Okay, last week being a non-week wasn't helpful for anything haha. But it was my birthday and I deserved having a bit of time to myself. So I did it! That said, it meant work from last week got shoved to this week. This week has been all about shipping charges and shipping spreadsheets.
The good news is that tomorrow I'll be shipping out Tales From the Alley; next week, I'll be shipping out the Pride Pins. And as of next week as well, shipping for the Oracle Dice Campaigns (both) will be starting with the fulfillment folks, and as of this week, shipping is beginning for all 3 Tarot campaigns (Misery Tarot, Hot Housewives Tarot + booster pack project)!
That is 7 campaigns sliding off my plate.
Now, I'm not dumb-- there will be issues with the dice and tarot campaigns as they ship out and the shipping itself will take time-- we're unlikely to see items in people's hands entirely until end of August. But!! My hand in most of these things will be fairly minimal, aside from sending spreadsheets back and forth between Backerkit and my fulfillment folks.
So as we head into August from here, I will only have two past campaigns hanging out with me: Confluence and HISTORIC. I've done a really good job focusing my new projects ahead of time so the Goblin's Tarot and my book in October shouldn't affect day to day stuff much (and be ready to manufacture as soon as they fund), which means I should be able to put in more work a week on HISTORIC (and Confluence.)
Okay, back to The Trophy Collector
So last time, I put in work on getting their cards together. But I didn't finish their deck by any means. Today I've been trying to do that. Something I am really cognizant of since ZOETROPE is legibility. The text on those cards was so small that anyone without perfect eyesight struggled to read it in clear lighting, or in dim lighting (like we had in some con rooms where I ran the game for strangers) they couldn't read the card text beyond the title at all.
I printed a card out (in black and white) on printer paper. I'm realizing that 7 pt font is the smallest I want game rules text in this clear dark font on an almost-white background, with most text at 7.5 pt, with the flavor text italics able to go as small as 6pt. That was in well-lit and dim-room settings, but we both (my roommate and I) have pretty good vision (or he had on his glasses at least). This makes me wonder if I need to punch it up more, or accept that folks with worse vision will need their reading glasses to read the cards.
But as I do these cards, I wonder where exactly I'm going to fit stickers. If you recall, a piece of the game is that as you play it more, stickers get added to cards over time from different events-- mostly from dying or finishing your game sessions. Right now, the stickers are a bit up in the air. Things like +1 Physical Damage that you could tag onto a weapon or attack action to make those do more damage. Or "+Gain 1 Armor" on the Trophy Collector's cards, as stickers will be grouped based on whose cards they can be added to, with some situations letting you add stickers from whichever grouping to any kind of card to make weird or super strong things.
On Relics, I have plans for what their stickers specifically will do, and so the Relics have spaces on their cards for stickers to go specifically. Will I need to keep text short and to the point on all cards to 1) make the text larger, and 2) to make intentional spaces for stickers?
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to finish the decks for these two classes already! So I'm focused on that tonight until I'm done with work. Specifically, I have wrapped Preparations, Search the Bags, Take a Trophy, Dominating Bulwark cards for the Trophy Collector for testing. Now, I'm heading into writing in the general use effects of Spread Wings, Chain Entrapment, Shoulder the Burden, Arm the Hopeless, Lumbering Behemoth, and Unshaking Foundation cards, which all have partial writeups for what they can do in combat. Then I need to take a look at the three trinkets, two relics, and three tools found in their deck to write the proper rules, rather than the temporary text I put on them.
I can get a decent chunk of that done yet before I hang up my hat for today, if not all of it. Then next week, it's back to the Maker of Hands to finalize text on those cards and update the text I've previously written for those cards. And since I'm supposed to do the Caged Wraith this month as well, I think I'll just sit in and get all three of those classes ready for testing. Testing just two classes will feel weird, since the game really is more meant for 3-4 players plus the GM.
I was a little nervous about how I would do prototypes without paying much, but seeing my printer pop out a beautiful copy of a card to check font size in black and white, I think I will stick to the good ol printing on printer paper, cutting the cards out, and putting then in sleeves with cards behind them.
Okay, see you next week where, you hold me to this, I will have the full Trophy Collector deck completed and the Maker of Hands deck nearly there (or done!!) for testing.
Hello folks, no real work this week, as tomorrow is my birthday! (Yay) And I've been caught up with figuring out the shipping cost stuff for the three tarot and two oracle dice projects, but that's wrapping itself up this week as well, so next week as normal.
Okay, I had to really fight to break the seal. I barely did anything last week, and yesterday I kept being like, we gotta focus on HISTORIC. But then I kept finding things to do instead. I stayed busy, so it was still well-used time, but it was not focusing on HISTORIC. Finally by the end of the day yesterday, I was in the work on the deck for Trophy Collector. And getting into it, and really bringing things over to the cards-- that changed a lot of my brain chemistry.
So I would say, I finally broke the seal yesterday and I am honestly doing work again. So what have I done since then and over today? Let's take a look!
The Trophy Collector
The Dual Path Class
So I started by checking everything I had written for the Trophy Collector already. For context, other class decks only have Actions, the class's unique Tool (singular), and their Ultimate card. They also have a path card that lets you pick between two versions of the character. For the Maker of Hands, for example, it's either The Hand, or The Eye.
When you choose a path, you remove cards from your deck that are Tagged with the OTHER path's name, and you have certain General Action cards based on the path.
