TLDR: Fill out your Backer Survey when you get it in the next couple days!
Hi Downcrawl backers,
It's almost survey time! In the next day or two, you should be receiving an...
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Aaron A. Reed
28 days ago
Funded!
TLDR: We funded! No action needed at this time from backers; if you haven't backed yet, you can still make a late pledge.
Thanks to 865 backers, Downcrawl...
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2
Aaron A. Reed
about 1 month ago
The Final Hours!
We're in the final hours of the Downcrawl 2E crowdfunding campaign!! We've just hit $75K which is incredible... let's see how much more we can get the word ...
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Aaron A. Reed
about 1 month ago
Downcrawl Worlds: A Worldbuilding Card Game
We're in the final week of the Downcrawl campaign! I wanted to cross-post a fun update from the Downcrawl Digest blog about Downcrawl Worlds, the standalone wo...
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Aaron A. Reed
about 2 months ago
Week 2: Blogs, Big Bad, Beta (feed)Back
It's Week 2 of the Downcrawl 2E crowdfunding campaign, and we've passed $50K and 520 lovely backers! This is the traditional plodding middle period of crowdfunding (most excitem...
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Aaron A. Reed
2 months ago
What a Launch!
What an amazing first 48 hours for Downcrawl 2E! We blew past our funding goal on the first day and are creeping up on doubling it by the time this email goes out. Thanks to you...
TLDR: Fill out your Backer Survey when you get it in the next couple days!
Hi Downcrawl backers,
It's almost survey time! In the next day or two, you should be receiving an email from BackerKit inviting you to fill out your backer survey. THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT as it's how you A) tell me your shipping address, and B) get set up to pay for shipping. I've got all the shipping details set up on the back end now, so you'll be able to see the final price for shipping before you finalize your order on the survey page.
The survey's also your last chance if you want to do any upgrading of your pledge or grab additional add-ons. In particular, a reminder that the following physical items will not be available after the campaign closes, so get them now if you want them in print! (And a reminder that Late Pledges are still open: if you're seeing this and haven't backed yet, now's your moment.)
The spiral-bound Delver's Guide (player reference book)
The Index Bookmark
Tack coins (of which there are better mock-ups now, see below!)
Downcrawl d6 dice
Blank Folk/Volume template cards
The Adventure Zine
December Progress
For the last few weeks I have been busy as a blind titanic mole rat that gathers worshippers to its godburrow with ceaseless, maddening, ear-piercing squeals.
The biggest achievement has been getting all the art into the book and doing the final layout, as well as a thousand and one tasks from indexing to spellchecking to tweaking the border styles of individual table cells to make sure the damn thing looks as good as possible. I think it's starting to look pretty great!
I've also made a few rules tweaks based on feedback from playtesters (thanks again!) ironing out a few rough patches. Some especially noteworthy changes (mostly of interest to those who checked out an earlier draft of the rules):
Sliver of Fate's Face a Challenge move has been adjusted to provide more opportunities to use your Aspects: in particular, to get a win you can now push yourself too hard, adding Setbacks to either an Aspect or an Approach. You can do this on a roll of 7 or less; the old option for a roll of exactly 7, where you could ask your Guide for a devil's bargain, has been removed. (It was the only place in the book that term appeared, and was kind of squashed in without room to really explain, so this feels cleaner.)
The Oracle table for Solo players has been adjusted to use the same top-to-bottom way of reading the dice as most of the other tables in the book, which also feels cleaner and more consistent.
The Remoteness of a Volume now no longer adds additional journey steps, which could often feel punitive when planning certain kinds of journeys. Instead, Remoteness restricts when you can plan a journey to a place at all (for instance, you can't reach a Sheltered Volume that has no Routes connecting to it) as well as restricting the maximum Routes as before. This feels like it encourages treating journeys more like puzzles (if we go here first, then we can get there) than long slogs of resignation; and also simplifies tracking Volume Remoteness on the map.
All fairly minor and wonky changes, but I'm really pleased to get these last tweaks in place, and see all the parts of the rules really singing in harmony together.
Other progress: The Adventure Zine (entitled The Hypogean Solution) has been written, gone through layout, and even playtested. I'm super excited at how this turned out. It's a really fun way to add a bit of pre-planned plot to an otherwise spontaneous campaign, emerging at whatever pace the players choose to pursue it. It works both in Guided play (with a gamemaster) as well as Impromptu or Solo, and it's really cool to see an adventure module work even with no one having read it or prepped to run it in advance!
Front and back cover spread for The Hypogean Solution, featuring sketch art by J.P. Targete.
Speaking of cover art, cover art for everything else has been finalized: the two variants of the book, the Adventure Zine, the Delver's Guide, as well as title cards and instruction cards for all three card decks. In particular the two variant options for those getting a hardcover are finalized (and you'll get to choose this in your backer survey): these ended up looking extremely close to the mock-ups I produced for the campaign, thankfully. The softcover will featured the Blue Variant design.
Finally, I'm working with a coin maker on getting the hefty Tack coins created and produced. Here's a sneak peek at the current design! The concept is cave passages that connect along the sides of the coin, so if you push them together on the table in any configuration, the passageways appear to line up. The below is not necessarily the final design, but we're honing in on it! There's no scale here but the coins will be noticeably larger than a US quarter, about 1.75" along a side, and should feel extremely satisfying to clunk down and slide around the table as you gain and lose your ability to navigate the mazeways of the Deep, Deep Down.
Preliminary art for Tack coins, final design may vary.
