We interrupt your regularly scheduled timeline and production updates to inform you that the backer preview PDF of the revised Voidheart Symphony is ready for you!
Depending when you see this update, you may already have received an email from Backerkit with a link to the download.
From the very first spread, each part of the game has received attention from our team.
Now, there are some things you should know.
FEEDBACK PLEASE
This is very much a preview PDF. We've edited, proofed, revised, shaken, and inspected this book under UV light but there are always a handful of errors that escape our notice. We are, alas, only human.
We need your help to catch the rest. If you spot any typos, or indeed anything that's confusingly worded, please let us know. We've made a feedback form to make this as easy as we possibly can. You can access it here: https://forms.gle/huAQQGH1sAo6WU1FA
The flow of the investigation has been refined to make sure every vassal you take down feels vibrant, dangerous and exciting.
FEEDBACK WINDOW
We're eager to get this off to the printer, so we can start making books. That means we're going to keep taking feedback until Wednesday 13th August. After that, Mina will start revising the file and we'll move on to production.
BACKERS ONLY
Please don't share this PDF. Mostly because it's a preview, and we'd like to get those last errors sorted before it makes its public debut. If you want to share it with your group because you want to play it together, that's fine.
Vassals have received a tune-up: each one now has a specific Reflex that'll ramp up pressure on the rebels.
OTHER PRODUCT PREVIEWS
We are planning on releasing the quickstart, notebook and GM kit for you to have a look at too. They're still in layout (in the quickstart's case, still in editing). Those will have significantly shorter feedback periods, and if any of them take longer than planned, we might whoosh them straight off to the printer. But for now you should expect to see these in a couple of weeks.
THAT'S ALL!
Chant will be back after the feedback period closes with an update on timings. For now, if you haven't done your surveys please do (you probably won't be able to get the PDF download if you haven't, for a start), and brace yourself for us to start shouting about locking addresses and charging shipping.
Thanks for coming on this ride with us.
Chant & Mina
PS - if you have trouble picking up the files, we'll be checking in right here tomorrow morning to help resolve any issues!
This month’s title is broadly applicable to a lot of things, but I chose it because we’ve done a load of work on the Burn This City notebook.
TIMELINE
Voidheart Symphony is queued behind one of our other books for editing. That book’s proved to be a bigger technical challenge than we expected, which means it’s taken longer to do. It’s worth the wait: when in-house editor extraordinaire Maz is ready to tackle it, we’ll get a thorough layout review as part of the deal, to make sure all these bold graphic design choices pay off.
Shifting the timeline would mean, in theory, that we should start shipping books out to you in December. Since packages have a greater tendency to get lost, banged around, etc. over the holiday season we’ll probably just… wait until January.
MANUSCRIPT
Still in editing.
OTHER PRODUCTS
While the core manuscript’s in editing, Minaerva has been working on the other material. Primarily this month, that’s meant the Burn This City notebook. We’ve been bouncing ideas around, balancing structure (that helps you use the notebook the way we think you will) against freedom to use it however you want to. We’re pleased with the result, and I’m extra pleased with Mina’s decision to design it so that, as far as possible, complete sections are on the front and back of a page - so if you want to cut them out and keep them separately, you can do that.
The pages above are a spread from the rebel part of the book (in blue) and the architect side (in red). Take notes about NPCs, the progress of the rebels' investigation into the latest castle shard, and manage your antagonists and their goals. Why is the architect side upside down? Because you flip the book to read it: each section starts from a cover and works in, so the architect side is, well, upside down.
HAPPY PRIDE WRATH MONTH, PLAY SOME VOIDHEART
OK, I may be overselling it a little bit there: this isn't quite a playable version. But we do have a gift for you!
Shortly after this backer update goes out, I’m going to upload some digital files to Backerkit:
Rules reference handout sheets
Updated rebel playbooks
The entire Covenant chapter
If you’ve already done your survey, you should get immediate access to all these files. You may already have them, depending on when you read this. If you haven’t done your survey, consider this a reminder it’s worth doing!
Everything’s going to plan. Which is suspicious, frankly.
TIMELINE
Really short and sweet update here: we’re still on track.
MANUSCRIPT
As scheduled, Mina’s finished the rewrites. We’ve officially moved Voidheart over to editing, which in-house Editor In Chief Maz Hamilton will handle. Maz is tremendous: their editing’s like a deep tissue massage, in that it’s very firm, very thorough, and extremely good for you. We’ve left time in the schedule for them to give Voidheart Symphony the full treatment (even though it’s been development edited twice already; I never say no to more editing).