But the Trophy Collector? No, she doesn't do that stuff. She has two Paths still, but she can swap between them during play. That means that all of the cards in her deck stay in her deck, making her deck the biggest of anyone's. The cards just have two different modes depending on which Path you are currently on.
If you're The Trophy, you think of yourself alone. But this self-centered focus on your own power can still benefit your allies, such as in the Stand Strong card below. The card can be used Narratively (the book symbol) by either path to intimidate an NPC, or to make clear that you won't budge or be removed from a space.
Then, Mechanically/Combat-wise, the paths can use this Action to support their allies with their bulk. The Trophy gets likely a more powerful effect for the team by drawing aggro from all enemies to attack you alone this combat round. But the team-focused Banner half of your paths can also use this card to throw 1 Armor on all your allies, reducing damage they take.
Chain Entrapment lets you lower an enemy's die for their defense for Trophy, or lets you straight up Disable an enemy for their next actin of you're playing Banner. One of these abilities is more powerful without question. Stopping any foe (even a boss) from doing their next action could be the difference between an ally dying and living.
In this way, the deck is full of cards that benefit both paths, but offer stronger effects to certain paths. So there is a use in changing your paths at campfires.
The Tools, Trinkets, and Relics of a Collector
Now look at the symbol in the top left of this card in the Trophy Collector's deck. That's not a bloody hand, signifying Action. That's the Trinket icon. Unlike any other class, the Trophy Collector's deck includes Trinkets, Tools, and even Relics-- which are artifacts that you can find during delves, but that classes don't start the game with.
These represent trophies that the collector has already taken and claimed that are lost in their bulk, in their bag, or in their chain wrap, their weapon. These are unique items that do specific things based on your path or when/how you try to use them. This Half-Drank Physik can be used during rest to heal an ally normally. As The Trophy you can heal yourself 1 physical wound in combat, or as The Banner you can use this to spray it over your allies to reduce their next damage by 1. If no one takes any damage, it doesn't do anything. But if at least one ally is hit, it's as good as its other two uses. If at least two allies take a hit, then this mode becomes strictly the strongest one, because it prevents 2 or more damage.
Note that I am no longer being precious about laying everything out perfectly, I want to make sure the cards are clear and work, and then as I finalize the game I will clarify language to all look the same/use symbols where they belong.
Trophy Collecting
Now, the other classes have special dials on their deck boxes that track a unique stat for them. Maker of Hands has a Hand counter. He makes them and spends them, usually one at a time, to make his powers work. The Organ Eater has Ferment, which builds up and you spend it all at once when you generate a potion/salve or when you use your own ferment to power yourself. So it grows and spends all at once, then has to grow again. The Caged Wraith has a binary, being Within or Without. Their soul being in their body, or outside of it.
The Trophy Collector has a Trophy stat, that relates to their most common card in their deck, Chained Burden. As you find Tools or Relics in your travels, or when you find them in your own deck for example, you can take time to attach these items to your Chain Wrap, which is your main Class Tool that starts in play. Trophy is a slowly building stat on your class's dial that only goes down if you lose an attached Tool or Relic. This makes you the slowest growing class in the game, a slow bulwark of armor. But in the late game, especially in a long game where you do multiple delves in a row, your Trophy count can really grow.
So what do you do with that high Trophy count? Well, you gain it by attaching tools to your Chain Wrap, so feasibly, that card should give us a good idea... right?
Oh yes, every Trophy you get after the first increases the damage you deal with your Chain Wrap. And it has no cap. If your team wants to, they can hand every single Tool, Relic, etc to you and let you become the highest damage dealer in the game, bigger and bigger as the game goes on.
Now, the Chain Wrap is the only Tool you are allowed to Attack! with-- that means the Attack! action card. So when you play that card, you can only use the Chain Wrap. You don't get to use your cool collection of other Tools. But so long as you attach them to your Chain Wrap, claiming your Trophies with the earlier Chained Burden action card-- you can alternatively use Chained Burden to swing those attached Tools as a combi-weapon.
To avoid the Collector needing to eat up everyone's treasure, stopping folks from getting new Tools or Relics of their own, our Collector has 3 Tools and 2 Relics they can draw from their own deck. But your team can choose to hand their loot over to empower their slowly growing behemoth if they want.
Gotta Test the Class Fantasy
Today I have been trying to finalize the cards in this deck-- specifically just what all they do, writing it onto the cards so I can do a little home print and run this deck alongside the Maker of Hands for a few scenarios to see how they feel different. I want the Collector to be a behemoth, slow moving, slow growing, but the further the game gets, when others are running out of resources and slowing down, the Collector is only growing more powerful. I'm not yet done, but there's most of the work day left for me.
Ironically, I am finishing this deck first, meaning the Maker of Hands has some work to be done on his deck next week before I can print these out. But so it goes.
Alright-- let me know your thoughts and if you'd want to be the slow growing tank class! I'm trying to make sure each plays clearly into a fun fantasy that feels rewarding and has you take intentional actions to make them happen.
So, admittedly slow start. Last week, I put the timeline together and unfortunately had other emails and stuff interrupting me, so that was all I really got done, other than asking our artist Salty Water for transparent versions of some art. (Which he has since gotten to me.)
But I do have a clear timeline that I think is slow enough that I should be able to stick to it and also, likely, get tasks on it done earlier than intended by the timeline. Which is good, because right now the timeline is saying I won't get the game out until January/February next year, which would inevitably become March/April as we hit the Chinese New Year break in February and manufacturing/shipping would all get delayed.
