#THANK YOU TO EVERYONE AND ESPECIALLY ALL MY LOVELY KICKSTARTER BACKERS

[psychhound]

[ID: a banner for a game. it is light tan with a crumpled paper texture, and reads "with breath & sword" in large blue font, and "a solo-journaling game that helps you fight anxiety as you fight monster" below it in smaller font. there is lineart of gauntlets lying over a sword with some flowers at the bottom. end ID]

You find yourself tied to the monsters. The scratchy feeling in your chest. The way your hands tremble. The sweat that dots your upper lip when your senses are telling you a monster is close, again, now, and it’s your job to fight it. To stand up for your ideals and stand up to the threat. Whether you tame it, or this is truly a monster that needs to be slain, only time will tell.

 You know you will succeed. You always have before. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be a challenge.

 Grab your gear. Put on your boots. You know how to find it. You know what to do.

 First, you just need to steady yourself.

[ID: a page spread from the game. it shows "step four" on one side, which goes over the five aspects of the game's oracle. on the other side it shows the first oracle component, where something you can taste determines what your heroic core is. the page is minimally designed, with a blue border and text on a white background, tan accents, and one image of a dragon. end ID]

With Breath & Sword is a solo-journaling TTRPG to help players combat anxiety. 

In the game, you play as a monster-fighter, who is being summoned once again due to the presence of a new monster. Each time a monster appears, you struggle with the emotional effects of the magic: effects that look a lot like anxiety. You must steady yourself before you go off to fight: in the game and in real life.

Over the course of WB&S, players will participate in grounding methods and breathing techniques to calm themselves from an anxiety attack. These methods also serve as the game's oracle in order to determine how the story goes. 

What You'll Need:

A safe space to play 

A method of writing or recording

[ID: a page spread from the game. it is the section called "the science" and goes over the psychology behind the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique, the 4-7-8 breathing method, and destroying journaling. it has a few lines about narrative and play therapy, and that the creator of the game used these methods in his social work with neurodivergent teens and adults. end ID]

check out the game on itch now!!

[gb-patch]

Patreon NSFW Moment Asks

We’ve got a group of questions for the Patreon NSWF/18+ Moment and we decided to put them all in one big post. “For the NSFW our life DLC, will I have to join Patreon at the 5$ tier in the month it comes out? Or can I join before it releases and I would still get it if I cancel it later? I love the game and I wanna support you guys and get more content but my current pay isn’t there yet XD” You can get the Moment if you’re a member during the month it releases or any month after. I’m afraid if you join now and leave the Patreon before it’s available, you won’t have access to the post with the DLC once that post is made. So if that’s the reward you’d like it’s best to not subscribe to the Patreon just yet. “is the 'our life' nsfw dlc going to be available on android too?” Yeah, we’ll make an Android build. “Hello, I hope you are having a good day. Will the NSFW DLC be sent out to kickstarter backers depending on their backer level. Or is it only available through patreon once it releases?” The 18+ Moment is funded exclusively by Patreon and is a special bonus for our supporters there. It’s not part of what the Kickstarter money went to, though there are a bunch of other DLCs you do get if you supported that. And it won’t be released outside of the Patreon, except for maybe a special alternate upload somewhere for people who really can’t use Patreon. We’ll see if we can find a way to do that. But it won’t be on Steam or Itch.io or anything. “Hi! I read somewhere that there was going to be an nsfw DLC for Our Life exclusively for patreon? I kinda had a question about that. Is it going expand some of the scenes where Cove's "Ah! Too much! Retreat!" so, you know, you get to follow through or is it going to add new scenes? Or if it's something still in the thought process, that's cool too! I was just curious. (ps, I love the game, you guys are awesome tysm for making it)” The 18+ Moment is made of new scenes and takes place a little bit after the Step 3 end, so all of those prior events have already happened. The times where Cove can’t move forward in that moment still occur as they do in the main game. He needs time to take gradual steps and not be so in his own head with worries and expectations and all that. “what exactly will the nsfw dlc add? also could you do the moments from the romance dlc with derek and baxter even if you choose not to date them in the end?“ The NSFW Moment includes three new CGs and it’ll have a decently long script that’s around a similar length to past DLCs. It’s just not separated out into different Moments, it’s one big Moment with different versions based on what you wanna do. And yeah, you can do Derek’s and Baxter’s content without actually getting into a romantic relationship with them. “Hello! I just discovered about the "upcoming" +18 version of Our Life, which made me really happy 'cause I love seeing some blushing Cove on my screen lol. Would be rude or annoying to ask you guys to publish on steam too? Patreon is not so friendly with internacional fans :(I would buy even if the price was higher than the other expansions.Just wondering tho! I hope this doesn't sound annoying! Thank you for making such a beautiful game.” I’m sorry, Steam is not particularly supportive with hosting sexual content, especially VNs. Those tend to have some troubles. Steam could remove the game if they don’t like it, stop promoting it as much, or something else. Even if we didn’t care about keeping the public release of the game family friendly, which we do, it’d still be taking a risk to the rest of the game to add the 18+ content there. But we’ll see if there’s some other solution for those who can’t use Patreon. “This is a dumb question but, what will the 18+ DLC for Our Life will contain that makes it 18+? Will it still retain the main game's tone? I love how the main game came out. It was well worth the wait, I already played it at least 10 times. Thank you so much for making such a game, it really became the thing I looked towards for comfort.” The 18+ Moment will still be the same sort of style as the rest of the game. The characters are just being more intimate with each other. If you don’t like explicit content, though, it’s really fine to simply skip this bonus stuff. Nothing crucial will be missed by sticking to main game scenes. “This game has literally fulfilled everything I could fantasize about a happy childhood and a cute guy to boot! I love the dynamics of both families and how there was room for growth for both sides, each very accepting of their children's choices and feelings. I cannot rave enough about this game! So many things were great! So here is my question since I was curious about the 18+ DLC: Will it occur during Step 3 or Step 4?” It’s set slightly after the ending in Step 3. Cove will still have his Step 3 appearance. Thank you for the questions and support everyone :D! I’m happy you’ve been enjoying the game. —————————————————————— We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

[windchimesgames]

The Kickstarter campaign ended a few days ago with a total of 12.6k USD raised! Thank you so much for the support!

I made a post on Kickstarter outlining some important points about what will happen now after the end of the campaign. If you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve copied the content below for your convenience!

Even if you didn’t back the project on Kickstarter, if you’re interested in what will happen to Sebastien’s stretch goal as we unfortunately didn’t reach 15k USD funding, read onwards to find out what the plans are!

1. Accountability to backers

I know it's super important for Kickstarter creators to be open and transparent about progress and just how the project is going in general. So one thing I'll be done is public monthly Kickstarter updates that gives an overview of the progress made on the project in each area of development, as well as some quick previews of new assets.

Moreover, backers of the US$20 tier or above has access to backer-exclusive forums as their reward. I'll be setting up the forum within this week, and then sending out a message or update post to all the backers of the US$20 tier or above so that they can sign up on the forum if they wish. I'll be posting more frequently on the forums with even more exclusive sneak peeks and some behind-the-scenes stuff as well when possible!

I'll also be posting smaller, weekly updates on social media, so you can follow Wind Chimes Games on Twitter and Tumblr if that's more convenient for you.

2. Backer Reward Surveys

I'll start working on the reward surveys and sending them out slowly tier by tier throughout this month. Since there are no physical rewards, no shipping addresses will be needed, so it should be less risky to send out reward surveys early as I don't have to worry about shipping addresses changing by the time the rewards are ready to be sent out.  

I'll be contacting the backers with custom locations, characters and/or scenes as rewards via Kickstarter message as soon as possible, if I haven't already, so we can start ironing out the details of the custom addition to the game / universe to make sure it fits perfectly into the story!

If anyone has any questions about the rewards or anything related to the project, please feel free to message me any time!

3. Sebastien's Route?

I've received quite a few questions about what I'm going to do about Sebastien's route now, since we didn't manage to reach 15k USD funding. We're 2.4k USD short of what I'd need to be able to make his route, which is quite a bit... I really love Sebastien and very much want to make his route happen, and I'd be blind not to see how much the players have loved Sebastien so far, so I'm going to be exploring some possibilities of how to make this work.

One thing I'm looking into is setting up late pledges on my website, offering a more limited number of reward tiers for a limited period of time, hopefully with the possibility of PayPal payment if I can figure it out. I'm hoping this will raise some extra funding towards Sebastien's route, especially since I've heard of some interested players who wanted to pledge but couldn't due to not having a credit card for Kickstarter. I really have to figure out the coding side of this though, but I'll start working on it this week and keep you guys updated on how that goes.

I'm also thinking of setting up pre-orders for perhaps the digital OST, artbook and lorebook to scrape together some extra funds and contribute it towards the costs of Sebastien's route. I'll have to do an interest check on this though, to see if this would even garner any interest.

Some have suggested running a second Kickstarter campaign some time in the future just to fund Sebastien's route, which is a possibility, but I'm not really sure if it's a good idea. If you have any input, please feel free to comment and let me know!

I cannot make any promises about adding Sebastien's route to the game at the moment, and any final decisions will have to come after I figure out the above two ideas I have so far and see how much total we've raised. It also depends on how much money I actually collect from Kickstarter, due to the likelihood of there being dropped pledges from expired credit cards and what not. I won't really find out until a week later, I believe, so I'll make a post about it to be transparent about how much funds have been raised.

In any case, regardless of what happens, I will keep everyone posted about any decisions I make with regard to Sebastien's route!

Alright, those are the key points about the Kickstarter campaign that I wanted to mention right now! I'll make another post if I think of anything else.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me a Kickstarter message or email me at contact@windchimesgames.com!

Once again, thank you so much for the support! I'm really thrilled to be working on Reanimation Scheme, and I hope I'll be able to bring an excellent product to you guys next year!

[theonyxpath]

The M20 Technocracy Reloaded (hence this blog’s title) Kickstarter has kept going strong, and we’re now over 400% funded! We’re all very thrilled by the many sections of the Companion PDF that have been added via Stretch Goals thanks to all of our amazing backers.

So, thanks to all of you who’ve already backed – and everyone else, please come check out the KS if you can and help us add even more! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/m20-technocracy-reloaded

Our team continue to be interviewed about M20 Technocracy Reloaded, and there are several awesome actual play broadcasts that you can check out below in the Onyx Path Media section!

If you have questions about M20 Technocracy Reloaded that aren’t answered by any of these venues, we’d love to help you out and answer them on our AMA on Reddit tomorrow, Tuesday the 12th, starting at 12 noon Eastern US time. https://www.reddit.com/r/OnyxPathRPG

Our crew will be popping in and out during the course of the AMA, and while our focus is M20 Technocracy Reloaded, please feel free to ask about anything on your mind!

Dark Eras 2 art by Brian LeBlanc

What We’re Doin’ During These Times

Which brings up the first part of our blog title today. Special Thanks to GuidoG who posted that one several weeks ago in our blog comments. Told ya I’d use it eventually! So we have that AMA mentioned above, but we’re still following up on the ideas I posted about these last few weeks.

Following up, when Dark Eras 2 goes on sale in PDF and PoD versions this Wednesday on DTRPG, we’ll also be offering individual chapter PDFs as well, for folks that didn’t pledge and might need a less expensive way to get gaming materials for the specific game lines they’re interested in.

All of the historical chapters are fantastic, and if you can get the whole book, it is well worth it – but these times, they have been really rough for a lot of our community, so we hope these discrete chapters help.

Our second set of Developer Town Halls went well last week, with lots of talk about development processes and the care and feeding of their writing teams. We unfortunately did hear of a few of our creators needing to be tested, but also a few creators who had Covid and got through it, thankfully.

In last week’s blog I asked for questions for the devs, and while I didn’t use all of them, and several folks included Onyx Pathcast related questions – which was interesting and cool – so I combined those, the Devs all seemed to enjoy answering. We actually had several more in-depth conversations based on their answers to the questions, which added a lot to our getting to know one another. So thanks for those questions, is what I’m saying!

Here’s our Dev responses to a bunch of the questions I received for them:

(Disclaimer: I was writing down the responses really fast, so if I missed anyone’s response to a question, my apologies – it wasn’t you or your answer, just my limited steno skills).

Question: What game line are you truly passionate about?

Eddy Webb: Pugmire, duh.

Matthew Dawkins: Wraith the Oblivion– capital P for Passion.

Travis Legge: Love the Scarred Lands.

Chris Allen: Werewolf: the Forsaken!

Vera Vertanian: TC: Aeon, because I’m such a giant dweeb.

Dixie Cochran: Realms of Pugmire the Masquerade the Lost Essence. (They Came From Beyond the Grave!)

Neall Raemonn Price: EXALTED!

Meghan Fitzgerald: Mage: the Awakening. But Deviant came out of nowhere and I really love it.

John Snead: Mage: the Ascension (for the arguing).

Danielle Lauzon: I’m a huge fan of everything I work on while I’m working on it. My first love/assignment was Mage: the Awakening.

Lauren Roy: Me too, I get so excited as I get to work on each line. But the game of my heart is Mage: the Ascension.

Monica Speca: Exalted, and right now Essence.

Lunars art by Joe Ng

Question: Do you feel good with the word count you handle at the moment?

Eddie Webb: Define good, I’m not freaking out.

Travis Legge: Thrilled and overjoyed.

Matthew Dawkins: That is definitely a question.

Dixie Cochran: Always dread until actually working on it.

Danielle Lauzon: I’m good with 10k, that feels easy. Any more at one time seems sooo huge!

Monica Speca: Shorter word counts work great for me. Especially fiction.

Meghan Fitzgerald: Depends on system or setting.

Neall Raemonn Price: Every time I get comfortable with my amount of work, something pops up outside my control, like Covid.

Question: Are there any groups that we could set up for slack outside of work that would help you?

Matthew Dawkins: Long form TV review and discussion slack.

Dixie Cochran: Animal Crossing, other fandom sites are too negative.

Eddie Webb: Sherlock Holmes, but not really into discussion groups.

Danielle Lauzon: Shitposting.

