We hope you're doing amazing! We have a lot of new artwork coming in and we're "very" close of commissioning the official character sheets (the last test is today)!
There's still a bit of backend stuff to be done for the soundtrack, but it's coming! The tutorial scenario will also be starting THIS WEEK, so we'll soon be able to share parts of it with backers who have access to the DEV file. The actual cover is also into works!
Art
James has been hard at work designing new monsters for the book (and potential minis, who knows)! These new illustrations include development for the Witherman enemy, an update for the fallen Magical Girl, and the basic minion-style enemy.
A page of illustration development for the Witherman, including a small idol and personality tests.
An image of the Witherman's shadow with some notes.
First tests for minion variation fitting with various emotions.
Four designs of minions based on different emotions, from top right to bottom right: Rage (red), Hunger (purple), Sorrow (blue), Mania (yellow).
He also updated the fallen Magical Girl (Hopeless) design by switching around the scissors to make them functional and giving her a more interesting pose!
A new design for a fallen Magical Girl.
Thank you again so much for your support and your interest! We think it's setting out to be a really cool game and we're really happy to share it with you. If you were on the fence due to the price of the Hardcover book, don't forget that there's now a softcover version of the book in the pre-order store! (and the quantities are not limited)!
Hi everyone, it's been a few weeks since the end of the campaign and we are now ready to move along with the production. We finalized the available dice sets from the manufacturer and we're ready to place the order for the new Legendary Dice Bags, the only thing missing is knowing which ones you want to receive :)
To do that we'll launch the pledge manager next week! We already sent the smoke test, which is access to the pledge manager to a random selection of backers (around 5% of you) to see if there are any bugs before we open it up to absolutely everyone. Shipping prices are the same as described on the campaign page but we are not charging anything for tariffs, since thing might change by the end of this month. We plan to wait it out, see what the new status will be and charge accordingly then.
What's also important to note is that any selected add-ons have NOT been transfered to the pledge manager. The money you've added for them are credited in your account so you can simply select which add-on you would like to get straight from the add-on section.
Thank you all for your support, Drawlab Entertainment
I am very pleased to say that the physical books for Midnight in Jubilation are now in production! I finalised the order this morning after reviewing the latest proofs and I’ve received confirmation its now progressed to the production stage. I’m honestly both nervous and excited to receive the books, and have been laughing with my family about how and where I will be storing them in the house as I work through the shipping process.
What this all means is that I have formally closed the pre-order store and sent out notifications to those who placed an order post-campaign. This is a heads up that cards will be charged for those pre-orders in the next few days. I’m then going to be making a start on preparing the accessible PDF versions of the game, reflecting the final tweaks made to the document as I set up for printing.
I’m also reviewing the process of adding shipping fees in BackerKit and will be doing some testing of different package combinations to get the weights as accurate as possible. This includes looking at what kind of packing materials to use inside the rigid mailers to protect the books in transit. Just as a reminder, I am not charging value-added taxes, import taxes, etc, as I am not working with a fulfilment partner to prepare and send out the parcels. You will be responsible for paying those fees if your country enforces them.
I will continue to keep you all updated as things progress!
We got so excited about this project that we finished everything waaay ahead of schedule--and now we are starting with our distribution. If you backed at a digital tier, you should have just received an email with links to your downloads. You can also find the links in your BackerKit dashboard under Your Digital Rewards. Let us know if there are any problems. We will be shipping out physical rewards next week.
Hey friends-- We're gearing up to ship out the physical and digital rewards for Wytch Mountain. You should have already received a notification that we are locking down addresses in 48 hours, meaning you have a couple of days to ensure that all your information is accurate. After that we can ship out the download links for the pdfs right away and get the physical zines out to you all in the next week or so after that. Yay!
I’ve had a very happy mail day as all the test prints for Midnight in Jubilation have arrived earlier than expected!
Why did I order so many you might ask? It’s because I wanted to be very confident in the look and feel of final product and I’m still quite new to printing books. That meant I wanted to test how thick or thin the exterior of the softcover should be, what kind of paper would work best for the amount of black ink on the interior pages, and how the overall design would translate to a physical book.
I am so, so happy to say that I only have a few minor tweaks to make to the art to improve contrast and spacing, a little bit of text to tidy up, and the game will be complete! Sadly, during the earlier test printing, I did realise the little black moon I'd had as page number decor didn't translate well to print, hence why it's no longer in the spread you can see above. However, this all means I’m going to start locking surveys over the next couple of days and will be closing and refunding any physical pledges with surveys not yet completed. This is so I can get a good idea of the final number of books I’ll be ordering.
Then in a few weeks I’ll be booking in with my accessibility consultant to review both of the main PDFs for the game: the versions with and without graphics. When that’s all confirmed, I’ll upload them to the pledge manager and go through the steps to send out the download links for the game, the early bird reward, and my Tabletop Tavern banner freebie!
Firstly, thank you once again to everyone who backed Vault of Monsters. Seeing so many people get behind this folklore project has been genuinely brilliant, and we're making good progress behind the scenes.
Nick Ashton is continuing work on the monster artwork, we've signed off the front cover, and we're diving into another big writing week as we continue building out the Lockshore Marches.
The battlemaps are now being planned too, and it's exciting seeing all the different pieces coming together.
If you missed the campaign but would still like to join us, the pre-order store is now open, so there's still time to pick up a copy!
Finally, a quick note for everyone who backed three or more projects in the Tabletop Tavern banner. Your free digital one-shot adventure will be heading out very soon, so keep an eye on your inbox. We hope you enjoy it, and we'd love to hear how your table gets on with it.
As always, thank you for supporting the Vault and we can't wait to share more with you soon.