We will know by mid July what the timeline probably really is, but this is what I have so far. The Google Spreadsheet shares more details about step by step, but... The short of it is below:
June Work
Study the Anatomy of the Game
Create ALL Maker of Hands Cards
Create ALL Trophy Collector Cards
Mock up the decks, Face Simple Scenarios/gameplay
July Work
Reinforce Dice Mechanics
Reinforce Combat Mechanics
Create ALL Caged Wraith Cards
Boss Exposure/Testing
August Work
Create ALL Organ Eater Cards
Establish Game Baseline
Testing around 4 Player standard
Alpha Balance Pass on Cards
September Work
Test Print the Game
Prepare Bestiary + 'Alpha' Bosses
Playtest the Game with Newbies
Legacy Mechanics
October Work
Testing
Expand Bestiary + Bosses
Testing
More Delves
November Work
Rework the Game
Final Test Vibe Checks
Rulebook Finalizing
Blind Testing (giving game + rules to people who havent played, let them figure it out)
December Work
Final Play
Final Layout
Submit Print Files
January Work
Shipping Charges
Manufacturing
Shipping
February/March Work
Shipping
Project is Finished!
The Next Games From there, I would try to have Secret Halls ready to fund and go, all finished before funding. I can't just go straight into the expansion for HISTORIC, as there have been payments for work on games that haven't had a chance yet. But HISTORIC's expansion would be worked on in 2027, and when ready (hopefully by October 2027) would go to funding for y'all to get those as well.
I also have Tekket, It's Up to Us, Fur & Scale, and more to try and get moving for 2027 and beyond, not to mention reprints and expansions for What We Possess, New Avernus, and ZOETROPE, so there's kind of a backlog of things waiting for their chances haha. But HISTORIC and Confluence are the focus right now. Until they're out there, everything else is lining up to see where it fits.
I have the rest of today to pick at Maker of Hands and Trophy Collector decks a bit still, but my apartment has been testing fire alarms all morning in my building and it's been nightmarish to work through. So I might take a walk here first to grab lunch and decompress.
Talk again next Thursday, when I expect to have some of these cards to share and talk about! It's these class decks that need the most work, every other deck of cards in the game is either already with a first full draft or at least has an outline of what the card should say or do on it.
It has been quite some time. The last update was in February, and since then I worked on the game a bit into March, and then from mid-March through April and May, I just could not work on this game. Series of excuses aside, I have struggled just to sit down and look at the whole thing. It is complex, it is hard, and I made it so much harder by adding an extra class at all, let alone starting with 6, and choosing (even after it funded poorly) to make it the complex game I wanted it to be, rather than the smaller, simpler game it should have been when the funds didn't come together fully.
The campaign did not meet its real goal, as I noted after we funded. We barely covered the art budget, without raising any money to manufacture. I then added more to the game and hired the artist back on for even more money. But this also came at a time when there was little to no money in the business. There still is almost no money available right now, so making ends meet is rough.
When the Goblin's Tarot funds, it's going to handle the manufacturing on this project just fine and recoup some down payments I've put on future projects, while covering my bills-- this isn't a huge cost in manufacturing compared to the money that comes in and out from the larger projects. I have zero fears that HISTORIC will be manufactured and ship to you all, so let's get that out of the way now. But delays with both my dice and tarot manufacturers have kept previous projects from shipping on time (they're finally lined up to start shipping shortly), and that has pushed the Goblin's Tarot back again and again.
December last year, I already knew that April and on this year was going to be rough financially over delays to those projects, but they've been delayed even longer, so that's been a frustration for sure.
What Am I Going To Do About HISTORIC?
For the last two and a half months, I have considered finding a way to hire someone else to handle this or at least help me through it. But there's no money to do so. Mentally I settled on a second option, which is I was going to just ignore it forever, then cancel and refund the project to you all as soon as I could, but there's no money to do so, and there won't be until the Goblin's Tarot gives that money over.
And I've already paid in some $14,000 in art for the game, and you've already all been waiting some time. If I find $13,500 to refund you all, it puts me back to nowhere with $14,000 of art sitting and waiting for the game to be finished. Even if I refunded and closed this down, I still have to eventually make the game!
I've thought more than once that the amount I'm putting into this game is too much for one small box game. I'm making a rough amount of work for myself, and trying to work on even one class while keeping in mind the other 6 and making sure they don't overlap and they have unique abilities and-- all that is making me fail to do anything. I considered splitting the game up-- a core game and an expansion, but I've promised you all the content of both now, so I need to get it all done anyways.
And the more I put working on this off, the more I just go with the option at the back of my brain that I'll just cancel it and I should forget it, and the more I will never work on this game again. And the more this gets delayed, the more I realize I can never fund a game again until it's resolved, one way or another.
Finally, yesterday, I had enough.
The Path Forward
Okay, our path forward is simple, and I ask for your patience on this one.
I am splitting the game into the core game with the main 4 classes (Caged Wraith, Maker of Hands, Trophy Collector, and Organ Eater), and moving the Glass Artisan, the Malefact Bonecutter, and the Aeon Caller to the first expansion box, which will take some of the cards from the core game that focus on soul position and deals more deeply with the Malefact, Aeons, and the Sunken areas.
When the core game is done, I will make those and ship those to you. Then I will start over with the expansion work. Make it. Launch a new project for the expansion when it's done (I am only launching projects now where the thing is complete-- period!). I will bring all of you into that project with a FREE PLEDGE for the expansion game. Then I will have it manufactured and shipped.
