I'm super excited to make this post. I just turned in the final main manuscript to Greenspore, and they are working on one final pass of dev edits and then copy and line edits. We'll be holding our editorial committee meeting near the end of April, and the full committee will be as follows:
Violet Ballard (myself)
Greenspore (editor of the book)
Christian Sorrell (MeatCastle Gameware, they did very early dev editing on the project)
Christopher Airiau (a good friend and great designer and editor)
We'll be having a meeting of the minds to look over the completed manuscript at a very high level. We're going to figure out what still needs work before we put in the effort of layout. This team will also meet again once we have completed layout to look at the final book to ensure we are ready to go to print.
Alongside completing the main manuscript, I have also completed the manuscript for the solo prequel adventure, now titled The Halcyon, that will be printed on the sleeve for the vinyl containing music by Anthers and art by Zach Hazard Vaupen. I'm attaching a link to the PDF of this manuscript for backers only that you can play through now. It is an even further stripped down version of the solo gamebook Mothership engine that I developed for Cassette X. This is an emotional, narrative pair of adventures there is not a huge focus on mechanics. We're moving to layout for the vinyl shortly once we finish a few other back projects, so we should be ordering them for manufacturing in May or June.
We have a brief update about progress, we wanted to post this last week, but we missed the end of the short month of February. We continue to work out our style guide, but our biggest progress has been completing the entire script for Amanda's 7 full-spread graphic novel pages that tell the story of the final two weeks of Brianna Pilgrim's life. I'd never written a graphic novel before, only screenplays, ttrpgs, board games, and academic writing. This made me scared of this task, but it was actually a joy to complete once I discovered the manuscript format used by Dark Horse comics. I'm also so happy that I have such a tremendous artist who I trust to adjust blocking and dialog as she illustrates, I trust Amanda's taste immensely.
We are now on track to have the solo prequel adventure done this month, to give everyone something short and playable. We will also start to share PDFs of each level of the station as we complete them, but we will save the final level of the station (there are seven total) and the back half of the campaign for once the book is finalized. We want y'all to be able to see work while still saving some mystery. We also look forward to getting more eyes on each section as we layout because we can make adjustments as we complete the book.
We sincerely apologize for the lengthy delay since our last update. It has been a crazy fall full of distribution projects, and in my personal life, sick kids and a divorce. This does mean that I am now the sole owner of RV Games, my ex-wife no longer has a stake in the company. We haven't been standing still on the project, we've just been lagging on communication. Here's where we are with a status update:
The score from Anthers, which is also featured on the solo vinyl adventure, has been completed and fully mastered. We'll share a link to this in the backer only content just like how we shared the rougher version in an earlier update.
I'm doing my final editing passes on the solo prequel adventure, and we're finishing up the final touches of layout on the vinyl. This means that in our February update we should be able to share a digital version of this adventure for everyone, and the records will enter into production at the start of next month.
Sam Wildman is making great progress on maps.
We've been nailing down our style guide for layout of the main book by first working on final layout for the standees and cards. We have a few different options that we will choose from, and then we move to laying out the main book, it will go smoothly.
I'm still working on making some pieces of the full book manuscript to work the way I would like them too, but we hope to have our editorial meeting to lock it down near the end of February.
Thank y'all for supporting us with our largest project ever. It's a journey, and outside life continues and doesn't care about the work.
It's been a little bit since I made my last update. This summer has been heads down production on a few projects, so I apologize for the silence. I've been working on adding more "glue" to the world. We have the main, most obvious line through the module, but I'm now working on adding side content: union or corporate bounties, bounty hunters, small mysteries and items, etc. We want Trellick station to be absolutely packed, the module should be pretty overwhelming when it is complete.
The coolest thing that we have to share is a rough mix of the score from Anthers for the solo gamebook vinyl. It will be going in for a final mix in September, so we will soon have the entirety of this element of the project done except for physical production. When we have a final mix and have a digital version of this solo prequel story, we will share it with backers early this fall. The rough mix from Anthers is linked below.
Finally, we want to let you know about the next project from 5 Million Worlds Press and Chris Airiau that RV Games will be distributing. It's a build-your-own dungeon Mothership zine launching on September 23.
I apologize for the late update, but I wanted to shift updates to the middle of the month instead of the end of the month, so I waited a couple weeks longer. I've been writing away at the dungeons and regularly meeting with my editor, I'm really slow, and the progress is good. We're on track to start layout by the end of summer, and things will move quickly as we move into that phase of the project. We have already started laying out player aids and accessories, so there is also progress on that front.
A couple of weeks ago, Anthers, who is providing the music for the vinyl gamebook, did a show in Oakland, and I was able to attend! One of the members of the band is someone who I've known for over 20 years, so it was great to see him play. They've worked out the entire score for the vinyl, and they are on track to go to the studio this month. I got some fun analog photography of Oakland and the venue where they were playing, and I'll share some of those with you here.
Downtown Oakland
Oakland Beauty Supply, An Arts and Music Venue
Entrance to the Show
Zine Thing!
Thank you everyone for your support as I continue to build this ambitious project!
