Welcome to the day after the campaign ended, friends!
In the end, we did crack the 12,500 goal and that means each class will gain an extra card to their deck with an illust...
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Publishing Goblin
17 days ago
The Wednesday Rest | 165% Funded + The Memes and Streams!
Welcome back dear friends,
Today is the Wednesday Rest solely because we are flinging ourselves to the finish line tomorrow! And you should always rest and stretch before bi...
Hello everyone,
For this Monday update, I have to say we're rocking it at 150% FUNDED! Wooo, break out something fun to drink on a Monday at noon. So probably not alcohol h...
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Publishing Goblin
22 days ago
The Friday Ride | 145% Funded + The Cover Concept
Welcome back to Friday my friends,
We are in the home stretch, with just 6 days remaining for the funding!
This grimdark Dungeon Delver gets to exist because you all brought...
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Publishing Goblin
26 days ago
The Wednesday Rest | 141% Funded + The Character Concepts: The Malefact Bonecutter
Welcome back to the campfire friends, take a rest, share a story or song, and eat your fill.
Today we are at 141% funding, and that means we're still a bit from the first st...
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Publishing Goblin
26 days ago
The Monday Delve | 139% Funded + The Character Concepts: The Maker of Hands
Welcome back dungeon delvers, let's get into it!
We are just under 140% funded, and I think we can do better than that. So let's share around when we can! HISTORIC has so ma...
Welcome to the day after the campaign ended, friends!
In the end, we did crack the 12,500 goal and that means each class will gain an extra card to their deck with an illustration and a cool new effect that their deck didn't previously have. I'm really into this concept, and will get thinking about what that means.
According to the project page, we should have the game locked in around later June, and then we could potentially head toward manufacturing and then shipping close to October. That said, right now is a terrible time for table top games and the like-- the new tariffs our King in the US have put out would raise our production costs by 50%, which for any of us who had just ran a crowdfunding campaign for example, could not have accounted for.
We will keep our eyes on the news to see how things change, get walked back, or undone hopefully, but if it comes to it and in September we still don't have tariffs rolled back, we may delay manufacturing until there is a change or we make money on another project that could cover that 50% increase. We appreciate your patience in that.
For now though, it's time for me to get in talks with Salty Water about the remaining art for the game! I'll start locking in the final elements of the game, lock in final card choices for the classes, get working on the Delve cards, and more. We will go down to once a week, or once every other week, updates here for a bit as elements come in for the game to share.
But thank you, friends. We did it, and I hope to have awesome things to share with you very soon. Talk again soon,
Today is the Wednesday Rest solely because we are flinging ourselves to the finish line tomorrow! And you should always rest and stretch before big labor like that.
We are 165% funded, and merely 100-200 away from the stretch goal to add ultimate abilities to our classes!
Some of you may have missed it, but anyone who missed out on the first 48 hour freebie-- a free booster pack of cards with a new boss and some extras-- have a chance to still grab it as a $5 add-on.
The Memes!
In case you've missed it in our social posts, Salty Water has been cranking out (unpaid?) art for this campaign on social media. We've got Ratsune Miku-- I mean the Maker of Hands, a precious widdle Organ Eater, a very Woe Be Upon Ye Malefact Bonecutter sicking his lizard mount on us, and a Jojo posed Caged Wraith, using his soul as his stand. I think they're just delightful and fun art, and shows how much Salty Water loves these characters and designs to just draw them on their off time! I very much didn't ask for any of the pieces, they're just for fun.
The Ending Live Stream!
I like to do live streams at the end and start of my projects. So I welcome you to join me tomorrow, 1.30-2.30 pm MST. (12.30 PST, 2.30 CST, 3.30 EST) I'll be live to chat about the project, the game, the art, and more likely, to just chitter about life and answer questions and be a dumb person on a live stream. You'll be able to catch the stream right here on the campaign page, so consider popping in to say hi!
I'll stay until the campaign is DONE-- that means if we get pledges and pledge adjustments after it ends at 2pm MST, the campaign stays live another 10 minutes from the time the pledge or adjustment is made. Since this was a smaller project, I'm betting we will go about 30 minutes or so after the close.
For this Monday update, I have to say we're rocking it at 150% FUNDED! Wooo, break out something fun to drink on a Monday at noon. So probably not alcohol haha-- at least not yet. We're likely going to crack that $12,500 goal as we coast into these final 72 hours.
Since we have just 3 days remaining, I thought it would be nice to shout out A Land Once Magic-- about half of you already backed them. But if you back the both of us for physical tiers, you get bonus items with your shipment from me!
For our game, designed Viditya Voleti will be designing out some Relics for you to find in your travels. These will be strange unique items that are unlike anything else in the game. Viditya is an incredible designer, so I have faith they will be really cool!
For their game, I'm adjusting a few tables in A Land Once Magic that will let you bring tarot cards into the game in place of a playing card deck, because I am the king of Tarot of course.
Looking forward to the final hours up ahead, and seeing what we can make happen!
We are in the home stretch, with just 6 days remaining for the funding! This grimdark Dungeon Delver gets to exist because you all brought it to life-- and if you're getting this update but haven't backed yet?! Get in here!
Today, we're taking a look at the Cover Art and how it came to be! I told Salty Water the rough composition I wanted-- featuring The Maker of Hands, Trophy Collector, and Malefact Bonecutter (who has not been a fan favorite!) around a campfire on the road. I knew I wanted a lizard mount, a motorcycle, and that was about it. From there, Salty stepped up with the idea of approaching it as a triptych.