I know this isn't perfect, but it means you're getting all I promised and more, because I will be making new things to go in the expansion box alongside the new classes. It will just be coming in two chunks instead of at once. This also gives me the chance to raise funds for the game overall again, which will help me cover all the uncovered costs of this campaign, and bring in a little extra money to cover new art going in the expansion. I also know some folks will be worried about having to pay shipping twice-- I will be looking into how I can handle that to alleviate your shipping costs the second time around, or outright waive them.
Today is my first marked day on my weekly calendar to have HISTORIC FOCUS. This continues tomorrow. Every week now, Wednesday and Thursday are my HISTORIC FOCUS days. From now on, I will be sharing weekly updates here on what I get done to hold myself accountable and to show you the progress of exactly what I'm doing. No more "I've got a lot of work done" vague updates here. This game needs a lot of attention, and I need to be completely clear on what has been done and how much is left.
Next week, I'll be sharing my overall timeline after I take today and tomorrow to figure out what I'm including here in the base game, what's moving to later work, and what the outline looks of what needs done.
In December, I thought I was cruising along and would have print tests around now. Did you know I'm solo-developing a fairly complicated game? Apparently, I didn't realize either. There isn't another game slated for funding until October (a simpler game), and I've now realized that HISTORIC will simply take longer until it's done. Having October as a loose deadline for the game to be in people's hands is letting me breathe a sigh of relief, but it means I need to start sharing a lot more for you to understand just what this game is, and what you're getting! That way, you know the wait is worth it.
First off, I want HISTORIC to be more than a board game. I was going to originally make it a fantasy, or grimdark rather, version of ZOETROPE. That game (that I made) runs on cards, comes in a small box, and is incredible at pushing people to roleplay a story that has some structure and clear actions being taken by players with loose rules. But HISTORIC is more than this. I want it to feel like a real dungeon delving TTRPG. So... dice had to come in.
So I had Salty Water come back to make the above symbols, and now nothing is simple.
Above, we see two actions cards. The first is a generic action card that will be in a generic deck that all classes can make use of. You see the Action symbol (red hand) in the top left, the name in the middle, and nice art below. Then in the text box, there's a slight italics bit of leading text, then we see the symbols.
Crossed Swords is the COMBAT symbol. Cards that feature it show us cards that have specific intended uses in combat. In this case, Perfect Lie can be used as a Feint that opens an enemy to an ally's attack.
Campfire is the REST symbol. Cards that feature it show a way to use the card while taking a rest in-game, either at the campfire before the dungeon delve, or if someone uses a Rest action card. You can tell your allies a lie that will help them gain resolve, but it can hurt them in the end of the lie is revealed to be a lie.
Open Book is the NARRATIVE symbol. Cards that feature it show you a way to use this for roleplay or the narrative part of the game-- the part where you and your friends are pretending to be your characters, or explaining how the story is going. Here, Perfect Lie says you can tell an NPC, a non-player character, anything you want, and they'll buy it.
Grey Gear is the MECHANICAL symbol. You can see this on the second action card here for the Maker of Hands' Willful Push ability. This denotes abilities that will roll dice or affect dice or the mechanical rules of other cards in particular. As you can see here, symbols can appear with other symbols. This ability is Mechanical, but is used in Combat, so both the gear and crossed swords are found.
You may also notice the Orange Lightning Bolt, which is the QUICK symbol. This denotes an ability or use that will interrupt another player's action, roll, or abilities. In most uses, it tells you in italics when it can be used/how it will interrupt, but in some other cases, it's the context of what it does that will help you see when to use it. For Perfect Lie, you can guess that it will be used beside an ally's next attack. For Willful Push, it tells you clearly that it's meant to be used when the Keeper (the story leader/dungeon master) rolls.
Trinkets have been completed, and work in a variety of ways! Crystalline Nails here is meant to be used after your own or in an ally's turn as a Quick action during combat that deals 1 Physical damage. Once used, it then asks you to Turn it, a keyword that means to turn it 90 degrees clockwise. It then notes that when it's returned upright, discard it. These are a limited use item that deals a little extra damage between your attacks, inspired by the small throwing knives in Elden Ring and similar games.
Tomes or books are unique among Trinkets and other item classes, in that they have a special mechanic to themselves. Lemy's Fall here shows it off for us. You may attempt a Reading roll once per rest, shared on the card, and denoted with the Campfire symbol for REST. This is where you roll all four of your dice, the two white six-sided dice, the black six-sided die, and the gold twelve-sided die.
Then you check your total against the options on the card to make a choice of what you'll gain. When you rest, you can use your Books to find secrets about the dungeon ahead, or to find helpful knowledge to help your group in general. Books can help you heal, can give you magic, and can help you figure out how to cook, for example!
Relics and Tools here are more specialized items. Trinkets usually offer small benefits or are things you use and then discard. But Relics like Ma'an's Eye? They have unique powers to offer you, and each one has a unique sticker or two that you'll be able to add to the bottom of the card after a few sessions of play in order to unlock a powerful final ability.
Tools are weapons, cooking implements, and other items that can offer you a long term, reliable item to use. The Steward's Sword here is a great weapon because it deals 1 Physical damage but it also deals 1 Soul damage, hitting your enemy right in their core! Soul is your core health, with Physical and Mental health being shields for it. So long as you have Soul left, you can be revived, one way or another.