Neall Raemonn Price: Sopranos.

Meghan Fitzgerald: TV, all TV.

Question: Whats your party trick?

Dixie Cochran: Vanishing out of goth clubs.

Matthew Dawkins: Beating people at Mario Cart.

John Snead: Carry and open up a laptop to demonstrate memes – a memetic enforcer.

Danielle Lauzon: Go to parties at houses, and take over the grill and kitchen. “Because she knows things”.

Monica Speca: I bring the games – boardgames, card games, age and number of players appropriate, all ready for the party.

Lunars cover design

Question: Would you like to be an inerviewee for the terribly awesome trio on the Onyx Pathcast? and if so, what question would you want them to ask you?

Chris Allen: Would you like a drink?

Travis Legge: Tell me about Dead Man’s Rust?

Danielle Lauzon: I just like to taaalk. Any question.

Meghan Fitzgerald: Not so much a question, but it’d be great if there could be a group roundtable.

Monica Speca: Will always talk about game design nonsense.

Eric Zawadzki: Would love to get on there to talk about the Deviant Companions.

Neall Raemonn Price: With others, then Essence. The State of Scion, and tease upcoming projects.

Dark Eras 2 art by Alex Sheikman

Finally, we talked about the Gehenna Gaming virtual convention a few weeks ago, and there have been a few more of those popping up including a virtual convention Eddy is going to be presenting at this coming weekend. So let me ask you folks:

If we had an Onyx Path oriented virtual convention – and I’m just asking to see if there’s interest, I’m not announcing anything – what sort of events would you like to have happen during it? Would you enjoy seeing our creators play our games? Would you want to sign up to play with us? How about virtual panels and Q&A sessions? Or do you have an idea for something else?

Give me a yell, put your thoughts in the blog comments – we’d love to hear from you. And again, we don’t have plans for a virtual convention as yet, but if we were planning on maybe making plans, it’d help to know if you folks were interested in attending and virtual engaging with our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The M20 Technocracy Reloaded Kickstarter funded in 43 minutes and at almost halfway through has passed 1680 backer operatives, is over 400% funded, and has achieved Stretch Goals consisting of a Storytellers Screen unlock, an unlock of more original Mage PDFs, Backers’ Exclusive T-Shirt, Wallpaper, and building the Technocracy Reloaded Player’s Companion PDF: sections on Constructs and Symposiums (and then expanded by a later SG), Digital Web 3.0, Technomancers’ Toybox 20 and the Q-Division bonus section, Unlikely Allies (also expanded by another SG), and the expanded Digital Web 3.0.2. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/m20-technocracy-reloaded

Highlights of M20 Technocracy Reloaded include:

An Operative’s Handbook that provides a detailed overview of life in the Technocratic Union, describing the organization of the Union, the Conventions, and the roles that sympathizers, extraordinary citizens, and Enlightened Operatives play in the overall structure of the Technocracy.

An examination of Technocratic initiatives on a global scale.

Devices, procedures, and hypertech used by the Technocratic Union that explores the Enlightened Science, allowing operatives to apply similar effects in the field, if they have sufficient understanding of the principles that allow these gadgets to function.

A comprehensive list of citizens, cyborgs, operatives, progenitor creations, and allies to use as NPCs.

Storyteller support that explores story seeds and metaplot to shape a chronicle for their needs.

Onyx Path Media!

This week features a return to the Terrific Trio’s actual play of Scion!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

The Technocratic Union continues its live broadcast Tuesday, May 12th at 9 PM EDT on the Onyx Path Publishing Twitch Channel. twitch.tv/theonyxpath

You are under instructions to not miss it.

Plus, Red Moon Roleplaying have just started their actual play of Technocracy Reloaded right here: https://youtu.be/RtdW0znt7GU Please give them your support!

Come tune in to our Twitch channel for an overloaded schedule not limited to Vampire: The Masquerade- Blood on the Tamesis, Vampire: The Masquerade – Chicago by Night Noir, Pugmire – Paws & Claws, Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion, Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale, Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous, Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds, and Dark Eras Werewolf: The Forsaken! 

You can subscribe to our channel over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath to catch up with any episodes you missed!

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Blood City – Chicago by Night: https://youtu.be/LXWGtVy2jbE

Mage: The Ascension – Technocracy Reloaded: https://youtu.be/hHG5fBCFlTE

Trinity Continuum – Special Series run by Danielle Lauzon: https://youtu.be/K1xCbfpmKlc

More Vampire: The Masquerade: Blood City – Chicago by Night: https://youtu.be/-zVEOQJK9zc

Chronicles of Darkness: Seattle by Streetlight: https://youtu.be/gMMFhoDncNs

Eddy’s Workshop: Proofing Layout: https://youtu.be/VhkEbMbQ3cA

Do subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

Matthew Dawkins appeared on the excellent 307 RPG Podcast, where he was interviewed about everything from They Came from Beneath the Sea! and They Came from Beyond the Grave! to upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade books! Give them a listen here: https://307rpg.com/?p=265

Further to that interview, the 307 RPG Podcast released an episode all to do with the Archetypes in They Came from Beneath the Sea!: https://307rpg.com/?p=282

The Story Told Podcast continue their excellent journey into Demon: The Descent right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/the-aggregate-choir-file-2

A Bunch of Gamers have been running a fantastic Pugmire adventure! You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/b57kVpzV2q4 and here’s a synopsis: Retrievers in the Plastic Quarter, explosions all around, and the cats of Korat demanding answers. Our heroes are locked in a deadly battle as their long time foe make their move to wrestle control of the city from King Pug. Will they be able to stop Terry or will the city of Pugmire fall into darkness?

Occultists Anonymous are here with a new special Mage: The Awakening series:

RV Mage 05: We Have a Side? Drifter meets with the Hierarch, Bless Your Heart, to get to the heart of the Consilium’s politics. Vicar and Amanita settle around a Locus to meet with werewolves, then finally, the mages join forces… https://youtu.be/w-FKL4Fnimo

RV Mage 06: Inversion Fleeing into the Shadow, away from raging werewolves, Amanita, Drifter, and Vicar confront opposing mages, Seers of the Orphean Ministry. Of course, werewolves are very good at traversing through the Gauntlet into the Shadow as well… https://youtu.be/P6Ko6_tCFDU

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This week, the PDF and PoD versions of Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras 2 emerge from the haunted past on DriveThruRPG on Wednesday!

Dark Eras 2 explores 13 new eras scattered throughout the history of the Chronicles of Darkness. Each chapter features two to three game lines which include Vampire: The Requiem, Mage: The Awakening, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Lost, and more!

The rules in this book are compatible with second edition Chronicles of Darkness. Each terrifying time period and location is examined through the supernatural creatures that dwell there.

Unlock the past. Find out what hides in the shadows. 

Inside, you’ll find: 

Historically inspired settings and story hooks 

Character-creation tips and gameplay advice 

New Tilts, Conditions, and era-appropriate rules 

Conventions!

As mentioned above, our own Fast Eddy Webb will be appearing on 2 or 3 panels for the Flights of Foundry online convention this weekend! Check it out here: https://flightsoffoundry2020.sched.com/mysessions

Though dates are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s our current list of upcoming conventions:

UKGames Expo: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/

GenCon: https://www.gencon.com/

Tabletop Scotland: https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/

Gamehole Con: https://www.gameholecon.com/

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

V5 The Faithful Undead (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Manuscript Approval

Post-Approval Development

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Editing

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Scion Titanomachy

Tales of Aquatic Terror

WoD Ghost Hunters – KS final art coming in. Gaydos should be done shortly.

Aberrant – Contacting and contracting. Signing off on sketches.

Pugmire Adventure – All sketches in.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Dividing up among current artists.

Legendlore – Kickstarter on hiatus/doing art buy breakdown.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS) – Happening.

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon – Working on chapter art breakdowns.

Masks of the Mythos – Working on chapter art breakdowns.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Getting fulls for KS.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma – Over to Josh.

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – Prepping for layout.

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart 

Pirates of Pugmire – Waiting for backer errata.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – Waiting for backer errata.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Backer PDF out to KS backers Tuesday.

Scion Companion – Just waiting for two tweaked pieces.

Contagion Chronicle

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Duke Rollo Book – Waiting for backer errata.

At Press

Night Horrors : Nameless and Accursed – PoD proof on the way.

Dark Eras 2 – PDF and PoD versions on sale on DTRPG this Weds!

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet

They Came from Beneath the Sea!

C:tL 2e Oak, Ash, & Thorn – PoD proof OK, on sale soon.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today in 1997, Deep Blue, a chess-playing supercomputer, defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of their rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world-champion chess player in a classic match format.

Not saying that was the beginning of the end for humanity, that the Technocracy won, or that this connects in any way with Trinity Continuum: Anima. Just interesting, that’s all…

[breakingbytes]

STATUS UPDATE

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since our last update, so we thought it was time you guys got more in-depth info on the current state of things.

We chose to be as clear and transparent as possible from the beginning, that's why we decided to be honest with you and mentioned that development would slow down for a while following various personal issues we were going through. What we didn't do initially, out of respect for the ones who were directly affected, was to talk about what was exactly going on.

However, we're all in this together, so, to allow you to better understand the situation and show you how much we care about XYDONIA, we're gonna put discretion aside and be open about it.

For this particular occasion, a first person perspective will be used to let our team's member explain what he has experienced.

~

This is a project that sparked from a personal passion the three of us shared, and that makes it quite frustrating when you can't always be as productive as you'd want, still that happens to everyone and is part of being alive. I'd usually push through and actually get even more motivated afterwards, but there are times when life throws more stuff at you that you can handle.

XYDONIA's Kickstarter campaign launched a few months after someone really close to me got diagnosed with cancer. As for anyone else, this had a severe impact on my entire life, although it actually spurred me to carry on with my work on the project day and night, for a while.

However, keeping pace with the countless variables of a crowdfunding campaign is an excruciating task, which requires a huge amount of mental (and physical!) commitment, especially if you're part of a small team like us.

We all know how it turned out and I'm still very proud and thankful to everyone who helped out, but after that excessively taxing month, during which I also had to closely take care of a loved one affected by a terrible disease, I suffered a pretty heavy burnout.

That was when things started to slow down with the game's development eventually as we mentioned in our last update.

Fast forward to present times: my life went through a series of considerably big changes which include, unfortunately, losing that same loved one and the battle we've been fighting together.

I won't dwell on the grief and psychological repercussions an experience like this brings to your life and especially won't use any of this as an excuse, just take it as an act of trust from our side.

My work on XYDONIA, which never really stopped despite what I've been dealing with, is one of the many means of recovering I have from all this and I won't waste the opportunity. Contributing on finishing the game will be my way of showing how much I'm grateful to my teammates and everyone else who kept their support high instead of turning their back on us.

We're definitely gonna take this last boss down!

W.

DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Speaking of strictly dev-related stuff, there is so much we want to show you and we'll get to that ASAP. Work on the next build is still ongoing and we're doing our best to get back up to our usual speed.

Here's a montage of some of the new stuff, captured off-screen during the events we attended, sporting XYDONIA's glorious main theme composed by Hosoe-san.

Hopefully we'll be able to wrap it up as soon as possible and let you personally check out every improvement and fresh content we added to this build.

There'll be a return to a tightier update schedule and regular content preview once this'll be all sorted.

We ask you to hold tight just a little bit more, all things considered, we won't disappoint!

XYDONIA FOR EVERYONE

Backer collaboration content work is also still going strong, we're excited just thinking about all the weirdest stuff you guys are gonna make us put into the game! Check out this behind the scenes sneak peek of a mid-boss you'll have the honor of obliterating.

Expect us to keep getting in touch in the near future to talk about your own custom stuff and craft it together!

That's all for now, thanks everyone for your huge support.

See you next time!

[nyrator]

IT BE DONE...

a perfect ending screen with music that I just sat to and listened to for a few minutes (also I loved how my broken computer clock messed with the screenshot naming so the last ones are before the ones in the castle)

also got a sweet hat for all my trouble (I’d be fan of a solid hat+bow+rose honestly, torn between plain-with-bow and stripe-with-bow-and-rose)

but yeah that final chapter was fun

(she even has a mustache’d throne)

Nice bits of Mustache Girl fanart.

Not gonna lie, was hoping for a time rift to explore what happened to Mustache Girl’s past and her mustache- unless that’s what happened when you gave her the time piece, I did the Hat Kid thing which was keep it for myself

BLEHHH

(this was the hardest decision in the game but of course I said no I’m Hat Kid and also I love the Mafia)

(it’s funny because I never do those kind of decisions, I’m always the morally right help everyone type but this game made me morally gray and I like it)

also right before I went into the castle I decided “y’know what’s a hint for that Why achievement” and it was saying a bad word to a crow and I was like “ohhh don’t make me swear come on” and after many butts and other Ny profanity eventually I had to resort to normal profanity (not even Peck would work...)

The final fight was fun, I felt bad because the first time I died in the fight was when the scene transitioned to the Mafia punching the other Mafia, dying a lot in the cherry phase, and then getting to that point again and being invincible was like “awww come on I was right there”

but surprisingly no crashing, but I loved how this band of misfits got together to fight the law-abiding(?) Mustache Girl

also you know I had to equip the Projectile Badge, I never used it in the entire game from how awkward and vulnerable you are when using it, but it felt just right to use it in that fight (also thinking when she kept dodging that I had to have a beam war with her until Mafia and Conductor came). Also went with default colors and Hat for the fight, no hat tricks or anything, classic Hat Kid (with badges).

SO YEAH OVERALL THOUGHTS

game was fantastic, most fun I’ve had with a game in years

Music was absolutely 200/10, it set the tone so well and every song knocked it out of the park (though I didn’t listen to too many remixes, mostly the original score).

Mafia, Conductor, Snatcher, were all fantastic, and every boss fight in this game was great. I was skeptical after the Beta’s Mafia fight, were they all going to be that basic-ish and just reskins, but nope, they knocked it out of the park.

Mafia Town >= Subcon > Birds > Alpine, I feel. I loved every world though. Mafia Town I’ve loved since the Alpha, I could wander around there for hours just exploring and collecting things and reading all the signs and graffiti and whatnot. 

