Polishing the text before layout

Since the last update, I have done quite a bit of revision to the game text and rules text to improve clarity. We have also done quite a bit of internal playtesting, and now have the playtesting drafts out to even more folks to help collect feedback. If you would like to help us out with playtesting and have some time in the next couple of weeks to play and send us some feedback, hop on over to our Discord Server and hit me up in the Black Spire Pact channel.

Next Steps

Janaka is currently working on editing the playtesting draft into our final manuscript!
Once we have collected enough playtesting feedback, I will implement some revisions and pass it back to Janaka to review in case those revisions change significant passages.
Proofreading will begin once the manuscript is complete, and we are confident we won't be making any more changes.
We will move to layout after proofreading. I already have the layout template set up, which will expedite the process. This is a much easier layout job than much of my previous work, like Abyss of Hallucinations, so I am looking forward to being able to move quickly. While waiting on proofreading, I anticipate I will be doing some design for the character sheets or any other supplemental sheets needed.
After layout is complete, we will send it back for another round of proofreading in case any text got altered or any layout issues arose, such as wrong heading types, etc.
Update the printer with the final page counts to get final templates for the spine, cover art, and slipcase art, and finalize those files.
Review proofs and get printing!

While the books are in production

While the books are in production, we will continue to work on the alternate Black Spire Pact traditional dungeon crawl for OSE. This will go through a similar process as the PvP Adventure Gamebooks; however, it will be a much smaller undertaking. Once those files are ready, we will get it sent to print as well. If you are interested in preordering the print copy, you can find it on our webstore at: https://flaminghand.com/products/the-black-spire-pact-preorder

We will also work on getting everyone sorted who purchased original artwork.

Reflecting on the project so far

We had been sitting on ideas for this project for a very long time. I am so grateful that OSE month got us to push this forward and get to making it. I knew this was going to be a very heavy lift on the writing and game design side. And, to no surprise to anyone who knows me, I underestimated the challenge. But I like to think that is just my positive outlook at work! The end result is something that I am extremely proud of. My primary goal was to create something that captured the dungeon crawl vibes of OSE and paired them with the cat-and-mouse duelling play that I have been so excited about.

As we have been playtesting, we have seen over and over again that the game works damn well, and it does exactly what it is intended to! I have made a ton of improvements, streamlined some mechanics, and fixed things that relied upon assumptions to work. Where we are landing is so damn fun that we are already talking about our next set of PvP Adventure Gamebooks!

I can't wait to get these books into your hands so you can finally kill your friends.

By Night,

Max Moon

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