PLEDGE MANAGER AND SURVEYS
The book’s on track but the pledge manager’s slightly delayed. Bad producer. Sorry. It’s all set up, we’ve sent out the smoke test to a handful of backers, and I’ll check the data and send the rest of the surveys on 19th May.
BIT OF VOIDHEART, AS A TREAT?
The nice thing about having an award-winning graphic designer as an author is that the book’s not only written, it’s laid out and ready for public viewing.
This month, we’re showing off the Kick in the Door chapter. Kick in the Door’s one of the biggest revisions to the original Voidheart Symphony, without being completely new. Mina’s pulled together rules and gameplay advice into a chapter that works almost like a quickstart, giving new Architects a step-by-step, learn-as-you-play way to start running Voidheart. It’s not quite zero prep (we do advise reading the rules first) but it’ll get you up and running real fast.
The dust has settled from the somewhat dramatic conclusion to our crowdfunder, and we can see the road ahead. It’s actually a pretty spectacular view: Mina’s close to finishing the new material, we’ve got our editors lined up, and we don’t think tariffs are going to screw us too badly.
Read on for slightly more detail on what’s happening when, and what you can expect over the next few months.
TIMELINE
Famous last words, eh?
Delivering Voidheart still won’t take long, but it will take a couple of months longer than we thought. The stretch goals added a bit more writing, which adds a bit more editing, and there will be two stages of editing as Grant Howitt shouts “MORE GAME! BIGGER! SPIKIER! WEIRDER!” and then Maz Hamilton gently sculpts the results into a book people can use. I (Chant) am really keen to hold time for Mina to keep experimenting with layout. Oh, and global freight takes a really long time.
All told, our timeline currently looks like this:
(And, given recent events, we think it’s wise to leave a couple of extra months in the timeline in case of unexpected tariffs, or lack of tariffs, that make global trade more complicated even than it normally is.)
PLEDGE MANAGER AND SURVEYS
We’ll be setting up the pledge manager by the end of April and sending out surveys in early May. We’ll charge shipping as late as we possibly can - probably once the books are in our warehouses on multiple continents and ready to send out to you.
Most backers’ payments have already been collected; a few failed (which is very normal for any crowdfunding project). Backerkit will keep trying to take payment until April 17th. If they haven’t succeeded by then, you’ll still receive your survey but it’ll show you as having paid $0 and you’ll be asked to pay in pledge manager.
THE WHOLE GLOBAL TRADE SITUATION
It is impossible to say how much new US tariffs will affect any TTRPG project that is currently underway. That’s because the tariffs are currently changing daily. So we reserve the right to revise our estimates of just how bad this could get as the situation develops.
However, based on our current understanding:
We think books are less affected by the new US tariffs than a lot of other things
We’re producing our materials in the UK, EU and Turkey, which have so far been subject to fairly light (though not zero) tariffs
Backers outside the USA shouldn’t be affected by these tariffs, but the freight situation is complicated and evolving daily
In other words, nothing we’ve heard yet changes our plans for Voidheart. We do think shipping’s going to get expensive this year, because there’s a lot of competition to move goods as fast as possible before tariffs get even more unpleasant (and currently to take advantage of the 90 day window before they come into effect). If we’re right, we will have to pass at least some of the cost of shipping on to you. It’s too early to say how much, and we will of course keep shipping as affordable as we possibly can while still ensuring your books get to you in a reasonable time, and in good condition.
SOMETHING LIGHTER TO END ON
We don’t do a lot of manuscript previews for our crowdfunding, but this one’s going to be a little different. Mina’s graphic design is experimental, and the new content is both exciting and conveniently formed into bite-sized pieces: new hideout rules, new playbook, overhauled digital playbooks, and so on. So expect plenty of behind-the-scenes updates, and opportunities for feedback, as we progress towards a finished book.
That’s already a lot of logistical info for one update, so I’ll stop there. From this point on, Mina or I will send updates roughly once a month to help you keep on top of what’s happening and share some little design treats.
Thanks so much for all your support! We'll be in touch soon about what happens next (and I think Maz is writing a big post about the current US tariff trash fire), but for now we're going to take a bit of a break. Thanks again – I'm so happy that we're able to do this together!