Subcon blew me away, this one I had no idea what to expect since I only saw Vanessa’s manor, had no idea how they’d build on that and still capture the Mafia Town feel of exploration but boy did they. A giant forest that unlocks in segments, and each section distinct and crammed with things to do and explore and look at. I was scared I’d get lost and miss a lot of things in the forest, but it leads you along so well and you realize “ohh that’s where I am I’m right next to x”, and unlocking them segment by segment really helps get the most out of each one. I also generally love the spooky atmosphere, and that plot twist in the time rift really caught me off guard. I think the Snatcher was my favorite boss fight in the game, I loved how he played with the mechanics of the game and your expectations, and also Hat Kid smells. He was the boss I got the One Punch achievement with, he’s so easily accessible that I couldn’t help but wanting to fight him again and again. If I had to find a flaw in the stage, it’s the voices of those minions, but that’s a small opinion.

Battle of Birds also caught me off guard, though I saw most of the broad strokes from trailers at least. Very stealth oriented, I enjoyed myself, though I did have a few issues (mostly with the platforming- tight ropes are pain). Loved the Conductor way more than DJ Grooves (though he had a likable personality I have to admit that), the Conductor was my first and his stages were so much better- The murder mystery was great (I replayed it a ton of times trying not to get caught for an achievement, only to realize it was for the first act, whoops), lots of fun uses with your answers (poor Hat Kid’s butt doesn’t deserve this shaming). The race I remember from the Beta, and I was wondering how they’d build it into a full world, but I like how they did it. Not much to say about the race, but it was fun.

Grooves’ stages were okay. The first one had me interested in what they could do with the set, since it was a decent sized city. But really, only saying hi to penguins and getting photos taken. Second one was probably my least favorite in the game, it’s just a “keep moving and pressing buttons” one, with annoying tight ropes no less. Once I found a place to just walk in circles, I did that for the no-fall achievement, pressed buttons, then went back to my safe spot. Really lackluster compared to the rest of the game, but I can’t say it was bad.

Of course I tilted the lead in favor of the Conductor, but from what I heard apparently you can’t fight Grooves at all, so I’ll have to watch scenes and see what’s different.

Not sure how to feel about Alpine. That one I knew the least about since I started going radio silent around the time it was announced, but yeah. The maps themselves are very interesting, they give me a very Zelda feel- The Volcano, Twilight zone, really Zelda-esque setting with Zelda-esque puzzles. Of course, personally I wasn’t a fan of the aesthetic (though that’s solely opinion based, I like the more modern things compared to rustic-nomads-in-mountains thing, same with me and most RPGs in general), but I do admit the maps are very well designed. It didn’t have a lot of character personality though- No Mafia, Conductor, Snatcher, no witty dialogue, mostly “go this way!” and silent big guys. I admit, of all the minor NPCs (Owls, Penguins, etc), I was okay with these accented mountain goat people things the most (at least in voice acting), the accent helped. But yeah, really lacked that character charm the other worlds had unfortunately.

Of course, like I said, the puzzle design was good, and the final “go through every area” thing was neat, but yeah it just needed a little more character life to it I suppose. Did like the crows in the Birdhouse though

Did find it a bit odd that some characters were voiced in the final act and some weren’t, I just chalked it up to not being able to get a hold of them for that scene. Mostly the minor NPCs I noticed, so not too big a deal.

Also need to find a list of all the diary entries somewhere, to be honest I wasn’t the biggest fan of them since I like my silent protagonist and having an interpretatable avatar, but they were still neat and I would love to see all of them- OH WAIT I NEVER CHECKED AFTER BEATING THE GAME

also I do miss the islands and the sharks and the rockets and old man from the Alpha/Beta, as well as that second Vanessa stage (the one involving wires I believe). I tried as hard as I could to get up to this ledge, but sadly I kept failing. It feeeels doable though.

My only regret was my computer constantly crashing and losing progress (like I said the Freedom color was my first color but I lost it to a crash and it was sad and now I’m like two roulette spins behind). I have a decent-ish computer (GTX 770 graphics card, the Seasonic 750W PSU is dying I think) I had to run the game at a 1280x720 resolution with graphics set to the notch right before High Performance.

So yeah, only real complaints- Hat Kid’s face being too pointy instead of round and squishy (especially noticeable in the final cutscene), some questionable voice acting decisions with minor NPCS (nothing to do with whatever scandal people like bringing up since I still heard that Jon guy’s voice and saw his name in the credits so yeah, people keep bringing him up for some reason) and the tight rope platforming. And even then, those are just minor complaints.

and last here’s all the stuff I got by the end of the game (along with  five music remixes, two of them were a Mafia remix (orchestral battle and cyber normal I think), one was a train, one was Subcon (the first area with the foxes I believe), and one was time rift. Might have unlocked one more afterwards, not sure. 

So yeah, one more thank you to the entire team for making this game a reality. Huuuge shout out to the musician Pascal, absolutely fantastic work from start to finish. Shout out to all artists who worked on this project, I know Shane Frost(?) and Jenna Brown were two of them, Jenna was art director, and her art in the title screens was fantastic, and I think Shane did some of the Subcon/Bird designs and probably more. Huge shout out to Jonas, for making this entire thing happen, and for making such a wonderful project happen. And everyone else who worked on the game who I didn’t name, know that you did a fantastic job.

I discovered this game randomly, one month after the Kickstarter ended, I browsed a guy named JoshJepson’s channel (I’m a big fan of ProtonJon, and decided to check out Josh’s channel on a whim) and he had just done a playthrough of the Alpha, and I was like, “whoa I need to get this game”. So I became a slacker backer, got Alpha and Beta access, and couldn’t be more satisfied.

I also prooobably should’ve participated in the speed run event, but I wanted to go into the game completely blind but sadly missed out on a hat in the process, oh welll.

This is a game I really want to learn how to mod, and make levels with. I feel that it has the groundworks for some really great fangames, even. I hope this game continues to get the praise it deserves.

this game is

fun

[blackcomicschat]

Kickstarter Highlight: Fight of the Century

We recently had the opportunity to interview Troy-Jeffery Allen and Nick Allen, two of the creators of Fight Of the Century, an exciting new project which is currently featured on Kickstarter. You can view their trailer above and support the campaign HERE. Enjoy the interview.

________

Welcome to BlackComicsChat. Please introduce yourself and tell us where are you from?

Troy: We’re from the DC-Maryland-Virginia trifecta. I hesitate to say “DMV”, but that’s a thing. I’ll quickly represent DC despite no longer living there. Nick will always strongly rep Baltimore.

Nick: Always.

Tell us about your earliest memory of comic books, and the moment when you first decided that you wanted to be involved in the creation of comics.

Nick: It was a late uncle’s comic collection. Lots of old school Marvel.

Troy: Yeah, I definitely remember randomly finding that Spider-Man, Power Man, Storm anti-smoking issue. At that age, I don’t think it really connected to me that these were comic characters until later. It also failed at teaching me not to smoke.

Nick:  I think we were both hard-headed children.

Troy: Oh, for sure.

Nick: The one I grabbed was X-Factor #4 with Frenzy on the cover.

Troy: Look at that. Both comics had black people on the cover. I just realized that. Nick: Right?

Troy: As far as deciding to create comics, that came in the late 2000s. Nick was in video game school and I was the questionable one still working at a comic book store letting my film schooling collect dust. I think we both realized that comics – this thing that seemed impossible to do before digital – might be attainable. That’s all it took: Ease of access and stupid assumptions.

Let’s discuss the comic that you are Kickstarting. What is your story about? A cyberpunk, underdog sports tale about Performance Enhancing Drugs in the future is a premise that I haven't seen before in comics. How did you come up with the concept, and what made you want to tell this particular story?

Troy: Well, it’s called FIGHT OF THE CENTURY. It takes place in Brazil in the not-so distant future where everyone is linked to a pharmaceutical company. Our focus is in the Mixed Martial Arts world, where everyone undergoes a Dr. Frankenstein-like experiment to compete. We’re talking full metamorphoses.

Our afro-Brazilian main character, Rex Punga, gets in the octagon while totally juiced up and he has a “hulk out” moment that causes an in-ring incident. The company behind the drugs – BrawnPharm – buries him with a public smear campaign and ends his career. But this is a sports story. So, Rex has to make a comeback and he’s going to do it by going all-natural. It’s very David and Goliath that way.

Nick: I'm a huge sports fan, and a few years back I noticed how athletes were being busted for doping.  However, I thought for every athlete that's being busted, there are probably ten that aren't.  And what does it mean for sports in general when we pick and choose losers that way.  So, I asked well what if I could tell a story about a society where athletes got to openly use these drugs.  What would happen?  I approached Troy, because he's a really good writer, and thought he would be great to work with.  From there we started hammering out some plausibility details (who, what, where); and what social commentary could we add.

Troy: I was already doing a wrestling comic over in my corner somewhere. FIGHT OF THE CENTURY kind of seemed like the obvious thing to do. I agreed to it so quickly. We just found so many ideas based on that nugget of a concept.

Also, Nick hit me up about this right around the time that I’d watched Food, Inc.--that documentary about Monsanto. My mind was already in a place where I was thinking a lot about genetic modification and how a lot of what we consume is unnatural. That led to us talking about multinational corporations that essentially have no borders. That’s when we knew who the real bad guy of our story was. We started down this track of looking at a future where everyone is chained to a pharmaceutical company. Then we came back to the present and went, “Shit…this is happening now!”

Nick: Troy and I also have experience in combat sports (myself with martial arts and Troy with wrestling), so we thought MMA could be a great vehicle for telling this type of story.  And life has imitated art as more and more MMA guys are being busted for P.E.D.s.  Also, who doesn't love watching a good bloody fight?

Troy: That’s kind of the crazy thing. Life kept supplying material for us to riff off of.  From Ray Lewis’ deer antler spray to students using Ritalin to pass – the story just kept writing itself.

Tell us about the creative team behind this project.

Troy: We wanted an international squad. Like, one of the biggest hooks for MMA are these cultural connections: Conor McGregor is proud to be an Irish fighter, the Gracies gave us the designation of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instead of judo -- styles of fighting and fighters are very much tied to culture. We wanted that baked into the story.

Nick: Shawn Alleyne reps Barbados and he started the artwork by providing many of the original character designs.  I don't think Shawn needs much introducing to your audience.  I knew him from attending shows and seeing his artwork online.  He's a phenomenal designer and brought a lot of the initial style ideas.

Troy: If I had to credit anyone with injecting cyberpunk into our initial concept it would be Shawn. I don’t think it was intentional, but his concepts just screamed “cyberpunk”. We just kept thinking of it in those terms from there on.

Artist Mervyn McKoy also added a lot of style and a pinch of dystopia to some of the early concepts. Especially to Karla Punga, Rex’s wife and manager. He’s been a frequent collaborator of Nick’s.

Nick: From there, we scoured the internet in order to find some amazing talent. Julius Abrera  was the first guy we found thanks to Instagram.  He lives in the Philippines, so we had to cold contact him, but, fortunately, he was an MMA fan and loved the idea. He was all on board.

Then, we wanted to add some homegrown talent from Brazil, so we looked for a Brazilian based inker and once again Instagram showed us Thiago De Costa.  We thought they would make an amazing pairing for the line art team.

Troy: Thiago has been indispensable. He got Thiago Ribeiro on board and Netho Diaz. All from Brazil. He’s also been our Portuguese voice on Facebook.

Nick: Absolutely. Also, Bryan, our colorist, was a referral from Julius. So we got the Filipino connect too. And that only left lettering which I take responsibility for.

What was the creative process like on this book?

Nick: Amazing.  Everyone adds something different and special to the book.  We've been fortunate to work across 3 continents with ease -- that's to the internet.  Dropbox and Facebook are our primary tools for collaboration.  

We’ve also found a new graffiti artist that we hope to incorporate into the mix. Troy: And Dana Brand, who has become our story editor recently. Her passion for story is great motivation to work through the sometimes rough terrain of plot. She also loves baseball, so I think the PED angle made sense to her pretty quickly.  

Nick: Yeah, the core team is always batting around ideas and helping each other when challenges arise.

What made you choose Kickstarter as a funding method?

Nick: Well, we've completed an entire issue and thought it would be worth pursuing to fund a graphic novel.  Troy and I are fully committed to the book, but totally self-funding would be much slower.  Also, Kickstarter is an amazing place to find like-minded individuals that might love a book like this.  

Troy: I was all sorts of skeptical. I’ll admit that that’s why this project took a couple of years. Nick had been funding his book, C-LISTERS out of pocket and I’d been doing the same for my comic BAMN, but Nick had done some Kickstarter campaigning for Visionary Studios before. He saw the value in crowd-funding a lot quicker than I did.

What are some of the incentives that backers can receive when they support your campaign?

Nick: Well, we're offering digital and physical copies of the books; a special thank you page with your name and MMA handle; cameos; original artwork… Troy: We really wanted to give people incentives that enhanced the story instead of just loading them up with junk. That was important to us. That’s why we worked with Drive Radio to lace certain incentives with a soundtrack. We want you to feel the story at every possible level. We make sure to do our part in the action and drama department, but then you can be IN the story as well as hear how dangerous the future is.

What are your future plans for the series?

Nick: Well, it's a limited series, but I think it's an extremely fertile universe to tell other stories in.  Maybe some one-shots with the characters would be fun.  Or explore another sport in our cyberpunk paradise.

Troy: This really is the maiden launch of our imprint Rex Co., so we’re going to set up shop here and unleash a lot of other ideas. Nick is working on a YA title for Rex Co. that I’m actually really excited about. I’m still doing BamnComics.com, and the plan is to start printing that story through Rex Co. A nap would be nice too.  

We’re looking forward to seeing the finished product. Anything else you’d like to share?

I will correct one mistake we made early on: We’ve been calling FIGHT OF THE CENTURY “cyberpunk”, but I discovered that there is a subgenre that fits more specifically for what we are doing. It’s called “biopunk”. There is cyberpunk in the story too, but the larger part of it is definitely biopunk.

