TLDR: Complete your survey if you haven't, and late pledges end Jan 31st!

Hi, Downcrawl backers! A brief update about where things stand on the project right now.

The vast majority of you have completed your backer surveys (thank you!). I'll be sending a separate email to those who haven't yet, but if you know already you need to do this, please log in to BackerKit and get that survey done now. The survey is the only way I have to collect your mailing address and charge for shipping; without these two things taken care of, I cannot get your pledge rewards to you.

If you haven't pledged yet, late pledges will close on January 31st, so get your copy of Downcrawl now while the getting's good! While the cards and rulebook will still be available after that date, this will be your final chance to get the deluxe editions of Downcrawl, with the cool bonus items only being produced in limited quantities for this campaign.

How is production coming? Well, I received these fine-looking proofs of the softcover and hardcover rulebook and they are 99% of the way there. This proof did lead to some tweaking to the inner margin size-- one of the things that's hardest to tell in advance is whether the text will look too close to the center spine, which varies based on particulars of the binding, page thickness, number of pages etc. Tweaking these necessitated some further layout adjustments, but nothing too major. While I was knee deep in InDesign again, I also did another editing pass and some other final adjustments, placed names that Patron backers provided, and took care of some other last minute details. I'll be putting in an order for one more (hopefully final) proof soon, but the book is nearly to the finish line.

A quick status of rundown of all the other items:

• The Delver's Guide: Now that the book page numbers are locked, I'm porting over the final rule/table text and page numbers from my early draft, and expect to order a proof of this in the next couple days.
• The Index Bookmark: completed this week (was also waiting on page lock and final numbering)
• All the decks (Downcrawl Deck, Even Deeper, Encounter, 10 Bonus Cards): I've approved the final proof on all of these, so they're locked and ready to go! Technically, there are actually five decks: if you're getting both the Downcrawl and Even Deeper Decks, I've decided to ship them together in a custom tuckbox, which has also been proofed and is now ready too.*
• Adventure Zine: done, proofed, ready to go
• Volume/Folk templates: done, proofed, ready to go
• Dice: being produced as we speak by the lovely folks at Dice Extractions!
• Tack Coins: physical proof being produced as we speak by the lovely folks at The Monterey Company!
• Dice + coin bags: ordered from supplier (these were pre-made items so no custom design work was necessary)

* Wonky reason there aren't tuck or deckboxes for standalone decks: it's mainly because of the slightly unusual form factor. The cards are tarot-sized, but there are less of them per deck than the average tarot deck size (80 cards). This meant all the available options from the card manufacturer were either too small to fit the cards or too tall to prevent them from flopping around during shipping or looking unsightly on the shelf. But two decks plus some instruction cards worked out to just around 80 cards, letting me to do a tuckbox for the special case of a two-deck combo-- and there is just enough wiggle room to get your ten bonus cards in there too, if you were an early bird or returning backer. Standalone decks will come banded in a plastic sleeve, FYI.

Everything is still on schedule, although production of the metal Tack coins is a little behind where I'd hoped they would be at this point, due to some necessary back and forth to make sure the design was exactly right-- but there was some buffer built in here, so we should be fine. Here's the current schedule:

• Jan 31: Backer surveys locked (orders can no longer be changed after this date)
• Feb 10: Credit cards charged for shipping, add-ons, and late pledges
• Feb 24: Addresses locked (shipping addresses can no longer be changed after this point)
• Feb 26: Books ordered from printer
• Late March: Books begin shipping from printer to backers; bonus items begin shipping from me to backers
• Early April: Orders start arriving

TLDR: Fill out your survey if you haven't, and you can download the near-final digital Downcrawl now.

It's the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, but also, potentially, the coziest. As a solstice gift for my Downcrawl backers (which I hope you can enjoy accompanied by a blanket, a warm beverage, and the smells of something good baking), I'm happy to release early a near-final version of the full digital Downcrawl rulebook. (Instructions for accessing can be found at the bottom of this update.)

This version is still missing a few things: acknowledgments and custom names from Patron backers, online play aids (none of which have been posted yet), and the final editing pass. But the art, layout, text etc should all be 99% of the way there, barring any additional typos or tweaks that get caught before production on the book is locked sometime in January. I hope you enjoy!

(And if you do catch any of those typos or have other feedback, please let me know.)

Backer Surveys

Late Pledges

Progress Update

• 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

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.

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.

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!

--Aaron