Octoberdate
over 3 years ago – Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 07:50:33 PM

I've got a quick update for you all!

Jonathan is hard at work finishing up the comic and it's looking great. I've got a couple lines I've got to tweak in the end when we finish up the letting. I think it's safe to say that he's killing it, as usual, and has outdone himself yet again!

Lauren continues her editing work. During the dev edits phase she thought it best to do a bit of rejiggering in regards to the structure of the book. Mostly for getting some content that comes up later on in the book up front and some other major shifts so she's not quite wrapped that up yet since these changes came up at the end and meant going back to reorganize everything. That means I haven't been able to start on layout or tweaking the reference sheets yet, but once she's done I'll be jumping on that right away!

While the structure edits have set us back a couple weeks, we're confident it's going to result in a better book all around, especially for players learning the game and the Forged in the Dark engine for the first time. I'm really excited to get the writing into layout and to get some workable documents out to you all and am hoping it will be soon! 

September Update
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 26, 2020 at 08:22:41 PM

Hey all,

Editing is progressing well, and Lauren expects to be finished early next month. Thanks to Lauren's dev edits a few things are going to be changing for the better on the sheets proper as well, so I decided to hold off on an update to the playtest docs until I've got a complete list to go through since they already mean needing to make some minor changes to the character sheets, and, I suspect, the other sheets, too, once she gets to marking up those other reference sheets alongside the book.

Once I go through and knock out all the edits and changes, I'll change up the play docs so that they can be used as proper reference sheets for the game text.  I don't think that'll take me too long, and I'll start popping the text into the layout we've got blocked in after that. Once that's done I'll put out a mostly art-free PDF to all backers on kickstarter and late backers on backerkit.

Jonathan is working away on the comic, which is by far the most work for the whole project art-wise, and he's about half-way done the pencils and inks on it, after which he'll go through and colour the whole thing at once. Once completed he'll be able to start on interior pieces and the pieces for the people who backed at the Your Hero or Villain in the Book tier. Art will of course be the last step in finalizing the game; until it's done we'll have a few weeks with the art-free PDF to kick the tires, do some more playtesting with some proper reference sheets, and make sure any typos and the like are taken care of before it goes to print!

I'll update once I update the reference docs and start the layout process! Until then, stay healthy and stay safe.

Progress!
over 3 years ago – Sun, Aug 23, 2020 at 11:25:46 PM

Hey all,

Time for a quick update! The short and skinny of it is Jonathan's working on the comic and I've just sent the draft over for editing. I'm going to add some stuff to the playtest docs in the hopes that they eventually turn into the reference sheets that are used with the finished game. Stuff I've got on my list to add to the reference sheets: more info on resources & stash, development & hold, the faction game and faction status. Feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected] with any playtesting feedback or anything else you'd like to see in the reference docs. 

I'm still noodling around and playtesting and kind of getting conflicting feedback on whether to make it easier to recover from stress, and whether it should be easier to "learn" a power. I suspect I'll probably stick with it as is, and have a sidebar option for making either easier for tables that want it to be since there is a huge range of fiction that I do want people to be able to cover. Keep the feedback coming, though! 

Lauren thinks she'll be able to get everything edited for the end of September. Once that's done, we'll move things over to layout and I'll start putting together an art-free draft that has what we've got of it so far, plus stuff blocked in and we'll be able to keep feedback going while art is still rolling in. Hopefully that means everything is so perfect for when art wraps up that we can shoot this sucker over to print right away.

ART

It always blows my mind to see the art process at work. When thumbnails come in, it almost makes me think that I could be an artist. Of course, I quickly realize that isn't the case as soon as the process progresses.

Playtesting & Art
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:41:33 AM

Art

So this is the style I asked Jonathan to do for the chapter splash pages. I really dig the two tone and think it'll go nicely with the rest of the book. The writing is all from before InDesign crapped out on me (and we haven't gone to editing yet either) so it's all old stuff. I thought I was pretty smart moving to google docs but we lost internet for a week (turned out to be a defective modem) so it's been slow going; typing on my phone has been excruciating and I'm so happy I have internet again. In any case, it's the art I wanted to show off! The rest of the book will be full color, but I wanted the chapter spreads to be different and eye catching so they're easy to get to for reference. Again, far from finalized of course, but here's a peak at what I've got planned:

Jonathan is working on the comic right now since that isn't contingent on the writing and editing being finalized. Once that's done he's going to be doing the concept work for the backers at the "Your Hero or Villain in the Book" pledge levels, and then we'll move on to doing all the interior artwork.

Playtesting

I want to say thank you to everyone that has sent emails in so far! I've got some great feedback and some interesting choices to make. Advice for pacing missions and stress are my biggest takeaways. Forged in the Dark games leave a lot up to the GM and stress can build up quickly in the beginning with players wanting to bust their powers out frequently and often. I think it works pretty well so far, but I'm considering taking off the stress cap (originally I had it so they could only train once per session to get another stress box) so that players that want to can get a little more resilient a little faster in games where the tone matches that (Explorers or Rebels).

Keep the feedback coming if you've got it! I'm sure most people are waiting for a final draft to read and finalized reference sheets before they start playtesting and that's cool, too. Once Lauren's done with editing I'll make a mostly-art-free PDF while I play around with layout and pop in the finalized text so that playtest docs are more useful. I'll put up a document for people that want to help out with typo hunting a couple weeks before we go to print after playtesting is all wrapped up.

Writing

I've gone back and rewritten the setting stuff for the city three times now, I'm still working things out but I think I've finally found a place that allows for a Zero Day event taking place in modern times, faction with interesting motivations and clocks on the table for GMs to implement as they like, reasons for the world changing into a comic book world pretty rapidly and ways to have groups set their city wherever they like and still have it "fit in" without it being a 1:1 analog with an existing city.

I plan to turn a bunch more of the stuff I cut into tables if I end up with enough space for groups that want to come up with their own comic book world that has been comic booky from the start. I think the tables will still be useful for bringing in stuff as needed, especially for Explorer type games where you're pushing and expanding the boundaries with each mission, and I added a bunch of tables to the playtest docs because I'm always excited about tables and I do think they help, especially with no text to reference, even though they can be a lot of work.

My goal is to have all the writing done in the next couple weeks so that I can get it off to Lauren for editing early next month. That means that backers who want their hero or villain in the game who haven't gotten back to me yet will want to do so before the end of the month (there are only two of you left now I believe).

Open Playtest
almost 4 years ago – Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 06:15:55 PM

Hey all,

I've had a few emails from backerkit people that don't like being excluded from updates, and that have also had issues accessing digital content within the system. I want to apologize for that, I shouldn't have made the update private; I'm going to post public updates going forward (and I will continue to update the files on backerkit as well, if you've pre-ordered on backerkit) so that everyone has access to the same info.

In the last update I posted a link to a particular file, but this time I'll post a link to the folder where everything is so I can keep the same link up and update files without needing to throw a new link up each time. I've added a couple maps and some stickers for people who want a little more help with setting ideas than what's in the random tables. Again, I'm still working on getting the factions and the timeline to the point where I'm really happy with them (that's all that's left to write in the book, too!). Since factions are tied to districts in particular, that's why I'm waiting on releasing setting-specific play aides. 

Here's the link: playtest docs (with the maps & stickers added for those that want to use them when playtesting as well).

In the coming days I'll add another sheet to help with order of play/game structure, GM principles, best practices, and actions and maybe player best practices, too, since I can see how people unfamiliar with Forged in the Dark games might struggle without that there.