And Traits are ready now as well! These 9 cards give you two options each to choose from, and can be dealt randomly or chosen by players before play. These long cards slot into your deck box, with the side you chose sticking out. They most often give you an extra ability you can use during Rest.
Games start with a Riding the Road Card, which shares what your ride on the Road Eternal is like. This is when you travel between dungeon delves, outriding the annihilating sun by chasing its orbit. This is where everyone rolls their dice for the first time in a session. Note that it says "They do not Take Back their dice." This means once players roll their dice, they leave the results on the dice in front of them.
This card will often affect people by checking who has the highest, lowest, or matching dice on their Set Dice (meaning dice set in front of them.) This card can also set the tone for narrative experiences for some players, like with that last effect on this card.
There are 20 of these for me to wrap up!
Then you come to the Campfire Card. This is when your group settles down to rest before the delve, preparing yourselves for the dungeon ahead. Campfire cards can cause problems, have you be attacked, or they can offer boons. But they tend to affect your Set dice, and they always share what the delve ahead will be made up of. In this case, the first Delve Space will be drawn from the Aeonic deck of cards. The second will be drawn from the Ruins, third from the Burrows, and on. These cards build your Delve Deck.
There are 20 of these in the game as well.
Now, in the dungeon, we look at Delve Cards. These are events, sequences, or areas that you find. This particular one has clear effects for you if your players use a Search or Rest card here, and an Access the Console action (that should have a Mechanic symbol in front of it). This is a unique thing people can try to do while here. The Keeper (the one running the story) will share that they can try to access it, and what roll must be done to do so, but they won't share what the rules are for what happens after they roll it.
There is also a couple symbols at the bottom. One is the character class symbol for the Aeon Caller. It's a special ability for that character. They can make an easier roll to Access the Console than other players, because it's an action that works for them in particular.
Additionally, this area is Aeonic, themed to the angelic-hell-rings that are the Aeons. This means that prayers to the Aeons may affect you in this space. If you prayed before this Delve, or during this delve (there are chances to pray in the game, including in this very card), it will let you add 1 to any die roll here.
And finally, in the bottom corner of Delve cards, you'll see the Room Visit count. There are stickers int he game to put here to mark how many times you've visited this space. For this card, that means the chance for you to get attacked while resting here goes up the more times you've been here.
There are 6 types of Delve areas, Aeonic, Ruins, Dark, Burrows, Malefact, Sunken. Each one has 15 Delve cards, for a total of 90 Delve cards to mix up your dungeoneering!
And the Classes...
The Maker of Hands is the only one with a proper set deck so far. They can help manipulate dice, Hold them (make it so the a set die doesn't get re-rolled next time it would be rolled.) This means if you have a 6 on a die and want to save that, your Make of Hands ally can lock it in place for your next roll, letting you use the 6 instead of rolling it to something else! The Maker can also Max out dice, meaning set them to their highest number, or hold a Keeper's die. The Keeper have a rolled 1 sitting in front of them? Keep it that way so you can beat them later on another roll.
Today I'm hopefully wrapping work on the Glassen Artisan. They are your top tier healer option, but also represent a faithful character who has unique powers around the true Ensu faith, one that keeps the souls of your characters with yourselves, not taken by evil powers that hunger.
And as I wrap design work on characters, I am folding their mechanics across other cards, actions, tools, trinkets, delve cards, to make sure everyone is melded into the game.
But the Work is Not Simple...
While I have the items decks all done, Tools, Relics, Trinkets, and the generic actions deck, I have a lot of work ahead of me adjusting everything into the dice system and to make everything interactive and impactful. Based on the workload, and knowing I'm going to have to get a supplemental income stream in my life (see the updates on the Misery Tarot or Hot Housewives Tarot for that), I am now removing any immediate deadlines for this work.
I could have made this a re-skin of ZOETROPE, and it would have been fine. But it wouldn't have been incredible. And I'm actively aiming for incredible.
The project will be in hand to you all before October, but what that looks like on the way to that point is unclear to me until I am done with, and happy with, all of these cards. Only then can I finalize the rulebooks (there are two, now), and only then can I tell you how much more time I need to refine things and when we'll head to manufacturing.
So hang tight with me, I will have more to share in a month or two!
Okay, last week being a non-week wasn't helpful for anything haha. But it was my birthday and I deserved having a bit of time to myself. So I did it! That said, it meant work from last week got shoved to this week. This week has been all about shipping charges and shipping spreadsheets.
The good news is that tomorrow I'll be shipping out Tales From the Alley; next week, I'll be shipping out the Pride Pins. And as of next week as well, shipping for the Oracle Dice Campaigns (both) will be starting with the fulfillment folks, and as of this week, shipping is beginning for all 3 Tarot campaigns (Misery Tarot, Hot Housewives Tarot + booster pack project)!
That is 7 campaigns sliding off my plate.
Now, I'm not dumb-- there will be issues with the dice and tarot campaigns as they ship out and the shipping itself will take time-- we're unlikely to see items in people's hands entirely until end of August. But!! My hand in most of these things will be fairly minimal, aside from sending spreadsheets back and forth between Backerkit and my fulfillment folks.
So as we head into August from here, I will only have two past campaigns hanging out with me: Confluence and HISTORIC. I've done a really good job focusing my new projects ahead of time so the Goblin's Tarot and my book in October shouldn't affect day to day stuff much (and be ready to manufacture as soon as they fund), which means I should be able to put in more work a week on HISTORIC (and Confluence.)