Sorry, but nerds can be particular. That would have bugged me forever.

Where can people find you and your work on the internet?

Nick: Currently, the best place to shift blame is Facebook.com/FotcComic. We’ll be there throughout all this. And, of course, our Kickstarter Page.

Thanks for joining us. Everyone, be sure to check out this campaign!

[kindapets-blog]

Amazing Inventions For Your Pets

People love their pets, and we can all agree that our pets deserve to be pampered. Here are 10 of the best inventions for your pet ever!!

https://kindapets.tumblr.com/post/184682746236/automatic-pet-feeder-best-smart-feeder

iFetch Here’s the thing. Dogs love to run and fetch…but humans get a little tired...The solution? A robot that plays fetch with your dog! iFetch was launched in 2013. Can you guess where? Kickstarter! The monetary goal to launch this ball-throwing contraption was $20,000! So many people liked this idea that backers pledged over $88,000! It was invented with the idea of a never-ending game of fetch available for your dog. It can be battery powered or plug into the wall. Dogs can even use it themselves. They drop the ball in and iFetch will throw it for them. You can buy specially-made balls for it or use standard tennis balls. It has three settings, so you can adjust it for the size of your room (and dog)! There are also different sizes of iFetch so it will be perfect for any dog. It’s pretty amazing how one kid started all this back in 2010 when he built the first prototype. He never knew at the time what a hit it would be!

Drinking Fountain We all love drinking fountains. They’re cool, they’re convenient, and they are great for hot summer days. There are tons of doggie water fountain options, but by far the coolest ones are the step-on fountains that attach to a hose. This Dog Water Fountain or doggie fountain “ensures that a dog has access to fresh, cool drinking water at all times”. It makes it easy for your pet to water itself at any time. All it has to do is step on the pedal and out comes the water. You don’t have to train your dog to do it, as after you show it once, it’s pretty much instinct from there. Since it attaches to a hose, you can guarantee the water is cool and fresh. Just remember that there’s a good chance your dog will get addicted to using it and will most likely enjoy playing with the drinking fountain and pedal.

Seatbelt If you travel much with your dog, chances are you’ve worried about their safety. Well, there are many options as far as car safety goes for your pets, but one of the best is your classic seatbelt. It works like a leash with a harness and protects your dog just like your seatbelt protects you. The seatbelts attach to almost any seatbelt latch and will keep your dog safe and secure. You can adjust it so that they can sit, stand, or lie down. Plus, it is tight enough so they won’t get tangled up in it. The Center for Pet Safety released the results of its 2013 Harness Crashworthiness Study a little while ago and it reinforced the idea that pets should wear seatbelts. However, most seatbelts made for pets just weren’t suitable. Some even were loose enough that dogs were launched out of vehicles during tests! The “dummy dog” that is. Vets still recommend that dogs use a safety harness when in cars. But they also recommend asking them which brand is the best for your particular dog.

Treat Dispenser Treat dispensers are also plentiful, but recently, we’ve had some new, improved versions released that really bring them to the 21st century. Some use remotes, some are voice activated, and some even use mobile apps. Most can be mounted on the wall and run on batteries. A lot of them work with a variety of treats too! Treat dispensers are usually used by busy dog owners who want to reward their pet on a regular basis with treats when they are away. But sometimes it’s used to train the dog to obey even when the owners aren’t there. Or maybe you’re just sitting on the couch or at the dinner table and it's treat time. With the click of a button or the sound of your voice, you can give your dog their treat. Little kids can use the treat dispenser too to gain control over the dog. Bigger dogs tend to knock the treats out of kids hands, but with a treat dispenser they have to treat the kids with respect and restraint if they want to get their treat. The kid gets to feed the dog and the dog gets to have the treat. No one gets hurt or mistreated! So it’s a win-win for everyone!

Backpack Carrier This may not work for large dogs, but sometimes, it’s easier to take small dogs with you when you can carry them. That’s where the backpack carrier comes in handy. Most of the time, these carriers are designed so that the dogs are carried on the front where it’s easier to watch over them. But, they can also be carried on the back when biking or you’re busy up front. It is safe, secure, yet isn’t uncomfortable for your pet. The backpack carrier is ideal for biking, traveling, shopping, hiking, and going on walks. They even come with little pouches for treats and accessories! Plus, the pack is really comfortable for the human to wear as it doesn’t put too much weight on your shoulders. You don’t have to use it all the time since obviously exercise is good for your pets. But often, we forget that we’re a lot bigger than they are and their short legs will get tired a lot faster than ours. So the backpack carrier brings balance to outdoor activities allowing you and your little doggie to meet in the middle.

Raincoat Not everyone realizes that not all dogs like to, or should, get rained on. If you’re wearing a raincoat, then maybe your dog should too. The waterproof doggie raincoats come in all different sizes, from extra small to extra, extra large. As well as all sorts of colors, from pink to classic yellow to plaid. They are made to keep your pet dry and comfortable in the rain. Most of them even come with an adjustable hood to cover the face, the head, or just lay back for the more adventurous dogs. We all know that cats don’t like rain and shouldn’t be taken out in it, but since dogs usually don’t’ mind it, protecting them is put by the wayside. That’s why whoever invented doggie raincoats knew what they were doing. Plus, how adorable does a dog look in a raincoat! If they don’t enjoy it, then you can just get a doggie umbrella. It’s a leash attached to the top of an umbrella. This way, they aren’t annoyed by wearing anything, but are still protected from the rain.

Cat Trees and Dog Houses This may be pretty basic, but just wait till you see these “playhouses” for pets! Every cat needs a cat tree! The classic cat tree is a few stories and usually has two to three enclosed areas. Along with that, there are multiple docks for them to nap or play on. There are ramps and scratching posts to help them sharpen or dull their claws and save your furniture. That’s for the average cat. Luxury cats get luxury trees. Here are trees that would please any human! With hammocks, unique designs, realistic foliage and cat bowls! Why not a built in litter box? However, dogs should have some fun too. Luxury dog houses are one of the very best inventions on the world. Not everyone can afford such luxuries though. So a simple wooden condo for daytime activities should suffice. Just make sure they pay rent. No one’s living free in my house! 

PetSafe Bolt By far one of the best cat toys of the decade is the PetSafe Bolt Interactive Laser Toy. Cats and dogs love lasers. So developers decided to cater to that passion with the PetSafe Bolt. For less than $20 you can make your pet’s day with an automatic toy they will never stop playing with. They toy generates laser patterns that will keep them busy for hours. If you want to get involved, it also works as a manual toy to save battery life. The Bolt is sure to immediately attract most cats, and many dogs. But if not, then they’ll probably just get tired. So, the optimum time to play with it varies. The Bolt is especially good for intelligent cats, though those with a harder time grasping things will struggle with the concept. So, it is recommended for smarter cats that need something interactive to keep them interested. Though…if they don’t like The Bolt…chances are your kid will, so you can be sure it won’t be wasted.

GPS Tracker The pet GPS tracker is probably the biggest answer to pet owner’s prayers. Everyone’s worst nightmare is losing your pet which can happen at the drop of a hat. Thankfully, a few companies have created trackers that will make that impossible. One great tracker is the Whistle 3 that uses cell and GPS technology to track your dog for up to 3000 miles away! It’s super easy to set up too, as it uses an app you can download on your smartphone that connects to your dog’s tracker. You can even set places like “home” or “the vet” or “the park”. Set boundaries for where they can go and you’ll get a text when they leave the area. Lose them and the GPS will show you their exact location. On top of that, you can check how much sleep and exercise they got that day, plus how much you need to feed them based on their weight and breed. Yes, this invention does have it all and sure does make life as a dog owner a whole lot easier. 

Pet Chatz Ever wanted to facetime your pet? Well, that’s exactly what Pet Chatz lets you do. It isn’t easy to be away from your pet. You’re always missing them or worrying what they might be getting into while you’re gone. That’s why Pet Chatz was invented. The camera has a low-light so as not to affect your pet’s eyes negatively while retaining HD quality. It has a motion detector so you will know when your pet wants to talk, or you can turn it on yourself to check in with them. Like a security camera, it detects unusual things, such as noises and movements and alerts you. It can always pick up “dog sounds” so when your dog is trying to get your attention or is nearby it will let you know. The sound is designed so that your pet can hear everything you say in an understandable tone for them. It even has a built-in treat dispenser for you to control and a built-in scent releaser so they will feel like you are there with them. Bonus! It streams DOGTV! So maybe this one IS the perfect pet invention.

Thanks for watching? Do any of you own these inventions? Let us know in the comments below.

HUSKY eats too FAST! Slow Feed Bowls! Slo-Bowl

How to groom a long haired dog?

[annakie]

I’ve been meaning to make a post about my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000, and how it’s influenced me for so much of my life, and about the new episodes, and now this.

So, getting to see Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conriff riff live last night is a good of an excuse to do it as any.

Long post and a few more pics, including some kinda cool Manos stuff, below.

Like a lot of MST3k fans of old, I discovered the show by being bored and channel surfing in the 90′s, finding this show where these 3 guys kept talking over a movie, and eventually sticking around long enough to see a few host segments and start to enjoy the show. 

I honestly couldn’t tell you what the first MST3k episode I sat through from beginning to end first, though it may have been Frist Spaceship on Venus, in a rerun.  I know I became a fan before Joel left, my senior year of high school.  I clearly remember watching the last few Joel episodes, being sad he left, and then being shocked when Mike showed up.  I liked Mike just as much and was in awe when I found USENET about a year later and read through many of the great Joel vs Mike flamewars on rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc.

I didn’t post a whole lot on the group, though I did a little.  At the time, MST3k to me was this really cool under-ground-y feeling thing, few people I talked to knew what it was (though I converted many), the first fandom I participated in online, and my favorite show.  

My family didn’t always have cable, it usually depended on how bored my dad was, he’d subscribe and cancel on a whim, so when we had it, I recorded the hell out of the episodes.  When we didn’t, sometimes my grandma did, so when I could, I’d head over to her place with a VHS tape and hang out with her while we watched the show.  I think she didn’t really love the show, but she loved me coming over to hang out with her.

I still have a box full of my MST3k VHS tapes.  I even used to circulate them sometimes, for awhile when we had 2 VCRs at the house, thanks to help from USENET tape trading circles.

In 1995 or so was when I realized I was living in El Paso, going to UTEP, and it dawned on me that I might be able to dig up information on Manos: The Hands of Fate.  The Internet was a much smaller place back then, and we didn’t have the benefit of things like IMDB, so even after digging online I couldn’t figure out an exact timeframe for the release of the movie.  I spent probably 12 or so hours skimming through months and months worth of microfiche scans of the El Paso Times and El Paso Sun Herald looking for some mention of the movie.

 I eventually hit jackpot and found not only some advertisements for the premiere, but also the review that was written the next day after the premiere. I printed out scans of the movie poster advertisements and snail mailed them to the guy who ran the biggest MST3k fansite at the time, then typed out the transcript of the reviews and another short article about the movie for USENET.  I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t have the movie poster image for Manos online if it wasn’t for me, and the guy who put them on his site.  

The images have faded and the pages have gotten a bit stuck together after 20ish years, but I still have the printouts I didn’t send.

I also remember the night the show premiered on Scifi, I drove to Las Cruses with a friend after a long day at a water park where I got super sunburned to watch the episode with my brother and sister-in-law.  I was so dehydrated and sun-sick that I think I had to run to the bathroom a few times, but it was worth it.  MST3k had been saved.

Round about 1996 I decided I needed a solid Internet name that would stick, especially since I was chatting on IRC a lot and joined the Scifi Channel’s IRC channel, since MST3k was now on Scifi, and became one of the regulars on the server.  I’d managed to pick one of the very few copies of the MST3k Amazing Colossal Episode Guide that had come to El Paso, so I flipped through the book until I landed on episode #422 - The Day the Earth Froze.  That was already one of my favorite episodes, and the heroine of the not-that-bad-for-a-MST3k-episode was named Annakie.  That felt just weird enough to be an internet handle, and just obscure enough that only MSTies might get the origin.  

I’ve been Annakie on the internet ever since.  I wouldn’t learn for a good 15 years that Annakie is actually some people’s real name, and so the last few years it’s been harder to snag my name on sites, but I try.

I joined the fanclub. MSTie #54377.  I still have several of my old newsletters.

(Uh the newsletter wasn’t “from Sergio”.  My boyfriend at the time had sent me a Christmas present, my mom wrote that on the newsletter when she left them both in my room that day.)

The Scifi channel IRC server would host chats with the stars of various shows, and occasionally that included MST3k. Once, Kevin Murphy picked his nose at me.

I was so excited to be spending the summer in Dallas the year the MST3k movie came out.  It was showing at a theater, in a location I was near to, the first week I was in Dallas.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have control over where we were going that evening. We did go to a movie that night, but not MST3k.  The people I was with promised we’d go see the movie next week (or at least drop me off.)  

It wasn’t in theaters anymore the next weekend. I was quietly devastated and only simmered with rage for a few weeks. :)  I eventually got to see it, by special ordering the VHS for more than I could afford to spend many months later.  I still have that VHS tape, damnit.

When the end came, I was living in Dallas, but couldn’t possibly afford cable. I scavenged the show when I could. The syndicated one-hour version of the show hosted by Mike-As-James-Lipton was a particular godsend.   I’d been unable to watch most of the last couple of seasons, but managed to get a friend’s parents to record the last episode for me.  

Eventually, I was able to afford a house, and cable TV, and managed to catch up on most of the SciFi episodes that I missed before they, too went off the air. The morning that the final MST3k rerun aired on SciFi I sat on my couch, drank a mimosa and cried a little when it ended.  

By that time MST3k had been a part of my life, and one of my favorite things for about a dozen years.  I had a giant poster of Mike, the Bots and the Mads that had been stuck up and pulled down from my childhood bedroom, to a dorm room, back to my room in my family’s house, then four apartments in Dallas. I hadn’t put it up in my house because the corners were torn off and I wanted to get it framed.  Never have.  It’s around here somewhere.  I instead took an 8x10 glossy I’d picked up somewhere, probably ordered it online, and framed it.  A few years later, I managed to snag a rare MST3k The Movie poster on ebay for something outrageous, like $75 or something. It was worth it.  It’s still framed and hanging in my house.

