. Still, in spite of both of these things, l decided to agree because the possibility of having a plushie of—at least—one of my characters was really exciting and I was hopeful that my fans would be happy with the news as well.

Small Note: I confirmed with another dev that they also were told they’d get 8% so this is something they tell ALL of their collaborators, not just me.

Having sold merch of Where Winter Crows Go (keychains) previously, and seeing how it didn’t go so well at that time—plus the fact that Killer Trait is more popular and currently in development, so people are more hyped about it—I told them to start with Killer Trait instead, so they agreed and told me to send some references for Oz, so they could start with his plushie design.

DESIGNING THE PLUSHIE

Over the course of a few weeks, Plush Wonderland and I exchanged emails to check that Oz’s plushie design was going well. They gave me an initial design and, after just a few small corrections from the feedback I gave them, he was done.

Why am I sharing these seemingly nothing-burger emails? At this point in time, I didn’t notice, but, throughout aaaaall of these email exchanges, Plush Wonderland hadn’t ONCE shared with me what would be the costs of production for the plushie nor told me that certain things about my character (in this case, Oz) would increase said cost of production and, thus, the final price for the plushie.

Of course, we could argue that I should have asked them about the costs of production at this time and you would be absolutely right: I should have.

However, this is also a collaboration. And Plush Wonderland is a company that SPECIALIZES in making plushies and other accessories. You’d think they could have mentioned it to me at some point in time themselves, and not just when and IF I happened to ask.

Anywho, once the design was done, they asked me to send them the logo for the game so they could make a promotional image (which I’d have to approve first) and they finally sent me the image that was made public when the campaign went live.

They said they would promote it on their social media (Twitter and Instagram are the only social media accounts they used for this, as far as I know; I don’t remember seeing others) and that they would appreciate it if I could repost the announcement as well.

I agreed and they followed up telling me I could post it on Itch as well, since people who followed me there and played Killer Trait would see that the game had merchandise. I agreed as well. They also confirmed, after I asked, that the campaign would last one month.

THE FIRST CAMPAIGN GOES LIVE

April 9th finally comes around and the 20 cm Oz plushie is shown to the world. At the time, I was also busy with preparations to move to Spain so I admit it slipped my mind a bit and I ended up making the announcement post a bit late, but still made it on all of my social media AND Itch. I even made a Tiktok where the VA was kind enough to lend me their voice for free because they also wanted this campaign to be a success.

A few days go by and the plushie is just… not selling well. I reposted the plushie posts a few times, sent it to several acquaintances and friends (even family members); but still no dice.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that not everyone can afford to buy merch; especially when there’s shipping involved (some countries in particular have shipping that’s INSANELY PRICEY). That’s a fact and, sometimes, selling merch is a bit of a gamble. It can go well, but it can also go badly. Not to mention the plushie was not cheap.

No matter the reason, though, I couldn’t just fake my feelings. With the addition of my stress from the upcoming move to Spain, and seeing how not many people seemed to be interested in getting the plushie or even comment on the posts themselves, I started to feel really sad about the whole thing.

But then, after speaking with my friend Mustache (the artist for Killer Trait) and lamenting how some people from Latin America wouldn’t be able to buy it because of the price of the plushie and the shipping combined… I decided to check the price for Oz’s plushie again and compare it to Plush Wonderland’s other plushies.

That’s when I noticed the difference. Oz’s 20 cm plushie was worth $46 (no skeleton)/$50 (with skeleton) compared to other plushies of the same size that were cheaper. Some weren’t that much cheaper, but others were at least 10 to 12 dollars cheaper. It may not seem like much to some, but a few dollars can really make the difference; especially when there’s shipping and ESPECIALLY in certain countries, like the ones from Latin America (believe me, I’m from Argentina, I KNOW).

That’s when I decided to send Plush Wonderland another email… and when my gloominess started to turn into annoyance.

Small Note: Something I noticed when I checked the live campaign was that the goal for making the plushie was now selling THIRTY units instead of fifty. I thought it was odd at the time but, since it ultimately ended up benefitting me, I didn’t think much of it. However, a dev I talked to that also made a collaboration with them told me the opposite happened to them; Plush Wonderland first said they needed to sell 30 units and when the campaign went live it ended up being 50.

WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE?

