Hello folks!

So it's been a month, and that's about our schedule on these updates from here on. Salty Water was waiting on me for a bit, but we have some illustrations in and are booking along on the remainder of the game.

This is the trait card for the Bulwark, which allows you to make any character a super armored one! If you want to wield two shields, or be just so armored up its ridiculous, this is the trait for you to pick. While it would go best on a character that is already tanky, you might think, it is unique on the glass cannon characters of the Wraith or Bonecutter, giving them huge survivability to go with their damage. But the bulwark would love to make you step in to defend allies, and that is something those squishy characters might not want to make use of.

And while we have already seen the class-tools of the Collector of Skulls and the Maker of Hands, their chain wrap and gilt hammer respectively, we now have the remaining class tools.
The Stoor-iron shovel of the Organ Eater, used to beat enemies over the head and dig up bodies to harvest.
The Benthine Daggers of the Caged Wraith, broken away over time but animated with their ghost blades.
The Aeon Call of the Aeon Caller, the harp made across their own torn apart wing bones which they use to call angelic horrors to their side, or to support their allies.
The Inward Knife of the Malefact Bonecutter, which they use to release their blood and bones to grow and turn into armor or weapons, or a weapon against foes in a pinch.

And then there's the Body Collector, a boss I talked about in the launch livestream. There are bosses that align with your soul's connection to the Aeons, the Malefact, The Road, but there is also this boss, which would love you to safeguard your soul by aligning it with yourself. Then it can collect a pure, undiluted essence of you. This is the latest progress piece on this boss, and it's coming along beautifully!

I have just given Salty Water another Trait, 5 Actions, and an additional Boss to illustrate next.

That said, I'm seeing two things on the horizon here. One is how much artwork there is to get from Salty Water.
We have some 40 small illustrations to do, 6 more beyond that for the class 'ultimate' abilities we unlocked as a stretch goal, another 4-5 for the Backerkit exclusive 'booster' for the game that people got free as a first 48-hours incentive, or that you can grab in your surveys (soon) for $5, plus 9 more bosses. This is just going to take a few more months to get pulled together on the illustration front, period.

Two is how much I keep changing the game. I think there is a good chance that I change the game even more as the process goes. I'm also considering returning the dice to the game, which is a whole thing. What makes this game strong is its uniqueness from my other small box games. MANY people have told me before (after seeing the ZOETROPE system) that ZOETROPE's system would easily lend itself to any genre of game, and early on I thought I agreed. That I could reskin ZOETROPE, add a few things, and have a new game. But that's frankly not good enough for me.

For this reason, I want to push the timeline back from maybe shipping September/October, to more likely shipping January/February. This is for a couple reasons, the stuff explained above, but also because I think I want to do the naughty thing and add more to the game beyond what we funded here. To do that, I need to bring in money from other projects to make HISTORIC the game it can be, rather than just what we brought in here to fund.

I want to put in the 7th class I was considering, a dedicated healer.

I want to return the dice to the game, and in doing so, raising the price of production by almost $4 a piece. 

I want to include a few more items, and a few more bosses. 

Financially, that together will cost about $2200 in art, $4000 in extra manufacturing costs. And I'm not asking any of you to pay that here, but it means I do have to bring in the money on what else I'm doing this year to cover it.

I considered doing an expansion later, but what I find is people get expansions less, which is reasonable. So I just want the game to be full, to have all its goodies in it right away, and not need to be expanded on later. For now, we will continue with things as-is, but with the extended deadline. And if, as time goes into October, it seems the money exists for this, then we may push back to March to slide in these extra goodies.

Thanks for your patience all, I want this game to be incredible. I don't believe anything can be perfect, but there were issues in ZOETROPE and WHAT WE POSSESS that I wanted to fix in a revised edition right away, and I don't want that here. I want proper time with making sure what I bring to you is right.

Thanks everyone, talk again in July with game progress and art progress updates!

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