So yeah, so for awhile, that was the end.

I followed what all the alums did, like many did.  I read Timmy Big Hands, but Rifftrax was exciting.  I haven’t gone to as many Rifftrax shows as I should have or bought as many as I should have, but I do support them when I can.  When Cinematic Titanic was new, they came to Dallas and I went to that show.  At the time, the biggest thrill I’d had.  I didn’t stay after to meet them, I’d promised a friend we’d go out when I got out of the show and I am still really, really kicking myself for that decision because I could have had that meet and greet moment with Trace, Frank, Joel, Josh and Mary Jo.  It was a really great night, and at the time, one of the most awesome nights of my life.

A few years later, I’d gotten super into The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and finally got to go see my first show in LA at Largo for the 2014 Sparks Nevada’s I’m from Earth Day Special.  One of the episodes was written by Bill Corbett and he also guest starred in it.  I was thrilled to get to see and talk to several Workjuice Players who I had met three weeks earlier at Emerald City Comic Con, but honesty, my best memory of that night was getting to meet Bill Corbett, even briefly.

Last year when Joel announced the Kickstarter, I took a serious look at my finances and came up with a number I felt was OK to donate.  It was enough for a few decent rewards, and best of all, my name in the credits of an episode.  (I haven’t gotten to that episode even yet but I included “Annakie” as my middle name when I filled out the backer kit questionnaire.)  

I was skeptical, but if Joel was behind it, I decided to trust it.  As great as Rifftrax is (and it is!) and Cinematic Titanic was, there’s just nothing like MST3k itself.  So I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the Kickstarter was funded and watched the live stream at the end of the campaign.  I was a bit trepidacious about the new cast, though I’m a fan of Felicia, am OK with Patton and had never heard of any of the other guys.  I felt better once it was clear the rest of the cast was invited back and some agreed to make appearances. 

I decided basically to trust Joel, and go in with an open mind.  The big MST3k reunion show where Joel and Jonah riffed together set any doubts that I still had at ease anyway.  Netflix picking up the show was a huge relief.

I’m still not done with the season.  I watched most of the first episode the day it came out, then decided to stop and give my views to Netlfix.  

I love it.  Jonah is fantastic, and I love him just a much as Joel and Mike. The hardest thing for me to get over has been a new voice for Tom -- Barron is GREAT, we just had the same Tom for so long.  The new Mads are great.  I like the riffing pace. It’s still the same show, still my favorite show.  I actually want to write a lot more on this but this post is really long.  But suffice it to say, I agree with almost everyone else on the new show.  When do we get a season 12 pickup?

So despite the fact that I follow both Trace and Frank on twitter, and the Alamo Drafthouse near me, I somehow didn’t notice that The Mads Are Back was coming to Dallas until last week.  Luckily, there were still (very few) tickets left to Saturday’s performance.  Apparently, they did an entirely different movie on Friday, but that was sold out.  

I didn’t know they were going to be doing a meet and greet before the show, and since I was going alone I ended up not arriving until about 15 minutes before the show started.  I managed to hop into line just before the line got cut off behind me, and, though it was rushed, I got to shake both Trace and Frank’s hands, thank them for coming to Dallas, and got my now very used and fragile Amazing Colossal Episode Guide signed, right on the “The Day the Earth Froze” page.  I mentioned I was having them sign that page since I go by Annakie on the internet, and so they signed it to Annakie. :)

(You can see how the pages are starting to fall off the binding there.  I’ve read the book once or twice.)

I wore a Thrilling Adventure Hour shirt, Frank commented on it, which made me particularly happy.

The show was great (except for the really annoying people sitting near me, who nearly got thrown out and I guess eventually were too drunk to stay), and they did a Q&A afterward.

I think we MiSTies are so lucky these days.  The show went from cable access, to Comedy Central, then to SciFi. We eventually got Rifftrax, and Cinematic Titanic, and now we have The Mads doing their own thing, and.... the show itself is back.  Aside from following a few MST3k related blogs on tumblr, a few groups on Facebook, and most of the cast on twitter. I haven’t really been in the central part of the fandom in a long awhile, (though I have made a few gifs) but when I dip my toes in, it’s still a pretty good place.

It also brings me a lot of joy to see so many new people discovering the show.  People who were born during or even after the run of the show jumping in and loving it, too, is just so awesome.

Next year, the show turns 30, and it’s still as great as ever, and maybe even stronger than ever.  Whatever they do next, I’m on board.

[jackleveledup]

Game of the Year 2016: My Top Three

It's been a long road for Game of the Year and 2016 in general, but we finally made it to the top three! In case you missed it, there were a ton of other games I loved this year that I wrote about in a post I called "Very Good Games".

And one last thing before we close this out: thanks for reading!

#3. Hyper Light Drifter

This year, no single moment compared to the rush I got from my first chain-dash in Hyper Light Drifter. There's a primal satisfaction to the accelerating timing it demands, as each flash of pink and teal raises the pressure of the impending button press. Eventually I learned that it's not that good in combat and it's only one of many means of survival, yet it was at that precise moment that the game won me over.

I say this without exaggeration: Hyper Light Drifter is a visual masterpiece. Fans and Kickstarter backers have been drooling over screens for years now, and the reality seems to have even exceeded expectations. Environments overflow with lightly muted colors and all kinds of mystery, like enormous Evangelion-inspired beasts, esoteric symbols, and ruins of a civilization long since past. Animation is beautifully handled frame-by-frame, highlighting the tension in each action and closing off with a shimmer of vibrant neon.

It's not an easy game by any means, but success becomes its own reward. Every battle is a fury of bullets and blades with far more dead bodies than dead air. I found myself often getting lost in the chaos, only realizing a room was clear when my darting eyes couldn't find anything new to shoot at. What's unusual, though, is that I didn't find the boss fights to deliver the same sense of exhilaration as the average encounter along the way, but as a capstone to a difficult journey, they work well enough. Maybe I should just be grateful I was never tempted to chuck a controller.

Hyper Light Drifter is enthralling, both in its hectic gameplay and its unwordly atmosphere. I know without a doubt that I'll be back for another shot at deciphering what the hell happened to this world.

#2. Kirby: Planet Robobot

If you've ever daydreamed about what you'd do with your own giant super robot, Kirby: Planet Robobot is a game you need to play. I mean this in the best way possible: it seems like the game was designed by a 6 year old with complete creative authority.

"Give it a giant drill! No, saw blades! Give it flamethrowers! Make it transform into a car! AND a jet!"

Yep, those are all things you can do, and it owns!

The heart of Kirby games has always lied in their diverse power-ups: fire, ice, spark, hammer, bomb, and dozens of others. This time, the sizable set of abilities is doubled by applying not just to Kirby, but his huge, face-shaped armor suit. If Kirby gets a sword, his mech gets two massive beam-sabers. If Kirby gets a jetpack, his mech transforms into a jet! Discovering all of the ways these forms could be used was a joy that lasted me the entire length of the game.

With so many power-ups there's a staggering number of game mechanics at play, which HAL Laboratories take full advantage of in the level design. Whether its a puzzle requiring a certain power-up, a rare boss or ability, or simple visual flair, each stage has some kind of "gimmick" to separate it from the last. Ideas reappear only seldomly, and not without being somehow altered and built upon. Sometimes the game even pretends to be something else entirely, like the shmup style stages that utilize the "Jet" version of the robot armor, or the auto-scrolling stages in the "Wheel" armor. All of this leads to a collection of stages that feel memorable and worth revisiting.

Between its game design and its vast possibility-space, Planet Robobot executes on its concept almost as perfectly as I can imagine. I know Kirby isn't the top Nintendo franchise for most people, but given the run the series is having right now, I'm starting to seriously question how long my little pink creampuff will go underappreciated!

#1. VA-11 HALL-A

VA-11 HALL-A is a visual novel that sounds extremely good in theory - just read its tagline: "cyberpunk bartender action." You play as Jill, who works at a bar called Valhalla in a futuristic city of perpetual darkness, poor people, robots, androids, and most of all, strife. It operates pretty differently as a video game, though. It's often assumed that gameplay exists for the sole purpose of fun, but even for a visual novel, VA-11 HALL-A's simple mechanics took me more than a few drinks to warm up to. Kinda' like in real life, the process of mixing "Brandtinis" and "Bleeding Janes" isn't especially exciting after the first few times, and almost everyone visiting the bar seems to have way more going on in life than you. I just wasn't seeing how it came together. It took some time and careful thought, but by the end of the game it had shaped into something incredible.

It's all thanks to the bar's atmosphere that I stuck around at all, and man, did they nail it. First and foremost, this soundtrack is phenomenal. What woud otherwise be your average cyberpunk setting becomes a wondrous dystopia thanks to Garoad's deft, moody composition. Its implementation is sharp, too. Instead of having music set to match each scene, you're handed complete control over the playlist while on duty. There's a palpable realism to incidentally having serious talks over loud, upbeat music, or joking during an ominous buildup. It helps to give Jill some believable agency as a bartender, too. You can always decide what drink to serve, how strong to mix it, or what music you want to play, but not who comes in that night or what to talk about. Details matter, and the developers at Sukeban Games were paying careful attention.

While Jill herself doesn't seem to bring much nuance to the story (...at first), the rest of the cast handily pick up the slack. The pixel-based character portraits are surprisingly expressive and go a long way in realizing the game's zany, reference-loaded dialog. Dorothy is a definitive fan favorite - she's an android that was specifically engineered to have weaker emotional responses to things that humans often find traumatizing. This trait colors every one of her conversations with typical humans, especially once you figure out that she's a sex-worker. Her career is almost completely inconsequential to her and she LOVES to tease people about it, so the scenes that ensue whenever she meets someone new at Valhalla are pretty entertaining, to say the least. In general, though, Sukeban Games have a firm grasp on how to both play into tropes and subvert them, which allows them to hit their punchlines without compromising any drama during more serious scenes.

My favorite part about VA-11 HALL-A is how much of the narrative the player is trusted to piece together. For a visual novel there's suprisingly little exposition - almost none, actually! It's basically all conversations, and not even ones explicitly about current events. Your only glimpse at what's happening outside of the bar is limited to what you happen to hear, what you choose to read in the news or on shitty forums, and most importantly, what connections you can draw between them. It's amusing to talk to some of the bar's customers, for sure, but your impression might completely change when you realize what they're up to before they stop in or finish their last drink.

The way in which VA-11 HALL-A dismantled my first impression continues to impress me. As the credits rolled it made perfect sense that the bartender would feel less interesting than the guests she serviced. Maybe it shouldn't feel "fun" to Jill when she mixes a drink for a grumpy customer. Maybe it makes sense that a struggling bartender wouldn't have the clearest picture of the "what's" and "why's" of her city's politics. None of that is crucial to finding happiness anyway. VA-11 HALL-A highlighted aspects of life that I don't usually give a second thought to, in a way that feels uncommonly literary for a video game. It's probably not going to be a game for everyone, but to those that seek it out, the narrative at work is nothing short of intoxicating.

[comiccrusaders]

Writer Marc Guggenheim Attached to Make the Classic Series Soar Once More!

Dynamite Entertainment is proud to share the exciting news that thanks to the overwhelming support and effort made by comic book lovers everywhere, the Swords of the Swashbucklers Kickstarter successfully attained its goal after an exciting, month-long campaign. Thanks to the more than 800 backers, Dynamite will now not only restore the beloved series, but also bring the tale back to life with all-new adventures after more than twenty-five years out of print! Legendary screenwriter, producer, comic book writer, and novelist Marc Guggenheim (X-Men Gold, The Flash, The Amazing Spider-Man) has been tapped to write the new ongoing Swords of the Swashbucklers series, which is slated to land in stores December, 2017.

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Following the success of the original Kickstarter campaign, Michael Mantlo, brother of Bill and spokesperson for the Mantlo family stated, “Earlier this year, a Kickstarter campaign was set up to fund the re-release of Bill Mantlo’s & Butch Guice’s The Swords of the Swashbucklers. By ALL accounts it was a tremendous success, and now, after more than a quarter of a century out of print (and out of sight), the epic space opera has returned in a gloriously remastered edition AND in a new series that will continue the adventures of Domino Drake and the crew of the Starshadow!  The hope is that this endeavor will introduce the Mantlo/Guice masterpiece to a whole new generation of fans.  On behalf of Bill Mantlo, I’d urge everyone to carry this wondrous story far into the future by signing on for the journey through the purchase of these books.  Not only will you get to enjoy a magnificent tale, you will also be helping support Bill Mantlo finally being able to improve his quality of life, and having the opportunity to experience the joy of knowing just how loved and respected he is by the comic book community.”

The Swords of the Swashbucklers co-creator Butch Guice says, “I am both humbled by and extremely grateful for the tremendous outpouring of support the Swords of the SwashbucklersKickstarter launch received earlier this year, and am excited to see these characters being published again for fans old and new. My participation in telling the adventures of Raader, Domino, and the gang hold a very special place in my memory, and it is extremely gratifying to discover they are so fondly remembered by others as well. Thank you to everyone who has had a hand in putting this launch together, and thank you to the many people who have helped make this revival happen.”

  Lawrence Klein, attorney for the Mantlo family added, “I wanted to be Bill Mantlo when I was a kid, a lawyer and comic book writer. I fondly remember meeting Bill and Butch at a small comic shop in NYC way back when. Now grown up, sort of, I am thrilled to work with Bill, Butch and Dynamite to do my small part and bring a great story and many new ones to the published page. It is amazing to see the continued support for these stories and especially the love for Bill. Thank you Bill and Butch for a great legacy in comics.”

  Writer Marc Guggenheim said, “Swords of the Swashbucklers has long been a favorite of mine and it remains one of the great high concepts in all of comics, which is unsurprising when you consider that Bill Mantlo and Butch Guice were the creative forces behind it.  I’m humbled to continue their work and looking forward to introducing this remarkable comic to a whole new audience.”