Okay, back to The Trophy Collector
So last time, I put in work on getting their cards together. But I didn't finish their deck by any means. Today I've been trying to do that. Something I am really cognizant of since ZOETROPE is legibility. The text on those cards was so small that anyone without perfect eyesight struggled to read it in clear lighting, or in dim lighting (like we had in some con rooms where I ran the game for strangers) they couldn't read the card text beyond the title at all.
I printed a card out (in black and white) on printer paper. I'm realizing that 7 pt font is the smallest I want game rules text in this clear dark font on an almost-white background, with most text at 7.5 pt, with the flavor text italics able to go as small as 6pt. That was in well-lit and dim-room settings, but we both (my roommate and I) have pretty good vision (or he had on his glasses at least). This makes me wonder if I need to punch it up more, or accept that folks with worse vision will need their reading glasses to read the cards.
But as I do these cards, I wonder where exactly I'm going to fit stickers. If you recall, a piece of the game is that as you play it more, stickers get added to cards over time from different events-- mostly from dying or finishing your game sessions. Right now, the stickers are a bit up in the air. Things like +1 Physical Damage that you could tag onto a weapon or attack action to make those do more damage. Or "+Gain 1 Armor" on the Trophy Collector's cards, as stickers will be grouped based on whose cards they can be added to, with some situations letting you add stickers from whichever grouping to any kind of card to make weird or super strong things.
On Relics, I have plans for what their stickers specifically will do, and so the Relics have spaces on their cards for stickers to go specifically. Will I need to keep text short and to the point on all cards to 1) make the text larger, and 2) to make intentional spaces for stickers?
Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I need to finish the decks for these two classes already! So I'm focused on that tonight until I'm done with work. Specifically, I have wrapped Preparations, Search the Bags, Take a Trophy, Dominating Bulwark cards for the Trophy Collector for testing. Now, I'm heading into writing in the general use effects of Spread Wings, Chain Entrapment, Shoulder the Burden, Arm the Hopeless, Lumbering Behemoth, and Unshaking Foundation cards, which all have partial writeups for what they can do in combat. Then I need to take a look at the three trinkets, two relics, and three tools found in their deck to write the proper rules, rather than the temporary text I put on them.
I can get a decent chunk of that done yet before I hang up my hat for today, if not all of it. Then next week, it's back to the Maker of Hands to finalize text on those cards and update the text I've previously written for those cards. And since I'm supposed to do the Caged Wraith this month as well, I think I'll just sit in and get all three of those classes ready for testing. Testing just two classes will feel weird, since the game really is more meant for 3-4 players plus the GM.
I was a little nervous about how I would do prototypes without paying much, but seeing my printer pop out a beautiful copy of a card to check font size in black and white, I think I will stick to the good ol printing on printer paper, cutting the cards out, and putting then in sleeves with cards behind them.
Okay, see you next week where, you hold me to this, I will have the full Trophy Collector deck completed and the Maker of Hands deck nearly there (or done!!) for testing.
Hello folks, no real work this week, as tomorrow is my birthday! (Yay) And I've been caught up with figuring out the shipping cost stuff for the three tarot and two oracle dice projects, but that's wrapping itself up this week as well, so next week as normal.
Okay, I had to really fight to break the seal. I barely did anything last week, and yesterday I kept being like, we gotta focus on HISTORIC. But then I kept finding things to do instead. I stayed busy, so it was still well-used time, but it was not focusing on HISTORIC. Finally by the end of the day yesterday, I was in the work on the deck for Trophy Collector. And getting into it, and really bringing things over to the cards-- that changed a lot of my brain chemistry.
So I would say, I finally broke the seal yesterday and I am honestly doing work again. So what have I done since then and over today? Let's take a look!
The Trophy Collector
The Dual Path Class
So I started by checking everything I had written for the Trophy Collector already. For context, other class decks only have Actions, the class's unique Tool (singular), and their Ultimate card. They also have a path card that lets you pick between two versions of the character. For the Maker of Hands, for example, it's either The Hand, or The Eye.
When you choose a path, you remove cards from your deck that are Tagged with the OTHER path's name, and you have certain General Action cards based on the path.
But the Trophy Collector? No, she doesn't do that stuff. She has two Paths still, but she can swap between them during play. That means that all of the cards in her deck stay in her deck, making her deck the biggest of anyone's. The cards just have two different modes depending on which Path you are currently on.
If you're The Trophy, you think of yourself alone. But this self-centered focus on your own power can still benefit your allies, such as in the Stand Strong card below. The card can be used Narratively (the book symbol) by either path to intimidate an NPC, or to make clear that you won't budge or be removed from a space.
Then, Mechanically/Combat-wise, the paths can use this Action to support their allies with their bulk. The Trophy gets likely a more powerful effect for the team by drawing aggro from all enemies to attack you alone this combat round. But the team-focused Banner half of your paths can also use this card to throw 1 Armor on all your allies, reducing damage they take.
Chain Entrapment lets you lower an enemy's die for their defense for Trophy, or lets you straight up Disable an enemy for their next actin of you're playing Banner. One of these abilities is more powerful without question. Stopping any foe (even a boss) from doing their next action could be the difference between an ally dying and living.
In this way, the deck is full of cards that benefit both paths, but offer stronger effects to certain paths. So there is a use in changing your paths at campfires.