On April 15th, I sent Plush Wonderland an email to ask about the difference in price between Oz plushie and other 20 cm dolls. This was their reply:

Remember when I previously talked about them not telling me anything regarding the costs of production for their plushies? THIS was the first time I was made aware of them. Not once in all of their previous emails did they tell me about the costs of production nor how much would the plushie cost.

Again, yes, this is something that I admittedly SHOULD have asked them about, but I also want to cut myself some slack in that regard because this was the first time I ever did something like this, but it was NOT the first time for them.

Heck, they could have even told me how adding white streaks to Oz’s hair and his burn scar would make the plushie more expensive DURING the process of his plushie design! But they never said anything.

And wait, things get worse.

As you can see in the email above, I told them how I commissioned a few mini comics to try and promote the plushie as best as I could. Then I proceeded to make said comics into short videos; again, with the help of the very kind VAs who provided their voices (for free!) because they wanted to help me make this plushie become a reality.

But that’s when they replied… that, since the price of the 20 cm plushie seemed too high, I could make a poll for my fans to see if they’d prefer a 10 cm plushie instead; which would be much cheaper. They also told me we could do other things as well, like stickers or acrylic products.

Do you see the problem with this? First of all, why didn’t they tell me about these things right at the beginning? And what would the point of a poll like this even have been when the 20 cm plushie campaign was already live?

We could argue that I could have asked them to make a 10 cm plushie (or another product) from the start, but when they came to me for a collaboration they SPECIFICALLY talked about making a plushie and they NEVER specified what the size of that plushie would be. They went on ahead and made the 20 cm plushie design without ever telling me I could choose between 2 sizes. What choice could I have made if I didn’t know my options from the start?

During this time, because of my upcoming overseas move and overall general stress, I wasn’t really thinking with a clear mind—I was even considering making the poll, despite not being sure if many people would vote—so, while I was frustrated, I still didn’t see all the issues and red flags that I saw afterwards.

Plush Wonderland offered to have the campaign for the 20 cm Oz plushie and the one for a 10 cm Oz plushie run simultaneously. Thinking back, a friend told me (after the whole ordeal) that having 2 campaigns run somewhat simultaneously, where it’s also visible that one of them is failing pretty badly, is not very good marketing… and I think she’s completely right.

I should have refused. I REALLY should have refused. But since the first campaign was already failing so badly, and I was still really enamoured with the idea of having an Oz plushie, I agreed.

In fact, at first I was feeling really guilty that they were drawing another design:

THE SECOND CAMPAIGN GOES LIVE

A few days go by and, when April 29th comes around, the second campaign goes live. Once again, I make posts EVERYWHERE and even start commissioning one last mini comic to make another Tiktok video for this plushie.

At this point, I was pretty desperate. I even made an Instagram to try to promote both plushies—I was already thinking of making a gamedev Instagram before, but thought this would be a good incentive.

I happened to see that their Instagram had a whole lot of followers, so I asked them if they could help me by posting there and adding me as a collaborator. That way, the post would be in both our accounts and, since they have so many followers, their post would reach more people than mine.

Their response… was that their social media schedule was very “tight” so it would be better for me to make the post instead.

I ended up making the post myself and adding them as a collaborator instead. However, when I told them about this, Plush Wonderland was unfortunately on holiday, so they saw my email late and, when they accepted my collaboration post (only one of them, because I also added them as collaborators on the plushie videos and they ignored those) it was already too late… They had made several new posts and the one with 10 cm Oz plushie was buried under their most recent ones.

I don’t know just how much a merch company should help their collaborators with marketing, but this is another one of the many reasons why I feel like I had a bad experience. Doing the marketing for the Oz plushie was very hard, stressful and, most of all, lonely. Plush Wonderland didn’t really help me much and, if I’m being honest, I feel like they could have helped more (and this goes not only for me, but for all people who collaborate with them; I feel they should be helped more).

Instead of receiving help, it felt like Plush Wonderland was counting on my fan base being big enough for the merch to, somehow, sell magically well.

WHEN EVERYTHING WENT TO HELL

Several days go by and, ultimately, the campaign for Oz’s 20 cm plushie fails with 9 plushies sold out of 30. This was expected, so I was bummed but still hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the other campaign could succeed. In fact, Mustache told me that a couple of Brazilian fans had bought the 20 cm plushie and were waiting for their refund so they could try again with the 10 cm plushie.