Hailing from Long Island, New York, Marc Guggenheim served as a lawyer in Boston while working part-time as a writer, until one of his earliest scripts led him out west and directly into the television and movie industry.  His first television project was ABC’s The Practice, before moving on to write several television smash-hits, including Law & Order, CSI: Miami, Eli Stone, Arrow, and most recently Legends of Tomorrow. His feature film credits include 2011’s Green Lantern and 2013’s Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. After the launch of his successful career in television and film, Guggenheim decided to turn his attention to comics, and has since served as writer on many of the top comic book franchises in the industry’s history, including Aquaman, Wolverine, The Punisher, Blade, The Flash, The Amazing Spider-Man, Young X-Men, and Super Zombies. Guggenheim currently serves as executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning Netflix series, Trollhunters from Guillermo Del Toro.

“We are so proud that we were able to achieve our goal and bring attention to Bill Mantlo’s heartbreaking story, but we could not have accomplished this incredible feat without the help of our fans, backers, and all of the amazing creators we work with on a daily basis that rallied the support for one of their own,�� says Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite Entertainment.  “By bringing on the always incredible Marc Guggenheim to serve as writer, we can guarantee the new series will show the proper respect for Bill Mantlo’s work, while introducing an entirely new generation to the series that inspired so many of the great creators throughout the comic book industry today!”

  The Swords of the Swashbucklers #1 will be solicited in Diamond Comic Distributors’ October 2017 Previews catalog, the premier source of merchandise for the comic book specialty market, and slated for release in December. Comic book fans are encouraged to reserve copies of The Swords of the Swashbucklers #1 with their local comic book retailers. The Swords of the Swashbucklers #1 will also be available for individual customer purchase through digital platforms courtesy of Comixology, Kindle, iBooks, Google Play,Dynamite Digital, iVerse, Madefire, and Dark Horse Digital.

  Dynamite will begin shopping the film and television rights shortly.  Dynamite is repped by Charlie Ferarro at UTA, Ford Gilmore at Illuminati Entertainment, and attorney Howard Abramson. Guggenheim is repped by WME, Ziffren Brittenham, and Cliff Roberts.

DYNAMITE ENTERTAINMENT SET TO PUBLISH NEW THE SWORDS OF THE SWASHBUCKLERS SERIES FOLLOWING SUCCESSFUL KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN Writer Marc Guggenheim Attached to Make the Classic Series Soar Once More! Dynamite Entertainment is proud to share the exciting news that thanks to the overwhelming support and effort made by comic book lovers everywhere, the 

[topicprinter]

Hey! Nathan from Project Hatch - Recently spoke to Ricardo Evangelho about creating a Dungeons and Dragons Campaign Setting.How did Hit Point Press come about?Hit Point Press builds and develops third-party gaming accessories for tabletop and role playing games. We started out as a company making unofficial tokens for Magic: the Gathering (M:tG) before branching out into other tabletop and roleplaying games.ImageThe product you've just launched is called “Humblewood.” How does it work with Dungeons and Dragons?Humblewood is a world in which you get to play as birdfolk and other forest animals instead of the usual human, elf, and dwarf races.Humblewood was made to be compatible with the 5th edition. Wizards of the Coast released an Open Gaming License (OGL) which allows creators like us to build within a defined scope. As a result, we can use the specified subset of 5th edition rules to create our campaign setting.You launched Humblewood on Kickstarter. How did you get so many pledges?We’d been building the Humblewood community for almost a year before launching the Kickstarter. We previewed the campaign using teaser images and a free early playtest document. Additionally, we have garnered experience through previous successful Kickstarters. We invest in our community and because of that, we are lucky to have a group of people that have backed us on multiple projects.Our backers also enjoy how collaborative the Humblewood project is. We have a Discord channel that is quite active. We use the Discord to listen to community feedback and share previews of some of the content we’re building.Additionally, we work with 30+ artists - the artists are very engaged with the work and have been invaluable in the development of the visual language for Humblewood. We are so lucky to have such a strong artist team who are excited about the project. The Humblewood team actually found a lot of our artists through their social media or creator channels so it is extremely rewarding to have them, in turn, post and share their Humblewood work with their fans.What other forms of marketing do you use?Our main method of marketing is Youtube sponsorships. We sponsor channels that talk about role playing games. We also enjoy actively seek out newer channels that have a passion for roleplaying games.Towards the end of the campaign I saw you made $150k in a single day and the total campaign reached over $1 million. How did you manage that?!Again, really, this goes back to our amazing community. Getting a $150k in one day was in large part because of community members and content creators supporting us. The Humblewood Kickstarter reaching over a million dollars was all thanks to them. We had a sizable group right there with us on the Discord chat, cheering the campaign on.Updating the stretch goals on the fly was also a big help in getting the campaign to $1 million. I think promising that we would immediately begin work on a follow up to Humblewood if we hit $1 million dollars helped. Some existing backers told us the commitment to a Humblewood sequel motivated them to increase their pledge to the $300 tier.It was an emotional day for us. We spent every second we could communicating with the community. I will admit though, a last minute advertising push didn’t hurt.How did you push the average pledge value up?It is going to sound like a broken record but it comes down to understanding and listening to what your community wants. We don’t design the campaign, launch it, and forget it. The team continued to engage with our backers and regularly update what we offered at the different tiers based on the feedback.With our Kickstarter, we also incentivized backing at higher tiers with strong savings. Normally, the Humblewood book will retail for $50 and while it was offered to backers for $30. The box set was also offered to backers for $30 under the retail price. It’s important to us that we acknowledge those who believed in the vision from the start.Furthermore, we offered a limited edition box set at $100 that was only available through the Kickstarter. The box set included the contents of the base box set, but had an alternate foil cover for both the box and book. Collectors especially like the exclusivity of items like these.Finally, we had a $300 tier that included everything that the campaign was offering.You received a lot more pledges for the Humblewood campaign than your earlier Kickstarters - What lessons did you learn from your earlier campaigns?Our other Kickstarter campaigns helped us get our sea legs and helped us deliver a solid Humblewood campaign for our backers. In a previous campaign, we didn’t properly account for shipping rates. During the fulfillment of another campaign there was an unannounced customs inspection and so we learned to incorporate surprises like this into our timelines. The other campaigns, each increasing in size, helped us work out logistical kinks, and therefore, when we had a campaign as successful as Humblewood, we were seasoned. Even on Humblewood, there were some new lessons learned. Every Kickstarter is definitely a learning experience!Did you actually make a profit on that first campaign?This may sound a little strange but we don’t expect to make a profit on our Kickstarter campaigns. We use them to raise funds for the production. We think of it a little more like a pre-order. The campaign for Humblewood raised over $1 million but most of that was already allocated for the production of books, miniatures, art, writing, and the additional commitments unlocked through stretchgoals.We usually recover and, if we are careful, make profit afterwards with our post campaign sales.You almost use Kickstarter like a launch pad then?Exactly! The Kickstarter helps us pay for the initial production. When the campaign ends, we typically try to purchase enough inventory to cover double the amount of orders we’ve received. That way we have some product to sell after the campaign.How do you go about building a game and testing that people will actually want to play it?We knew Humblewood was a significant undertaking and it’s why we offered a free playtest through our website six months prior to launch. We thought Humblewood was special, but needed to know if this was something people wanted.Every time we updated the playtest, everyone got sent the new version as a free update. Overall we released five different versions of the playtest, which were downloaded over 20,000 times.Providing these playtests allowed us to build a community, as well as get good, constructive, feedback from them about what was and what wasn't working.What is it that tips the balance? What would make you say we're going to dismiss this idea? And have you dismissed an idea in the past?Usually ideas get dismissed before we even start sharing them with the public. We do a lot of behind the scenes research and prototyping, only putting an idea out to our community if we feel confident about it.We've had many projects where we'd start, talk, create prototypes, and then discontinue the project entirely. There are even projects we haven’t taken the first steps with and are sitting on a list of “things to explore.”It’s been a few months since the Humblewood campaign finished. Have you shipped? How are post-campaign sales?For the base book and box set, we're still on track for our projected goal of October. Right now we're preparing the final assets and getting them sent out to the printers. After that, our miniatures will be ready for November.Post campaign sales have been encouraging and we anticipate that during the holiday season will be really busy. After backers have gotten their rewards we will be refocusing on post-campaign sales. Going to PAX Unplugged this December is part of this refocus and will give us the opportunity to get a sense of how the community is receiving Humblewood.Are you working on other projects at the moment? Or are you working on reinforcing this game and its sequel?We actually have about ten other projects on the run at present, not all of them related to Humblewood.We have dedicated Humblewood team working on the Humblewood Kickstarter stretch goals that were unlocked. The Humblewood artists are also working on style guides and more art.At the same time we have others exploring new concepts and building ideas for future projects.How did you break into the industry?I started Hit Point Press (previously Cardamajigs) as a company that focused on M:tG. I began by selling my own designs as tokens and giving them away free as a downloadable printable PDF.I had another full time job when I started Cardamajigs, so as sales started to pick up I brought in someone to help with fulfillment. Being an avid D&D player, he suggested that we use the newly released OGL to create reference cards. His thoughts were, even if the project didn’t succeed, at worst, he would have reference cards for his own campaigns.To gauge interest, in-house, we printed 500 test sets and mailed them to interested players around the world. That helped us understand who our audience was and enabled us to see if the reference cards were something players would use.How do the unofficial Magic: the Gathering tokens sell now? How is that part of the business doing relative to Dungeons and Dragons?Comparatively, the tokens are now a fraction of the business. Most of our team is now focused on the 5th edition content we're building. That being said, given my love for the game, I don’t think the M:tG side of the business will ever go away.You're based in Canada, I guess you sell a lot to the U.S. and nationally within Canada. Where are your other markets?Eighty percent of our market is the U.S, eight percent is in Canada, four percent is in the U.K, two percent in Australia, and it dilutes from there.‍Day to day, what apps do you find useful running the business?For communication we use Discord which allows us to talk with our community and internally with our team and collaborators.For building, we use Adobe Suite. Without it, we couldn't build our projects.For e-commerce we love Shopify, it's a great sales platform we use for all of our sites. Plus, it’s Canadian!For project management we use Teamwork. This software helps us organize the many projects we're building simultaneously and keep in contact with our remote team members.Are you looking into launching into any other games apart from Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons?There's always new games coming out. It's a matter of finding where we fit in with the game’s community.Right now, the market we're in aligns with our vision so we want to keep expanding our existing offerings.My final question, would you ever sell the company or is it a project you really love?I am really in love with the work I do. Hit Point Press is 100% passion for me. Loving my work is important to me and I believe it shows in what I make. So, at the moment, I couldn’t dream of selling Hit Point Press. I am too excited about what we are doing, about our community, and I wake up everyday reinvigorated because I have the opportunity to build new things.If you enjoyed this post, the original post is here.

[rolandfontana]

Crowdfunding your Product on Kickstarter or Indigogo: The Pros and Cons

The Quality Inspection Blog did a really good post, entitled Pros and Cons of Crowdfunding (Kickstarter/Indiegogo) for Startups, explaining (yeah, you guessed it, the pros and cons of crowdfunding. Our international IP lawyers are generally not big crowdfunding fans because we have seen far too many companies publicize their innovative product design and brand name to the world before they have put in place the sorts of protections necessary to stop a better funded Chinese manufacturer from copying the product (and sometimes the brand name as well) before the crowdfunder can even get off the ground.

We talked about this way back in 2014 in Kickstarter And China Manufacturing. You Are So Wrong On Your China Risks and of how “failing to protect IP early on is probably the most common mistake made by start-up companies.” Then again earlier this year, in Kickstarter and China Manufacturing: You’ve Got it All Wrong, we wrote in great detail why it is critical to button up your IP before you go on the Internet with your crowdfunded product: We’ve also had companies come to us after going up in flames due to Kickstarter. In Kickstarter And China Manufacturing. You Are So Wrong On Your China Risks, we talked about the following fairly typical “Kickstarter” China conversation:

Company with product:  We just raised money on Kickstarter and we have lined up a China manufacturer for our product and we are thinking it is time to get a China lawyer involved, though we do not have much money for legal yet.

Me: Well, if you are going to spend money on anything, the most important thing is your intellectual property.

Company with product:  We figured we would deal with that later. Right now we just want someone to review our NDA and then review the manufacturing contract we will be drafting.

Me: Who drafted your NDA, an attorney with China experience?

Company with product:  No, we did it ourselves. It really just needs a quick review.

Me: I have never seen a self-drafted NDA that just needs a quick review for China. To work for China, you need a China NDA, which we actually call an NNN Agreement. NDAs are geared towards preventing disclosures of information but your biggest risk in China is typically not going to be your manufacturer disclosing your information; it’s going to be your manufacturer stealing your product and selling it worldwide and to your own customers.  Also, to be effective, the NNN Agreement should be in Chinese and it should contain liquidated damages provisions. There are all sorts of other things that need to go into it as well, but these are the basics. The same holds true for an OEM Agreement. But really, my biggest concern is your IP.

Company with product:  Well, to be honest with you, when we listed the risks on our Kickstarter, we said that the risks were manufacturing delays. We didn’t even mention our IP and so I don’t see how we can pay you anything right now to protect that.

Me: Well, if you cannot afford to protect your IP, it is probably not worth your money to pay for contracts. Why spend money for an NNN to protect yourself against a few companies — your potential manufacturers — when you are not able to spend money to protect yourself against the millions of other people out there who could steal your product? And as I hinted, we will need to start over on these contracts, using your draft contracts for nothing more than to determine certain facts regarding what you are doing. I really think that you should at least register your key trademarks.

Company with product:  Yeah, well, I’ll talk all of this over with my partners.