The Tools, Trinkets, and Relics of a Collector
Now look at the symbol in the top left of this card in the Trophy Collector's deck. That's not a bloody hand, signifying Action. That's the Trinket icon. Unlike any other class, the Trophy Collector's deck includes Trinkets, Tools, and even Relics-- which are artifacts that you can find during delves, but that classes don't start the game with.
These represent trophies that the collector has already taken and claimed that are lost in their bulk, in their bag, or in their chain wrap, their weapon. These are unique items that do specific things based on your path or when/how you try to use them. This Half-Drank Physik can be used during rest to heal an ally normally. As The Trophy you can heal yourself 1 physical wound in combat, or as The Banner you can use this to spray it over your allies to reduce their next damage by 1. If no one takes any damage, it doesn't do anything. But if at least one ally is hit, it's as good as its other two uses. If at least two allies take a hit, then this mode becomes strictly the strongest one, because it prevents 2 or more damage.
Note that I am no longer being precious about laying everything out perfectly, I want to make sure the cards are clear and work, and then as I finalize the game I will clarify language to all look the same/use symbols where they belong.
Trophy Collecting
Now, the other classes have special dials on their deck boxes that track a unique stat for them. Maker of Hands has a Hand counter. He makes them and spends them, usually one at a time, to make his powers work. The Organ Eater has Ferment, which builds up and you spend it all at once when you generate a potion/salve or when you use your own ferment to power yourself. So it grows and spends all at once, then has to grow again. The Caged Wraith has a binary, being Within or Without. Their soul being in their body, or outside of it.
The Trophy Collector has a Trophy stat, that relates to their most common card in their deck, Chained Burden. As you find Tools or Relics in your travels, or when you find them in your own deck for example, you can take time to attach these items to your Chain Wrap, which is your main Class Tool that starts in play. Trophy is a slowly building stat on your class's dial that only goes down if you lose an attached Tool or Relic. This makes you the slowest growing class in the game, a slow bulwark of armor. But in the late game, especially in a long game where you do multiple delves in a row, your Trophy count can really grow.
So what do you do with that high Trophy count? Well, you gain it by attaching tools to your Chain Wrap, so feasibly, that card should give us a good idea... right?
Oh yes, every Trophy you get after the first increases the damage you deal with your Chain Wrap. And it has no cap. If your team wants to, they can hand every single Tool, Relic, etc to you and let you become the highest damage dealer in the game, bigger and bigger as the game goes on.
Now, the Chain Wrap is the only Tool you are allowed to Attack! with-- that means the Attack! action card. So when you play that card, you can only use the Chain Wrap. You don't get to use your cool collection of other Tools. But so long as you attach them to your Chain Wrap, claiming your Trophies with the earlier Chained Burden action card-- you can alternatively use Chained Burden to swing those attached Tools as a combi-weapon.
To avoid the Collector needing to eat up everyone's treasure, stopping folks from getting new Tools or Relics of their own, our Collector has 3 Tools and 2 Relics they can draw from their own deck. But your team can choose to hand their loot over to empower their slowly growing behemoth if they want.
Gotta Test the Class Fantasy
Today I have been trying to finalize the cards in this deck-- specifically just what all they do, writing it onto the cards so I can do a little home print and run this deck alongside the Maker of Hands for a few scenarios to see how they feel different. I want the Collector to be a behemoth, slow moving, slow growing, but the further the game gets, when others are running out of resources and slowing down, the Collector is only growing more powerful. I'm not yet done, but there's most of the work day left for me.
Ironically, I am finishing this deck first, meaning the Maker of Hands has some work to be done on his deck next week before I can print these out. But so it goes.
Alright-- let me know your thoughts and if you'd want to be the slow growing tank class! I'm trying to make sure each plays clearly into a fun fantasy that feels rewarding and has you take intentional actions to make them happen.
So, admittedly slow start. Last week, I put the timeline together and unfortunately had other emails and stuff interrupting me, so that was all I really got done, other than asking our artist Salty Water for transparent versions of some art. (Which he has since gotten to me.)
But I do have a clear timeline that I think is slow enough that I should be able to stick to it and also, likely, get tasks on it done earlier than intended by the timeline. Which is good, because right now the timeline is saying I won't get the game out until January/February next year, which would inevitably become March/April as we hit the Chinese New Year break in February and manufacturing/shipping would all get delayed.
We will know by mid July what the timeline probably really is, but this is what I have so far. The Google Spreadsheet shares more details about step by step, but... The short of it is below:
June Work
Study the Anatomy of the Game
Create ALL Maker of Hands Cards
Create ALL Trophy Collector Cards
Mock up the decks, Face Simple Scenarios/gameplay
July Work
Reinforce Dice Mechanics
Reinforce Combat Mechanics
Create ALL Caged Wraith Cards
Boss Exposure/Testing
August Work
Create ALL Organ Eater Cards
Establish Game Baseline
Testing around 4 Player standard
Alpha Balance Pass on Cards
September Work
Test Print the Game
Prepare Bestiary + 'Alpha' Bosses
Playtest the Game with Newbies
Legacy Mechanics
October Work
Testing
Expand Bestiary + Bosses
Testing
More Delves
November Work
Rework the Game
Final Test Vibe Checks
Rulebook Finalizing
Blind Testing (giving game + rules to people who havent played, let them figure it out)
December Work
Final Play
Final Layout
Submit Print Files
January Work
Shipping Charges
Manufacturing
Shipping
February/March Work
Shipping
Project is Finished!