A few days after the first campaign had failed, I got a message from Mustache letting me know that one of her friends who bought the plushie still hadn’t received a refund. I asked another friend of mine, Meiri, who bought one as well, to see if she ALSO hadn’t received a refund. She confirmed that she hadn’t AND that she had sent an email to Plush Wonderland days ago asking about it, but they never got back to her.

That’s when I decided to send a new email to the company to see what was going on. If the campaign had failed… shouldn’t everyone have been refunded? 

Their reply was… confusing, to say the least. I showed it to a few of my friends and we were all pretty perplexed. What did this even mean?

So, yet again, I sent them another email. Trying to grasp whether this meant that everyone would receive their refunds by May 28th. The first campaign had ended on May 8th so, from then onwards, without counting the weekends, two weeks would be around May 28th… right?

I wanted to confirm this quickly too because there were only 11 days left for the second campaign to finish, and a couple of people who had bought the 20 cm plushie wanted their refund so they could buy the 10 cm plushie.

The email they sent me next made me go from confused and frustrated to angry and disappointed:

This reply made me beyond upset. Not only were they saying that the second campaign had over 20 days left (which was not true), they also, for some reason, talked to me like I was a buyer? Somehow, someway, there had been a huge misunderstanding on their part, and this really didn’t look professional at all.

Some could say that this is a matter of lost translation. That English is not their first language and, perhaps, they use Google Translate to communicate or something, so the meaning of the email was lost in the poor translation.

Well, English is not my first language either, and even taking that out of the way, you can’t be an international company who constantly offers merch collaborations to several people and have this level of English in email exchanges. The people who are in charge of contacting and engaging with the collaborators should have a level of English that’s high enough for these things to never happen.

What happened here was VERY unprofessional.

Yet again, I sent them another email where, firmly but politely, I expressed my frustration and that all I wanted was for the people who bought the 20 cm plushie to be refunded.

They replied apologetically but then, not even 5 minutes later, they followed with ANOTHER reply where they said they would extend the 10 cm plushie campaign by ONE MORE MONTH so that those who bought the 20 cm plushie could “wait patiently for their refund” and then buy the 10 cm plushie.

I told them to PLEASE not do this and that I would take a couple of days to process the whole thing before I sent a longer reply; because what they were doing was frankly making me uncomfortable.

Again, they initially replied in a way that seemed they were being understanding… But then not even 30 minutes later they replied with yet another suggestion where they asked ME to ask the people who bought the 20 cm plushie (and wanted the 10 cm plushie) to send THEM an email to “pre-register” so they could have the other plushie instead?? 

This is most probably another problem with the translation but I THINK they were trying to tell me that they would transfer the money of those who bought the 20 cm plushie (and wanted the 10 cm plushie) to the other campaign so they could get the 10 cm plushie before the campaign ended?? 

I don’t know… no matter, because, yet again, they were dancing around the fact that they weren’t refunding the buyers quickly and, yet again, making more suggestions of things that could “maybe” work but, honestly speaking, felt like rather poor suggestions.

I sincerely felt like I was talking to someone who had a tiny shop and was selling merch for the very first time.

Small Note: I think it’s important to mention as well that I was the only one telling people on social media that Plush Wonderland would refund them soon; the only one reassuring them. Meanwhile, they did nothing. 

I feel like this and my repeated posts of the plushie themselves may have also potentially hurt trust from my fans in me, all the while Plush Wonderland continues on with their day.

THEIR “APOLOGY” AND THEIR ACTUAL APOLOGY

A couple of days later, after talking with a few friends and my Dad about this, I sent them a very long and detailed email where I politely expressed my disappointment and dissatisfaction with the collaboration and my overall bad experience with them. I listed 10 points, which are basically all of the things I mentioned in this large post in an even more detailed manner, so I won’t bore you with my actual email but I’ll share with you what I received as a reply.

So, from what I understood based on the 2nd email (which is exactly the same but only contains that extra phrase at the start), there was only one person I had been talking to throughout the whole ordeal.

No matter, the liaison is still part of Plush Wonderland and, honestly speaking, the apology I received here felt a bit half-baked and insincere. It felt like they went on the defensive in several parts and STILL insisted that I should give their company another chance. Not to mention, several things I had told them I was displeased about were not yet addressed at all.