Here is the tough composition, referring to the form of reliquary box. Showing the road in the middle as the theme, with the aeonic rings behind the maker of hands (here is some of my thoughts, I know they don't align their soul to that but their overall atmosphere leaning into that and I'd like to think they collect much material and technology from aeons.) And Malefactic as the theme for Malefact bonecutter, both for the decoration in the corner and the pattern in the back. Going to adjust the size of character to show more of background but still keep them looking around a campfire in front of trophy collector, which is a pile of skull and bones lit up by blue soul fire. (The pose for characters is referring to the description you provided.) Also idea for the side panel of the box cover, the border of bone oils and skulls will surround the lower edge and I would like to make the two panel, the one below the character's feet, and the one over character's head with specific patterns, one as extension of sky and one as extension of road. The other two side panels on left and right maybe can feature the ruins, or leave place for texts.
We got to this for the rough cover of the top of the box. Overall it felt pretty spot on for the approach based on the boxes for ZOETROPE and What We Possess. They have become my template for making boxed games, and I'm pretty happy with how it was coming. Then, Salty delved further into the designs for the characters and their mounts in particular.
For the lizard, it's referring to some deep sea fish type of translucent look and glowing at several parts. I think it could be good to use it as the lantern in dark, such as its big eyes. Also it has several parts with feathers and growing excessive bones to echo with the bonecutter's look. For the belly and tail part, I am thinking about being translucent so that we can see the inner organs and the victims it consumes to emphasize on the theme of sacrifice.
For the motorcycle, because among the characters we have, the mechanical elements aren't too strong, I feelt we cannot really use too heavy of an industrial look for the motorcycle. I'm considering leaning into the armor for horse to coverup the metal structure of the motorcycle and beneath it are the two rings and one regular wheel. To connect two rings using tangled pipes and the bigger ring is mostly broken with gears and basic steam engine parts to fill out the center. And considering the maker of hands based on the design doesn't have physical hands, I'm going to have the horse saddle for supporting torso part with an extra "handle" to fix the arms to.
And that brings us to the final cover of the box! That covers the main art assets we had pre-campaign, now next week is our final days so we're going to explore what's ahead, what our collab is offering with A Land Once Magic, and more of what to expect in this game ahead!
The Poll!
First though, before we part ways for the weekend, I think we should take a final look at that darn poll. Oh gosh, the Trophy Collector in first?! Maker of Hands and Caged Wraith tied for second? Color me surprised y'all. The Bonecutter is still in last, I'm sure he's seething over that one. For your own sakes, I'll give you one more chance to make this right. There's no telling what he might do!
We are just under 140% funded, and I think we can do better than that. So let's share around when we can! HISTORIC has so many more goodies to unlock if we can just break some of these stretch goals! :)
Since we finished 4 classes already, we're down to the final two: The Maker of Hands, and The Malefact Bonecutter. These are two surprising options to me, I figured the poor Trophy Collector would stay at the bottom as he had been, but then he shot past the last two. Now, I am biased-- the Maker of Hands is my favorite design conceptually and visually, so I'm glad to finally get to them, and see them bump up the poll now.
So let's do it!
The Maker of Hands, or The Hand Smith (vote in the comments on the name for me!), was a character concept I had early on of someone who created magic floating hands as a magic system. Hands are currency. You can make them and do hand to hand fighting with them, or just a rush of hand missiles, or you can craft them with designs and elements in them that can be cracked as a vessel to release its energy. Salty Water ended up having a genius idea of the tail having the hammer head on it, and using the back of it to crack open or break hands, which is super neat. I imagined the Maker as someone who can be a light, dancing melee fighter, or who can be the everywhere support, whose hands help push ally's weapons to hit their marks, pilfer items, or magically aid someone. As a support dancer/mage, I think they have a fantastically unique niche and a really cool unique aesthetic!
Starting with our sketches, Salty had this to say!
" Here is the rough sketch of maker of hands, maybe a bit varied from the information you offered me but I will add some items I forget such as the books and also some more tools/hands/accessories. The idea for this one is mainly focused on Mesopotamian decorative elements and jewelry, also the art deco aesthetic, arm bonded before chest and holding a cracked metal plate on the chest where they hammer with their tail hammer to make hands. So radiated lines is a main design element for this character. Also having jewelry threading in the skin to cover up the partly burned skin. Magic hands I am thinking of the form as being like cracked mirror shards that with the hit by the other end of hammer can be destroyed (just some of my thoughts when I'm designing this.) And for the bells (hanging on ends of straps) I’m thinking about using the shape of hands that are hanging from their hollowed out ears."
"I get Maker of Hands's draft figured out, refined their accessories, the hands hanging from ears are all made in metal so naturally they clashing when moving around to make the noise like wind chimes. The magic hands will looks like shards, or mosaic forming into hand shape, the center of it has the cracks that can be aimed by the other side of hammer to destroy."
Alright, Wednesday will see the end of these character updates when we take a look at the Malefact Bonecutter! But I'd love to hear from all of you in the poll how you feel about the Maker of Hands below! As more of these updates come out, I see more people have new favorites, and that's awesome.
Can't wait to share what each class's ultimate abilities will be when we hit that $12,500 goal!