The Next Games From there, I would try to have Secret Halls ready to fund and go, all finished before funding. I can't just go straight into the expansion for HISTORIC, as there have been payments for work on games that haven't had a chance yet. But HISTORIC's expansion would be worked on in 2027, and when ready (hopefully by October 2027) would go to funding for y'all to get those as well.
I also have Tekket, It's Up to Us, Fur & Scale, and more to try and get moving for 2027 and beyond, not to mention reprints and expansions for What We Possess, New Avernus, and ZOETROPE, so there's kind of a backlog of things waiting for their chances haha. But HISTORIC and Confluence are the focus right now. Until they're out there, everything else is lining up to see where it fits.
I have the rest of today to pick at Maker of Hands and Trophy Collector decks a bit still, but my apartment has been testing fire alarms all morning in my building and it's been nightmarish to work through. So I might take a walk here first to grab lunch and decompress.
Talk again next Thursday, when I expect to have some of these cards to share and talk about! It's these class decks that need the most work, every other deck of cards in the game is either already with a first full draft or at least has an outline of what the card should say or do on it.
It has been quite some time. The last update was in February, and since then I worked on the game a bit into March, and then from mid-March through April and May, I just could not work on this game. Series of excuses aside, I have struggled just to sit down and look at the whole thing. It is complex, it is hard, and I made it so much harder by adding an extra class at all, let alone starting with 6, and choosing (even after it funded poorly) to make it the complex game I wanted it to be, rather than the smaller, simpler game it should have been when the funds didn't come together fully.
The campaign did not meet its real goal, as I noted after we funded. We barely covered the art budget, without raising any money to manufacture. I then added more to the game and hired the artist back on for even more money. But this also came at a time when there was little to no money in the business. There still is almost no money available right now, so making ends meet is rough.
When the Goblin's Tarot funds, it's going to handle the manufacturing on this project just fine and recoup some down payments I've put on future projects, while covering my bills-- this isn't a huge cost in manufacturing compared to the money that comes in and out from the larger projects. I have zero fears that HISTORIC will be manufactured and ship to you all, so let's get that out of the way now. But delays with both my dice and tarot manufacturers have kept previous projects from shipping on time (they're finally lined up to start shipping shortly), and that has pushed the Goblin's Tarot back again and again.
December last year, I already knew that April and on this year was going to be rough financially over delays to those projects, but they've been delayed even longer, so that's been a frustration for sure.
What Am I Going To Do About HISTORIC?
For the last two and a half months, I have considered finding a way to hire someone else to handle this or at least help me through it. But there's no money to do so. Mentally I settled on a second option, which is I was going to just ignore it forever, then cancel and refund the project to you all as soon as I could, but there's no money to do so, and there won't be until the Goblin's Tarot gives that money over.
And I've already paid in some $14,000 in art for the game, and you've already all been waiting some time. If I find $13,500 to refund you all, it puts me back to nowhere with $14,000 of art sitting and waiting for the game to be finished. Even if I refunded and closed this down, I still have to eventually make the game!
I've thought more than once that the amount I'm putting into this game is too much for one small box game. I'm making a rough amount of work for myself, and trying to work on even one class while keeping in mind the other 6 and making sure they don't overlap and they have unique abilities and-- all that is making me fail to do anything. I considered splitting the game up-- a core game and an expansion, but I've promised you all the content of both now, so I need to get it all done anyways.
And the more I put working on this off, the more I just go with the option at the back of my brain that I'll just cancel it and I should forget it, and the more I will never work on this game again. And the more this gets delayed, the more I realize I can never fund a game again until it's resolved, one way or another.
Finally, yesterday, I had enough.
The Path Forward
Okay, our path forward is simple, and I ask for your patience on this one.
I am splitting the game into the core game with the main 4 classes (Caged Wraith, Maker of Hands, Trophy Collector, and Organ Eater), and moving the Glass Artisan, the Malefact Bonecutter, and the Aeon Caller to the first expansion box, which will take some of the cards from the core game that focus on soul position and deals more deeply with the Malefact, Aeons, and the Sunken areas.
When the core game is done, I will make those and ship those to you. Then I will start over with the expansion work. Make it. Launch a new project for the expansion when it's done (I am only launching projects now where the thing is complete-- period!). I will bring all of you into that project with a FREE PLEDGE for the expansion game. Then I will have it manufactured and shipped.
I know this isn't perfect, but it means you're getting all I promised and more, because I will be making new things to go in the expansion box alongside the new classes. It will just be coming in two chunks instead of at once. This also gives me the chance to raise funds for the game overall again, which will help me cover all the uncovered costs of this campaign, and bring in a little extra money to cover new art going in the expansion. I also know some folks will be worried about having to pay shipping twice-- I will be looking into how I can handle that to alleviate your shipping costs the second time around, or outright waive them.
Today is my first marked day on my weekly calendar to have HISTORIC FOCUS. This continues tomorrow. Every week now, Wednesday and Thursday are my HISTORIC FOCUS days. From now on, I will be sharing weekly updates here on what I get done to hold myself accountable and to show you the progress of exactly what I'm doing. No more "I've got a lot of work done" vague updates here. This game needs a lot of attention, and I need to be completely clear on what has been done and how much is left.
Next week, I'll be sharing my overall timeline after I take today and tomorrow to figure out what I'm including here in the base game, what's moving to later work, and what the outline looks of what needs done.