If you are going to do just one thing to protect your company and your product before you go on Kickstarter, register your brand name as a China trademark. In China: Do Just ONE Thing: Register Your Trademarks AND Your Design Patents, I talk about why this is so important:

When it comes to the need to secure the appropriate trademarks in China, I am blunt. Anyone who doesn’t do it is making a big mistake:

I tell them how if they do nothing else, they should immediately register their trademarks in China. This one usually surprises them and they often think I have misunderstood what they are planning for China. They at first do not understand why I am emphasizing the need for their filing a trademark in China when they have no plans to sell their product in China. I then explain how China is a first to file country, which means that, with very few exceptions, whoever files for a particular trademark in a particular category gets it. So if the name of your company is XYZ and you make shoes and you have been manufacturing your shoes in China for the last three years and someone registers the “XYZ” trademark for shoes, that company gets the trademark. And then, armed with the XYZ  trademark, that company has every right to stop your XYZ shoes from leaving China because they violate that other company’s trademark.

I had a similar discussion the other day with a company that told me that they will soon be listing on Kickstarter. I very strongly suggested they register their brand name as a trademark before they go on Kickstarter and sent them a blog link as to why. They responded as follows:

Thanks Dan – a good read… so, ok here are my questions/responses.

1)  It seems like you keep seeing the same pattern over and over (i.e. ignoring your good and  prudent advice) – so what is the common root cause of the theme? Said in another way, why do so many smart/rational folks decide to act  less smart/irrational by not doing IP/Trademark in China? I am sure a balanced analysis may show they are, at minimum, acting rationally, but tough choices are being made. My guess is that the cost seems prohibitive or there is no “on ramp” to an effective  China IP  highway. The feeling is overwhelming and akin to going from 0-65 mph in 3.5 seconds and asking everyone to drive a Ferrari because it has the 0-65 speed you need.

2)   I see trademark as something worth reviewing, possibly an “on ramp” strategy – what is the cost?

I am probably not too dissimilar to those other startups. All things considered, if I have a choice between using limited/scarce funds to allocate between textbook perfect China IP vs getting to a revenue state, most will chose allocating towards revenue.

I responded as follows:

They think the world is the United States. The problem is it isn’t. They’ve been trained to go to market and then build the foundation. That works for the United States, but not for China. In the United States, the first to use a brand name gets the trademark and to get a trademark you must use it. This leads American companies not to worry much about trademarks. In China, it’s the first to register who gets it and use is irrelevant (except if you go three years without using your registered trademark, you can lose it). There is no trademark via use.

American companies also ignore that just manufacturing in China requires a trademark because if someone registers your brand name as a trademark they get it and then they can stop your product from leaving China.

And here’s the big thing. As soon as any product goes up on Kickstarter, a ton of people in China will review it and if they like it they will register the product’s brand name as their own China trademark and then start making it. Oftentimes the company that makes it will be the same one you are talking to about having your product made and they will keep talking to you just to stall you. In the meantime they will beat you to market with your product and then be able to block your product from leaving China because it violates their trademark. And all this just keeps getting worse. See China Trademark Theft. It’s Baaaaaack in a Big Way. And it is mostly American companies that pay for this because the EU trademark system is more like China and so they get it. In fact, many Western European countries so get this that their governments will pay for their start-up companies to secure their IP in China early. Because of this we have represented a ton of Swedish and other European start-up product companies.

Also, Americans love patents and underestimate the value of trademarks. See China and Worldwide: Trademarks Good, Patents Bad for more on this. Patents are expensive and difficult to enforce and they rarely help you get something taken down off an online marketplace. Trademarks are cheap and easy and surprisingly powerful.

But as the Quality Inspection Blog points out, crowdfunding has a lot of positives to it, especially when done right and in its post it sets out the following:

1. Confirms a market need. Seeing whether people will actually spend money on your product is usually more valuable than just asking them if they will.

2. It brings you customers. It is a viral distribution channel where backers spread the word on social media and allowing you to both build your brand and see who likes your product and why, and who does not and why.

3. It might get you retailer contracts. Retailers [and I would add, investors as well] can see your product and choose to buy it [or invest in your business].

4. Your customers fund your business, in advance. And without you having to relinquish equity.

5. It brings you credibility in the eyes of Chinese manufacturers. “Let’s say you raised 180,000 USD on Kickstarter. Many Chinese suppliers will be interested in working with you, for obvious reasons. You have cash in the bank, your first order doesn’t need to be tiny, and your market has been proven (meaning increasing sales in the coming years).”

But like the international IP lawyers, the Quality Inspection Blog has its concerns about crowdfunding, especially about your product getting copied:

1. You might get copied before your campaign shows success. Chinese manufacturers will do this using the following methods:

They will take photos from the campaign page and put it on their own website

If some of their customers are interested and willing to buy “their” product in sufficient quantity, they will develop it and make it

Some of those lower-quality products might flood your own market

It will hurt your image

It happens a lot. It won’t kill your company, but it is VERY frustrating.

2. Companies in your own country might “get inspiration” and move faster than you. A company in your space might see your Kickstarter page, recognize an opportunity, and make its own version of your product/idea and they might get it on the market before you do.

3. If you don’t register your IP someone else might. You have registered your trademark in the US, in Canada, in the EU, in Australia? Great. Someone might see your brand (highly visible on these platforms) and register it in mainland China! What is the harm, you might ask, if you don’t plan to sell in China? Well, the company that purchased it can stop your shipments. It might be (and often is) the manufacturer you have been talking to, in the name of a relative of the owner. They do it as an insurance, for the case where your relationship turns sour and they might need extra leverage.

4. Failing to deliver will be visible. And it can really hurt you.

5. Your Chinese supplier might raise prices. What happens when you go back to your China supplier after a successful crowdfunding campaign? Your supplier sees that you have “raised some good money, they see your selling price, and they see the timelines you committed to. All is transparent. In other words, they know you have no choice but to work with them, and you can afford a price increase.”

Product crowdfunding obviously has its good and its bad points and your job is to maximize the good while minimizing the bad. In other words, crowdfunding can be great but you need to be smart about it.

Crowdfunding your Product on Kickstarter or Indigogo: The Pros and Cons syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[theonyxpath]

Aaaah, what does Jon Snow know, anyway?

(The answer is “nothing”.)

But we know that we’ve themed our Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter to change from season to season, week to week. This week, we’re finishing up Winter, and next up is Spring and all the growth that promises.

But right now, Winter rules and with it a post-Thanksgiving sense of lingering thankfulness.

Maybe it was attending PAX Unplugged in my hometown of Philly a couple of weeks ago just two blocks from the hobby store where I bought the original D&D Monster Manual, then a wonderful family Thanksgiving, and then getting back together with an old friend and gaming buddy from our college years after ten years yesterday, but I’m in the mood to tell you about how I got into this tabletop gaming thing of ours while expressing some thanks.

(Feel free to skip to THE BLURBS! and the Updates, if anything pre-White Wolf causes your eyes to glaze over. This is pre-history, dude.)

      Half Damned art by Michele Giorgi

      Here’s the preamble: I started serious tabletop gaming in my sophomore year of HS (Central HS in Philly, class 239) by walking into the Strategy & Tactics Society where about a dozen guys were playing board games like Squad Leader and Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

You want to see where checking off heatsinks in BattleTech came from? That’s your game; you checked off hull, rigging, etc. Also probably influenced Star Fleet Battles.

Anyway, I was amazed because I had never met anyone who wanted to play Avalon Hill and other tactical boardgames. Besides myself. So I stayed and played, and within a couple of weeks I heard that Robert was coming back, and he was ready to DM.

I had no idea who this guy was, or what a DM was, but this was apparently big news to the group who were into this new style of gaming called Dungeons and Dragons. A bunch of the other gamers in the club were not happy with it; it wasn’t real gaming, they said. Apparently, we had all been waiting for Robert to get his hands on a book of new rules called Blackmoor. Sure, whatever you say.

Well, I did sit in on the session when Robert returned, and while my Halfling Thief was hardly an original fantasy character concept, I was enthralled by this combination of improv theatre and wargaming where I could discover the world that started on sheets of graph paper that Robert scribbled on in response to our questions – a tree here, a pool of mud there – but was so much bigger and richer in my mind.

And Robert was amazing. The way he worked with each player to include their ideas, but kept his conception of this world of his constant, was like watching a narrative grow. Like sitting next to Moorcock, Tolkien, or Leiber, and suggesting ideas. I didn’t know anything like this existed! So my first Thanks go to Robert, my first DM, who inspired me to start my own campaign world not six months later.

A bunch of us took turns DMing as Robert faded away towards graduation, and not just D&D, but Boot Hill and Traveller as well. How we laughed as our intricately planned space military characters died in character creation! Good times.

    Enemy Action art by Andrew Trabbold

      But I DM’d D&D specifically, and began a consistent world that I fined-tuned over the Summer vacation, so that when we resumed playing in our club after school, and I had enough players that we could divide them into the good, neutral, and evil, teams, they all started in The City With No Name that sat astride the east/west and north/south trade routes nexus – and their adventures affected the city and the world.

Two years the gaming club guys played in that same world, many of them running through multiple characters. I graduated, went to art school twenty minutes from high school, so I returned to DM for the club some afternoons. Many of the folks who learned tabletop RPGs from playing these sessions became friends and we got together outside of the club, especially as they graduated and went to college too.

Meanwhile, I started DMing, same world, for a group of students at art school and their friends once a week. A bunch tried it, thought it was fun (or not) but didn’t keep up with it. But a core group loved it, and became the nucleus for a weekly gaming session that went on for twelve years. (I did not run all of those games, and we did miss some weeks, but it was mostly my D&D world).

And here is the next Thanks: I’m thankful that our group was mixed genders and races and that there was never an issue with prejudice within our group. There were affairs and jealousy and grudges and other human interactions, but for whatever reason I was lucky to have a group that saw this weird hobby as something that everyone could partake in and play in whatever way they felt good playing.

We had Mickey with her crafted storylines for her characters like Kwik the duck monk (Mistress of Kwak-Fu), and the brutish DW the half-ogre and his evil intelligent two-handed sword who did his thinking for him. Danilo with his “what’s next?” questions, and chaotic characters like Elmer who reincarnated into a troll. Jodie, who read every D&D book and magazine she got her hands on and knew all the gaming tricks for Yain Yarwa (Y-Squared) elven thief/assassin, and Isis, illusionist were-tiger. Chaka with his intricate strategies and plans that could take months to come to fruition, and Ed, who wrote up our sessions as chapters in a novel featuring his character Farcist, half-orc renegade.

In fact, our group only stopped playing because I moved to Georgia in 1992 to take over all Art Direction at White Wolf. We had been to hell and back together in our personal lives, and except for one guy who deserted us during those times, the group stuck together. When I moved, they were the ones who drove the rented vans with all my worldly goods down to GA.

Which brings me to now and several decades later. Because as of last year, most of the old crew have started to get together once a quarter. Sometimes for game night, sometimes for a movie, once for a wedding; always so we can talk with each other as only old friends can. Our kids are heading out into high school and college or into their own lives, and there is time again to get together with those people whose characters were once an adventuring party, but whose real lives have bonded even more tightly. My third Thanks goes to them.

So fourth Thanks: for forty years (this month) of this RPG hobby that set me on a career path and allowed me to make friends all the way through those times. My good gaming friends from high school and college and my WW friends and all the people I’ve befriended since then. Folks I’m simply glad to see at conventions, folks on-line, and those who have stood with me facing the hordes of hell.

Kind of getting inspired here; I may even start running my D&D world again…

Many Worlds. One Path.

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Almost halfway through our KS campaign!

Our story so far: We funded in about a day, and have already blown through nine Stretch Goals and went past 200% funding before last weekend! The goals include the two novellas: Autumn and Winter, an art budget increase, two new sections for the Kith and Kin book that we’re calling the Book of Kiths, the first sections for the CtL2 Companion: Entitlements and Freeholds, and we added another 2 PDFs to our CtL 1st Edition PDF reward. And we’re just on the verge of adding another Kith section to that book!

We’ve also revealed excerpts with notes from the developers, and half the book text has been shown to backers so far.

Come along as the seasons change and we reveal the next chapters of the core book text to backers!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January!

  ON SALE NOW:

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking! Right now, they’re working on implementing multi-dice and die previews in the store, after adding in a lot of requested upgrades and tweaks, which is going along nicely but is a ton of work. Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://ift.tt/2zjnD0c

http://ift.tt/2hhT5Fk

Three different screenshots, above.

(The Solar Anima special Dice)

    ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

  And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

  Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

  And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

    OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

http://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://ift.tt/1pOsnTb

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, we unveil Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Half-Damned as an Advance PDF on DTRPG.com!

I love her, she’s family, but I don’t love what she is.

– Antonio Ramírez, dhampir

This book includes: 

• An exploration of what it means to be one of the Half-Damned, dhampir, revenants or ghouls.

• Mechanics for creating Half-Damned characters.

• Information for creating and running chronicles using the various Half-Damned character types, both with vampires and alone.

• Information on Half-Damned antagonists for vampire chronicles.

      Legacy of Lies, the V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart, goes undead in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG:

http://ift.tt/2k981ql

TWO PRINCES. BITTER RIVALS. AND A COTERIE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM. 

Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That’s where you come in.

Legacy of Lies includes:

Basic rules for players and Storytellers

Introduction to the Vampire: The Masquerade Dark Ages setting

Introductory adventure

Characters for players and Storytellers

      Appearing on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition! http://ift.tt/2A0ga4f

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

      NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://ift.tt/2zC3kuY

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

      What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.  There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

      Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2z4uZnU

          A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2fEO9YJ

http://ift.tt/2fELqyx

  Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between! 

This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide. 

Champions of Gods and Titans 

The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game.

Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside!

Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more.

Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2zdVHXS

http://ift.tt/2zeEpd8

            CONVENTIONS!

This weekend, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

  Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show!  http://midwintergamingconvention.com

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week): No changes this week.

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

  Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

  Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

  Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – New art getting assigned.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2

Trinity Continuum – Assigned art notes for pieces for KS.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Pugmire – Pan’s Explorer’s Guide (or whatever) – Sending notes for this over to Laubenstein, Syme, Loboyko, and Alida this week as soon as I finish going through them.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content – working on the logo.

Book of Freeholds – To Mark

DtD Enemy Action – With Josh

Pugmire Fetch Quest – Working on sample designs for more playtesting.

