Pre-Holiday Update
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 03:19:25 AM
Greetings, backers and friends!
We’re hard at work assembling all the vast quantities of writing into the final Adventure Kit (and commissioning some new exciting pieces to include in the book), and I just wanted to touch base to remind everyone we’re still here and taking big strides! Primarily though, I wanted to put myself on report about our January deadline.
I have been mentally prepared to deliver the PDF of Adventure Kit: The Battle for Arctor’s Vault by January 2023 for a while now, which is inconsistent with the November 2022 you can see for digital fulfillment on the Kickstarter page. I… honestly have no idea how this happened. My memory says I posted the PDF fulfillment date incorrectly back when we made the Kickstarter page, but my gut tells me I just started focusing in on the wrong date as we got well into the project. It wasn’t until earlier this month that anyone in AbTab even realized the inconsistency (true hats off to Tim for noticing – thank you, my friend). Either way, somewhere along the road, wires got crossed, and I screwed this up. This is entirely my fault, and I’m so sorry if anyone feels personally affected by this. It’s possible nobody has realized this issue outside of AbTab, and even though supportive people have assured me that everyone is ready for a PDF in January, I felt it was important to put myself on report about it.
Either way, my plan is to go ahead as planned, taking the time we need for the final art and layout to make the book exactly as rad as we’ve been dreaming. This allows our remaining working artists the time they need to not feel rushed, which is my biggest anxiety – I want them to enjoy the process and have all the time they need. Once the PDF is released, we’ll have a short errata period before printing, followed by a quick distribution of physical items to all appropriate backers.
Thank you so much for understanding – you won’t regret it!
Here’s a checklist of goals I’d like to achieve before Christmas, knowing that priority-reshuffling might adjust this list as we progress down this final sprint:
- Final Art Pass: We’ve commissioned a lot of art for this book, turning it into a true investment of time and money, and we have no regrets. The last phase of this process involves an art pass to fill in sections and tie the book together in a way we’ve never done before. This is obviously predicated on a polished layout, so we’re doing everything we can to move this process along while keeping true to our iterative style of creativity. I placed this first on the list, but our artists will have all the time they need, no matter what. We’ll keep you all posted the whole way.
- Map of Enchea: I cannot wait to show it to you – we’ve just started the final phase of the world map with Jon Pintar, and it’s already looking extraordinary. 19th century map styling meets an arcane landscape like you’ve never seen. I promise it’ll blow you away!
- Cinematic Mass Combat: I’ve done so much experimentation and iterative design with myself, my spouse, AbTab, my own home group, and the home groups of others (special thanks to Ben Fisher and his group for bearing with some of the rougher playtests!), but I truly won’t know what it’s capable of until it’s in your hands. I really hope to get this to you by the end of this month so we can have December for public playtesting! I’m very nervous, but I think you’ll enjoy it!
Please let me know via comments or emails ([email protected]) if you have any thoughts, ideas, questions, or concerns. We’re excited to kick off the new year (my favorite holiday) in a way that truly invigorates one of the coolest things about AbTab – the Adventure Kit.
Because it’s not the only one we have in the pipeline…
Thank you!
– Barker