What's happening, Espers?! Good to see you! George from Three Sails Studios, here, with my first weekly update on the City of Espers campaign!

And what a week it has been! If I'm honest, I've barely slept. Between the excitement of the City of Espers campaign launch and a jaunt to Edinburgh for the Tabletop Scotland convention, my mind has been buzzing (though I've been assured this isn't the onset of telekinetic powers; such a shame)!

At time of writing, 391 Espers have arrived in Zener City and are getting ready to build their Houses, reveal their psychic abilities to the world, and start making their mark on our technicolour metropolis. Together, we've raised a total of £17,944, bringing us to more than 200% funded!

From myself, Nathan (City of Espers creator), and the rest of the Three Sails Studios team, thank you for your support so far!

In Zener City, you can expect the House of Oracle to bring you all the news you need to hear. But there is also a rich tradition of pirate radio station, guerrilla TV broadcasting, and more handmade zines than you can shake a stick at.

Beyond Zener, though, you can count on City of Espers creator Nathan Blades to greet you whenever you open up YouTube.

While I've been busy promoting the game at Tabletop Scotland (thanks to all who stopped by to talk about the game, flick through the book, and to those who immediately backed the campaign on the spot!), Nathan has been the face around town, hosting a Crafting an Esper livestream, joining the team at Inside the Rookery for a livestreamed interview and answering questions from their always engaged community, and joining VTuber and TTRPG designer Mildra the Monk for an interview covering the ins and outs of the game!

If you want to hear all about City of Espers directly from the creator and designer, these interviews are a great place to start. I've linked them here in the update for your enjoyment and information.

Check out Nathan's interview with Inside the Rookery here!

Check out Nathan's interview with Mildra the Monk here!

With one week down and three weeks left to go, we have entered what is commonly known in the crowdfunding space as 'the valley'. This is the point in the campaign where the initial peak of support has slowed down and we enter a much slower time for the crowdfunding campaign.

But, despite that, support for City of Espers continues, and we're very grateful to everyone who has chosen to support the campaign so far!

At more than 200% funded, I am very happy to say that City of Espers, in all its technicolour glory, is guaranteed to go to print! As with all Three Sails Studios projects, we'll be going to print the day after the campaign concludes and our excellent printers, MegaPrint, will do an amazing job on getting the game ready for your tables and shelves.

In the meantime, we are working towards our first Social Impact Stretch Goal milestone! When the campaign reaches £25,000, we'll be upgrading our solidarity donation from £1 per backer to a fixed £1,000, which will be donated to a youth homelessness charity.

This is part of our ongoing commitment as a design studio and company to support causes in need of our support. Each and every backer makes these donations possible, so consider increasing your pledge (from digital to physical, for example, or from physical to All In), sharing the campaign with your friends, communities, and online spaces, and just getting involved down in the comments below.

With that, Espers, I will sign this update off and get back to the day to day of running a TTRPG crowdfunder. We only have five more pieces of art waiting to arrive before the book is complete, so I'll be getting print files ready, reading and responding to your comments, and getting ready for my home game of City of Espers to kick off in the next few weeks!

Until next week, as always, keep yourselves safe and be excellent to each other!

In solidarity,

George
City of Espers producer
Studio Lead, Three Sails Studios

But it isn't over yet! September stretches out before us and Zener City, our technicolour metropolis, certainly has room for more sparking Espers to join the party!

Something I like to do during crowdfunding campaigns is give you all a peek behind the curtain so you can understand the campaign more deeply. Today, to celebrate how quickly we funded, I'm going to give you a breakdown of the current split between pledge levels.

At the moment, the All In Edition (which, remember, comes in a beautiful box and with a custom deck of City of Espers playing cards!) is the most popular pledge by a good long way. At time of writing, 143 backers have chosen this pledge level.

The next most popular is the Physical Edition (which comes with a physical copy of the City of Espers rulebook and PDFs, too!), with 59 backers currently opting for this version.

The Digital Edition is hot on the heels of the Physical Edition, with 45 backers opting for a PDF-only copy, and another 24 backers making use of our Low Income pledge tier. We're happy to have you with us!

Thank you all for your support so far; it means the world to the whole team behind City of Espers. For those who might have been on the fence before we funded, don't forget that you can always upgrade your pledge! City of Espers will be going to print the day after the campaign concludes, and we expect to have physical copies arriving around the world in December and January, as part of our No Long Waits! promise.

So, if you're feeling the vibe Zener City has to offer, consider boosting your pledge to the next level. And if you do, know that every pledge contributes to our...

Every Three Sails Studios game contributes money towards a good cause linked to the themes and messages of each game contains. For Mappa Mundi, we gave £2,500 to an elephant sanctuary. For Gallows Corner, we gave £2,500 to a food bank and crisis centre. For City of Espers, we'll be donating to a youth homelessness charity!

Every pledge adds money to the pot or helps us get closer to a larger bulk donation. As it stands, we're donating £1 for every backer, but when the campaign reaches £25,000, we'll be donating £1,000 (or £1 per backer, whichever is higher).

So, please know that each and every one of you are contributing to making the world a better place just by pledging for this excellent game. Thanks for your support!

With the campaign now well under way, what can you expect to see from us over the next four weeks?

Well, every Tuesday, you'll hear from me (George, City of Espers producer and Three Sails studio lead) through these updates, breaking down what has been happening in the campaign and sharing insider looks at City of Espers.

If that's not enough, Nathan (City of Espers creator and designer) will be doing regular streams over on their Twitch channel which we'll also link through to here on Backerkit. These will be participatory streams and are a great place to talk everything City of Espers.

And of course, you can always ask questions or just hang out here on the Backerkit page! The more questions and comments we get, the better, as I always love answering them (and it helps me do something else other than looking at the funding number, so help a guy out, hey?)

With that all said, I'm now getting ready to catch a train up to Edinburgh for the Tabletop Scotland convention, where Three Sails Studios will be exhibiting from Friday to Sunday. If you're in the area, come find us and have a chat!

But until next week, or if I hear from you in the comments, keep safe and be excellent to each other!

In solidarity,
George