  Proofing

Wraith 20 – Final layout proof to WW.

W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

  At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – To fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover and the Screen proofs.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

M20 Cookbook – Files uploaded and processing.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology  – Layout waiting for errata.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Inputting errata.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Ending Backer PDF errata gathering.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale on DTRPG, gathering errata.

Pugmire Artisan Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pugmire Shepherd Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Being sent to backers this week.

VtR Half Damned – Advance PDF on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: To reference last week’s TRTC, the new version of MST3K has been picked up for a second season! (While you may think this is just a casual aside that speaks of another’s cultish nerd interest…consider how interested a person might be in a revival of a project with a hard-core group of vocal fans, if that person revives game lines with hard-core vocal fans on a regular basis. They did a great job at it, there is always much to learn from that.)

[xshifterowesme-blog]

correspondence with a backer

I was asked by one of backers. And here’s answers I sent. 

Questions:

4) I did found your comment on Kickstarter from April 2017. Why didn't you e-mail the backers with all this info back then?

5)  Do you have actual evidence to back up your claims? Best proof might be showing the actual works that you made for this project (especially if you have some source files that Paul wouldn't have). 6) Even if the entire XShifter Kickstarter community believes you, what can we do about it? I am just wondering what are you after, over a year later? You mentioned it's not about the money, so I would guess it might be about your hurt pride (since he talks shit about your work)? But curious why you start this "e-mail campaign" quite a while later, not before?

Answers:

4) I was gagged. He refunded my pledge and my friend’s pledge so that I can’t leave any comments anymore. And yes, I didn’t take that path because of my pride. I didn’t wanna interrupt anyone for any reasons. But as you can see, I’ve been deeply traumatized by the experience Paul presented me, I couldn’t stop checking on XSHIFTER page. And, there’s few days I finally decided to act on it. Because I could convince myself it is not only serve my interest but also every backers who believed in him and his product. Yes it is my last resort, finally doing it after awful 20months.  

5) I do have the hard evidence. But I am setting up the scene for now. I want it to be as impactful as possible. On the blog, as you see I am accumulating the facts and a little evidence to fight back with Paul’s main reason not to pay me: “the campaign was a disaster.” I didn’t get paid and now I am marked as a worst marketer? That I cannot bear. It’s just like a blog. I am putting all the things out to prove ‘my point’ and defeat his claims. Then, I will represent hard document as evidence. Again, I am not asking him for anything. It is too late for that. I am here to say what he did, and wait for you guys’ verdict on it. I see as a trial.  Simple as that. I only wanna pursue the truth.

6) You’re right. the pride and the truth. He has the voice now thanks for the hard works. But I am not. I am not sure if you remember, back then everyone loves Paul, almost like an idol. I knew it wouldn’t work back then. I waited for the perfect timing. As ***** said, he suspected from Paul's unexpectedly negative response on his comments page. I waited that. I know him worked 4 months together. I knew how hard he tries to be nice, he will eventually reveal his true nature. 

Paul might think he’s already won over all the trust in the world. But the truth is not. I will present hard evidence one by one. 

[symbianosgames]

Thomas Brush is the sole creator of Pinstripe, a TKDESCRIPTION which launched on Steam April 24th. Thomas scored, illustrated, designed, and developed Pinstripe over the course of five years. Thomas is also the creator of award-winning Flash games Coma and Skinny.

I’m laying in bed writing this postmortem at 1:42 pm in the afternoon. The blinds are closed and my room is a gloomy gray. Ever since I launched Pinstripe, my game about Hell, I've experienced just about every stage of grief. And why has it been raining all week ever since launch?

Sorry to sound moody, but completing Pinstripe left me empty and completely out of energy, both physically and emotionally. This postmortem is coming at an overwhelmingly burned-out time in my very young career in the games industry. I would never, and could never, do this again — make a game completely alone over the course of 5 years. As I see the Steam sales slowly drip in, I’m still in a death spiral of strange highs and lows regarding the reason why I chose to make this game to begin with.

The start of Pinstripe felt different — a lot different:

[embedded content]

I was 5 years younger, passionately pounding away on my brand new MacBook purchased with cash earned from my glorious Flash game years. I was in the basement of Clemson University’s library in South Carolina, building a game that was going to shake the world. Thanks to the Indie Game documentary, I was positive I was going to be the next Edmund McMillen. I was going to be an indie legend.

That was the initial spark, and then it turned into an obsession for really no reason other than to make a great game. I wanted to make games full-time, and I would stop at nothing to do so. Three years later I would be married, a Clemson University graduate, and working in a cubicle as a graphic designer for tire and plumbing hardware companies. During lunch hours I would stuff my sandwich down fast, and eat pretzels while trying to finish my game. Little did I know it would take five full years (one of those years as full time work) to finish it. This was partly because I was so anxious to get work done, I wouldn't really think twice about what I was doing.

God help me. Looking back is tough.

My final burst of energy was spent on the Kickstarter campaign sent straight from Heaven. More on that later.

But in the midst of crossing the finish line, I'm instantly thinking: what was that all about?

1) Music

Pinstripe's soundtrack was the easiest thing to create, and I feel it is the most valuable element. It was super fun to write, didn't take too long, and fit the mood of the game. What more could I ask for?

[embedded content]

2) Unity

Unity was the first decision I made prior to development, and at the time it wasn’t a no-brainer like it is now (I'm willing to have an honest discussion if you disagree). Regardless of what software you choose, remember that revenue potential does not stop at Steam. Because of Unity, revenue can extend to pretty much any platform you’re willing to build for. Pinstripe has been through so much QA that fortunately a release on another platform is likely just a couple months away. Additionally, Unity was easy enough to learn, but I was also not-so-smart about how I was building things. Without getting into too much detail, most of the code and plugins used from two years of work was completely overhauled and rewritten. Some of the more recent plug-ins used in Pinstripe (Spine, InControl, Steamworks.NET) are super easy to use, and I’m not sure what I would have done without them. 

3) Constructive Criticism

The IGF judges of 2015 did not really like Pinstripe. I'm glad they told me — so much in the game was severely flawed. From flat characters to pointless, drab puzzles, within a day I learned through email feedback that Pinstripe was not ready for launch. Not at all. You know the feeling: you think you’re done with your game, and then suddenly realize you probably have another year or two before launch. It’s a sinking feeling like none other. It’s the worst. But I bit the bullet, printed out the comments, and slapped them on my office wall. I read them pretty much every day, and would pace my office explaining their solutions to George (my pup). I’m proud to say the game is 100x better because of this feedback.

4) Made With Unity mini documentary

In late 2015, this random film guy from Los Angeles emailed me one day and wrote “Hey do you want to be in a documentary about Unity?” That night I went crazy and drove to my parent’s house and told them “Your son is going to be in a documentary.” I felt like the coolest kid in South Carolina. This random guy was Ben Proudfoot, a super accomplished film producer who was hired by Unity to document various Unity projects. What I mean is, make indie devs look really, really cool. Ben and his crew flew to my house in the suburbs and we shot for a couple of days. I think the coolest moment was when the crew had millions of dollars worth of film equipment sprawled throughout my house, and they just acted like it was no big deal while I stood staring with my mouth open. When it was all said and done, it was awesome to see the final product plastered on the screens at the Game Awards, and ever since then, Pinstripe has had generally good press coverage, and my confidence level was boosted enough to keep going. Oh, and to my next point: Unity let me use the documentary to help build my Kickstarter campaign a couple months later.

[embedded content]

5) Kick-freaking-starter.

I love it! Pinstripe would have never been finished without it's Kickstarter campaign. It’s kind of odd to think about, but last year, when the Kickstarter finished I thought to myself, “100K. Do I really need 100K to finish this thing? I’m basically done with the game.” I was certainly wrong. In the game industry, and especially in the indie game field, it’s so easy to underestimate the amount of work and money involved in getting a project off the ground. That said, regardless of what I thought, it sure felt good leaving my desk job for good to pursue my dream career. It felt so good.

Here’s how it went down: I’m eating my lunch in private in the dark basement at the marketing agency I worked for for three-years (I was pretty depressed during these years), and I hit the launch button on Kickstarter. Within the hour, I think about 6 grand was raised. It was at that point that I knew I was out of there for good, and onward to starting my own full-time game studio. Eventually over 100K was raised, and it was a euphoria I wish I could experience again. I’m so grateful to my backers on Kickstarter, because I know without a shadow of a doubt I would have never released Pinstripe without them.

SPECIAL BONUS THING-THAT-WENT-RIGHT: My Wife

I don’t cry very often. But last night, I was listening to Such Great Heights by The Postal Service (my wife and I used to listen to this when we first met before even Coma was released in 2010), and I began to struggle to hold back tears. I didn’t want my wife to see me, so I ran outside under the night sky and began to weep. I feel stupid saying it, but knowing why I was crying doesn’t make me feel so bad: Kelsey stuck with me through the ups and downs of making Pinstripe, and I would have cracked and quit if she didn't believe in me. She eventually came outside and we just talked about how crazy the journey has been. Making games is mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausting. For most indie game devs, they are likely working day jobs and pursuing their dream of making games under gloomy lamp-light in cheap apartments. This often interferes with basically everything involved in a normal life: friends, family, partying, recreational stuff, etc. College for me consisted of thinking about Pinstripe in class and working on Pinstripe in my apartment or the library at night. Through it all, I had a dedicated cheer-leader shouting me to the finish line.

1) Media Coverage

I’m assuming I don’t have to go into the importance of getting noticed. I struggled to get coverage during the last two years of the development of Pinstripe, and launch day was no different. A  TIME article gave the game a 5/5 on the day it came out, but a good chunk of reviews for Pinstripe came a bit later than I expected. I can't quite say with confidence this effected the game's launch in any way, but it certainly concerned me. Everyone involved in the launch strategy hit the ground running months before launch, sending a bunch of Steam keys and trying to engage the Kickstarter community, but we honestly got hit with some bad luck. Outlast 2, Little Nightmares, and the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe all launched around that week. We tried so hard to find the perfect window, and that’s the week we landed on. Pretty frustrating, but I think a long-term strategy for any game is likely more effective anyway. I’m still crossing my fingers for a healthy shelf-life for Pinstripe.

2) Project Management

I wasn’t the most scheduled or organized person during the first years of Pinstripe’s development. I recall scrapping full scenes from the game without a thought, and rebuilding game-play mechanics from scratch because they were broken, rushed, and boring. I don’t recall creating a single story-board, I never wrote out the plot, and began coding puzzles before researching how to do it effectively. It’s a lot of fun saying “Pinstripe took 5 years” but what I haven’t really said is that most of that was wasteful, ignorant development. Fortunately, I feel I made it out of the messy production unscathed, because Pinstripe is generally bug free, healthy and well-received on the Steam store. But again, it took five years. Five years is too long, and it will likely take a fifth of that for my next game thanks to something called planning. I think the first concept I drew was two years in:

3) Money 

I’m still living on a reasonably thin salary, but I’m fortunate that the salary is generated by game-development. For three years, the money I was making was from a full time gig as a designer, so most of my time was not making Pinstripe. When I was making Pinstripe, I was tired and fighting to find motivation. What if you spent three year working out and you didn’t gain a single pound of muscle? Sometimes it felt like that. On top of that, I didn’t have a ton of great equipment, and illustrated Pinstripe’s scenes on a laptop screen. I can’t remember when this happened, but I recall a photo of me on my laptop working on Pinstripe posted by Unity, and someone mentioned the shot being faked because nobody makes games on a laptop. I think at that point I decided it was time to get a bigger monitor. Overall, having a tight budget basically limits your game's quality across the board. QA, localization, ratings, high quality graphics, great music, marketing, and a somewhat lengthy game all cost a great deal of money. I’m grateful some money eventually came when it did, because I desperately needed it.

4) Unity Script

Don’t use UnityScript to make your Unity game. Every time you save a UnityScript file, it takes an unholy amount of time to compile into Unity as opposed to a C# file, and the support for it is not great. The folder structure for Pinstripe is ridiculous and bizarre because of UnityScript. I have a folder called “Zippy Scripts”.

Yes, it’s called “Zippy Scripts". 

I needed a folder labeled with a Z so that it was at the bottom of my project hierarchy (for sanity), and I also needed a folder that was compiled fast and last. The explanation here is likely convoluted, but by year four I had so many UnityScript classes that the compile time was taking F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I ended up moving all my scripts into a folder that didn’t compile every time I hit “save”. The problem here was in order to reduce compile times I had to move my UnityScripts next to C# scripts in relation to their compilation, meaning any C# classes could not access the UnityScripts. At this point, I was desperate, and created “translation” classes. Ones that were in a folder that allowed for variables to be passed between classes written in different languages. I know, this makes no sense. But it worked. Metaphor: it's as if I placed the final card onto a house of cards and for some reason, the card itself stood up straight and didn’t fall over. At this point, I just said “I don’t know why it works but it works” and left it. So now the compile times are faster, but if I could do it again I’d use C#. Hands down. It’s just faster.

5) Advice

I’m not going to go into specifics, but plenty of advice was thrown from all directions about Pinstripe over the course of it's 5-year development. Some of this advice was taken because of fear, other times because it came from genuine friendships, and other times I took it because it was from “professionals”. I don’t quite know what the rule of thumb here is, but I’m formulating something. I think, for me, you should compare people’s advice with your gut feeling built from experience. In my case, I sometimes trusted people who had lots of “experience”, when in reality, I potentially had more. This sounds petty and I’m sorry if it does, but it’s certainly important for indies who lack confidence to understand.

I feel a sense of relief, a sadness, and a sudden spirit of adventure — I have no idea what lies ahead, but I have a feeling it’s going to be really fun. I can’t say right now what that whole experience was about. Lately, I've been wondering if it was just some silly teenage dream that manifested into an obsession. Who knows. Time will tell. As for future projects, I have this game idea in my head, and I can’t wait to get it out. I’m excited to start and tell no-one. The secret feeling of starting a project and it being only yours is very special. I guess that was really the fuel for Pinstripe: a feeling of making something awesome, with 100% of it coming straight from my heart, and no-one could tell me no.