I'm still on track for the schedule laid out in the previous update, which calls for orders to be locked in January, cards charged in February, and items delivered in March. I'll keep folks apprised if anything changes.
In the meantime, watch out for that BackerKit survey link and fill out your survey once it arrives. I hope your 2024 wraps up successfully, and talk to you again in 2025!
Hi, for whatever reason, the shipping price once I fill out all my information on the survey is 49$. I live in Europe, so it should by no reason be that abysmally high, also going by the information that was in the campaign. Could I get some assistance please, or an explanation?
TLDR: We funded! No action needed at this time from backers; if you haven't backed yet, you can still make a late pledge.
Thanks to 865 backers, Downcrawl 2E successfully funded last Friday, at approximately quadruple (!) the original goal. I can't thank you all enough for believing in this project, whether you were a fan of the first edition or are new to the Deep, Deep Down. It's such a burst of adrenalin and revitalization to finish up this game knowing how many folks are out there waiting for it. Thanks again for making it happen! 🙏
A couple things to update you on:
Info on late pledges
Rough project schedule
Last chance for playtests
What I'm working on now
Late Pledges
The campaign is officially closed, but I'll still be accepting "late pledges" for the next little while while I'm getting things sorted out for final production runs. If you haven't backed yet or have friends who still want in, you can make a late pledge here.
(Note that BackerKit's interface for this is sort of weird: rather than showing all the great images and hype text I spent so much time sweating over, it's literally just a dropdown where you select a pledge level... a bit uninspired. For that reason I would suggest if you're sharing the link, use the original project page, which has a button "Make a Late Pledge" that takes you to the pre-order page.)
For now, late pledges are identical to normal pledges: the same tiers etc. are available as during the campaign. This will change at some point as I move different items forward into production and need to cap quantities, so do pledge now if you were still on the fence, especially if you want access to some of the cooler exclusive bonus items!
Specifically, while the Downcrawl rulebook and cards will continue to be available for sale post-launch, the following items are one-off production runs and will not be available after the campaign closes (or once stock runs out). If you wanted any of these and they aren't included as part of your pledge level, you'll be able to add them as add-ons to your order once I sent out backer surveys next month.
The spiral-bound Delver's Guide (player reference book)
While this project is simpler in some ways than others I've done, there's still quite a bit of logistics juggling in store. I have four main suppliers (for the core books, the cards, the supplemental printed material, and the bonus items) who each have different turnaround times for proofs and orders, and are on different continents so are affected by different holidays etc.
I made the decision early on to not try to bring all the game materials together in one place and put them into a box or something (as nice as that might have been) because this slows down delivery significantly and adds more shipping expenses. This means, depending on your pledge level, you'll likely receive your rewards in two different shipments:
Core book
Cards (or cards + bonus items)
I do realize it would kind of suck to get your cards three months before the game that lets you play with them, so I'm trying to time things such that you'll receive the two shipments as close together as possible. However, this means a decent amount of coordination to ensure all the various production and shipping schedules sync up. I used a wall in my house to plan out week by week when things need to be ready for different stages of proofing, ordering, and shipping:
(The conveniently placed light fixture helpfully denotes the period around Christmas/New Year's, and the other orange card is Chinese New Year which affects shipping of the Tack coins; both cause production and shipping slowdowns I need to plan for.)
So I have a good rough idea of what's to come (of course things are always subject to unforeseen changes and delays). But here is my current plan for project fulfillment:
Early December: Backer surveys open. The important things here are you'll enter your shipping address and enter payment details to pay for shipping (final shipping costs will be visible on the survey interface at this time). You'll also be able to adjust your pledge level or add add-ons.
Mid December: Book text locked. "Patron" backers wanting to name an NPC must have filled out their survey by this point for their contribution to appear in the printed book!
Late January: Orders locked (last chance to make changes)
Early February: Credit cards charged for shipping, add-ons, late pledges
Mid February: Final order for printing core books put in
Mid March: Books begin shipping; bonus items begin shipping
Late March: Orders start arriving
As far as my schedule for updates: I plan to post a backer update at least once a month, probably a bit more often near important deadlines, and will try my best to give folks plenty of heads-up about actions you need to take. In particular, I'll put any action needed from you in the first TLDR paragraph of each update.
Last Chance For Playtests
You might have noticed the "Book Text Locked" milestone above, coming up in about three weeks. This is so early because I need time to order final proofs of the book, verify everything looks okay and have time to make changes before final printing begins. What this means is that these are the last few weeks for playtest feedback!
In case you missed this, backers already have access to the current draft of the rules. In that download are some notes on how to submit playtest feedback. If you're curious to check out the current state of the game, I'd love your eyes on the book, or (even better) you or your group's feedback on actually playing! But the deadline is definitely rapidly approaching, so do this sooner rather than later if you're curious (and thank you in advance for any feedback).
What I'm Currently Working On
Getting the core book finished is the most urgent matter right now due to the aforementioned deadlines. I've been working with an "ashcan" version that doesn't have art in place, but this week I'm starting to insert art and reflow pages to get to the final layout. I'm also working on the initial layout for the 30 bonus pages in the hardcover edition, which includes (among other content) some cool pre-made settings originally created for the Downcrawl 1E supplement 10 Down:
I'm also finalizing the three card decks, including making title and instruction cards for each. Very happy with how these are shaping up!
I also recently did the final revisions on Downcrawl Worlds, the bonus game you can play with the Downcrawl Deck cards. Really excited to get some of these ancillary materials finished up so I can turn back to finalizing everything for the core Downcrawl game!
That's it for this update! Thanks again for being part of the project, and until next time,