Also, for some reason, the English in this email was a lot more understandable than the previous emails, so I’m not sure if this person reached out to someone else in the company for help, but it’s another thing to note.

Small Edit: A kind commenter offered me a different perspective: that perhaps I spoke with several people instead of just one, and I think that makes sense, so I'm sharing it here!

The next reply, on the other hand, felt much MUCH more professional, like they had taken actual accountability, and the English level was completely different. Take a look:

Not long after receiving this email, my Dad and one of my friends told me Plush Wonderland had sent them an email apologizing for the trouble and they were refunded shortly after, as they had mentioned in the email above.

They did the same with the people who bought the 10 cm plushie and all people have been refunded now. So, credit where credit’s due, this was a good thing about them and I’m glad and relieved that they delivered on their promise in their last email.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough to dissuade me from not making this post. I wanted to tell my whole experience, from start to finish, to let people know what I went through and for them to be careful and observant when approached with a deal/collaboration with similar characteristics to the one I was approached with. Whether you’re approached by Plush Wonderland or another company altogether. 

Don’t be naive like me and trust a company just because they made collaborations/deals with several people you know or know of. Being trusting is not a bad thing, but it’s never bad to have some healthy skepticism and ask A LOT of questions. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t go through with it. 

Listen to your gut, it’s there for a reason. I didn’t listen to it and I ended up going through a lot of stress because of it and even losing money to try and promote something that was destined to fail.

The silver lining I see in all of this is that, at least, I learned from this experience; and was also able to make this post to inform others about this matter.

Unfortunately, this experience has also greatly discouraged me from trying to make physical merch of my games for a long while. I’m not saying it won’t happen, just that I will be a whole lot more careful next time and, most probably, start with a pre-order system so that I’m not at a risk of losing money.

Thank you very much for reading until the end and I hope you have an excellent week!

-Pri

(Final) Small Note: You might have noticed that I deleted a lot, if not all, the posts in which I advertised the plushie. That's because I honestly don't want to be reminded of the bad experience, so I'd rather they be gone. I also deleted the videos of the cute mini comics; but those in particular I will upload again after the artist I commissioned changes the plushie in those comics for one they drew themselves, so it's not associated with Plush Wonderland in any way.

- The gallery got an upgrade in terms of back-end stability and UI/GUI beautification + functionality, including on controller and in the Steam Deck version.​

- The game is now capable of being modded through the Steam Workshop. Check out the workshop for more information on that!

- The "Dig Deeper" achievement has been slightly retooled so that the achievement is granted the second the click link action is executed.  It should therefore grant the achievement regardless of whether or not a user's local browser or network settings prevent Renpy from opening the internet browser.

So, I’ve made a point of discussing the future of TCM regarding pricing, and after a lot of deliberation, I have decided to charge for the full release of the game.

This past year has been insanely stressful, as there’s been a global “anti-porn” shift that has made virtually all spaces for monetized adult content hostile.  Traditionally stable marketplaces for 18+ content have been absolutely besieged by chaotic TOS changes, bans, delistings, and more to a degree that I literally could not have conceived of five years ago.  Things are currently so bad that TCM can’t monetize on itch.io at all without being completely delisted, and even Steam has been quietly removing some adult content under threat from their payment processors.  Just last month, Patreon and Kickstarter have both released new changes to their TOS that put further nebulous restrictions on their adult content.  The Kickstarter I ran for TCM in 2023 would no longer be permitted under their new rules.

All three final chapters will be released at once on July 11, 2026.  At that point, the game will cost $24.99

For Steam Users:

If you already have the game in your Steam Library when it leaves Early Access, you will not have to pay for the game to get the final chapters.  

That being said, put it in your library asap if it isn’t already.  You have until July 11 to get the game for free, and that includes the final chapters update.

For Itch Users:

I know itch.io issued a statement claiming they were looking for new payment processors, but because nothing has changed on that front, I am not permitted to monetize TCM on itch.io.  Because of this, the full version of the game will only be available via Patreon integration and will not be freely available to people who have already downloaded the game.  I encourage you to make the switch to Steam if at all possible.

For Kickstarter Backers & Patrons: