Hello scavengers!

Sorry for the radio silence. I've been very busy with life stuff, job stuff, and this game. I've made steady progress, but I'm behind where I'd hoped I would be. Here's MG2e's current status.

Almost everything in the text is at or beyond the 1st draft stage. I've been editing and revising stuff as I go, and I'm happy with the state of most of that work. The Village rules are fully designed and fleshed out, as is the Tracking Subphase, and I think you are all going to be very excited once you get your hands on them. The playtest feedback has been unanimously positive and very excited.

Here's what needs to be done before the text is finished

After that's done, I head into layout. While much of the foundational work for the book's layout was taken care of by the QS, I also need to create the Scavenger Logbooks and Village Worksheet, with the latter being particularly important.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I have a great sense as to how much longer these final steps are going to take. I've been able to focus exclusively on MG2e this week and got a lot done, but my day job resumes this coming week, so my pace is going to slow down. If things go to plan, I'll finish the text in May, spend two weeks on layout, send all y'all the PDFs, reach out to my Bio-Scientist backers to coordinate your monster designs, begin working on the physical books, and then get to the additional co-designed monsters. As I hit each of these stages, I'll let y'all know.

Thank you all for your support and patience. I promise this game is worth the wait.
Danielle

Hello scavengers!

I've started to send out the backer surveys, so please keep an eye on your e-mail inboxes! The survey is when you'll confirm your pledge level, add any extra items if you're so inspired, and fill out your shipping info (for those ordering physical rewards). It's crucial info, so please fill it out when you can.

Happy hunting,
Danielle

Sorry for the silence during February - I've been hard at work both at my day job and working on MG2e. The Tracking Subphase is the last structural part of MG2e, and I'm pleased to let y'all know that I just sent the Tracking Subphase and the expanded Once-Emerald Forest off to my playtester/feedback team. The other two Hunting Zones still need to be developed, but we're one big step closer to MG2e's text being fully finished. I'll talk about how the Tracking subphase works below, but I have one other big announcement.

I've partnered up with the folks at Plus One Exp to handle EU fulfillment for MG2e. If you'll recall, the EU late last year changed its import regulations and made it trickier for smaller businesses (like me) to ship commercial products to folks in the EU. Since I wasn't sure exactly how that would impact shipping prices, I hadn't been able to finalize the backer survey. With their (much appreciated!) support, that can now move forward. Look to get your backer surveys this coming week. I'll be using these surveys to coordinate with my monster-maker backers, collect shipping fees, and so on, so please fill them out as soon as you can.

As described in the QS, the Tracking subphase guides your scavengers from the Village into the first Bout against their quarry. During the subphase, you'll collect Traces of nearby monsters. Once you have enough Traces, you can confirm your quarry is nearby (allowing you to start the Bout) or somewhere else entirely. The rarer your quarry is (Common, Uncommon, or Rare) the more Hunting Zones you'll traverse during your search.

However, as you seek out these Traces, you'll also slowly fill in sections on the Monster Awareness clock. When this clock fills, a nearby monster notices you and attacks! You'll need to fend it off in order to continue pursuing your quarry.

You'll search for Traces in Locales unique to each Hunting Zone, determined by drawing a playing card. The value of the card (Ace through King) describes the ecosystem, while the suit determines the state of that ecosystem. As an example, a 5 of Spades in a Once-Emerald Forest represents an acidrainforest at the height of poisonbloom fruiting season.

One scavenger will explore the Locale to see if they can glean any Traces, but their search runs the risk of encountering a setback. Setbacks might fill in segments of the Monster Awareness clock or lead to encounters unique to each ecosystem. While most are negative, a few grant unique benefits or extra consumables.

There's a lot more to the subphase, of course, than what I've shared above, but that should be enough to get you excited for the full release. One of my hopes with this framework is to make it easier for all of you to make your own custom Hunting Zones, and I'm excited to see what you come up with.

Oh, speaking of which:

Once MG2e is digitally released, I'll open a game jam on itch.io for all of you to make your own monsters, weapons, Hunting Zones, or whatever else you want to dream up for MG2e. I'm not sure of all the details yet (dates, duration, etc.), but I wanted to put it officially out there. As I figure those details out, I'll share them here, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, good hunting!

Hello scavengers!

I'm thrilled to announce that the MONSTER GUTS 2e Quickstart is now available! You can find it (for free) on the new MONSTER GUTS 2e website.

The Quickstart contains everything you need to play your first session of MONSTER GUTS 2E, including:

It's a bulky quickstart (including almost as much information as the entire first edition of the game), which is part of why it's taken me this long to put everything together.

Good hunting!

EDIT: I've set up a channel in the Hell.EXE discord server for folks wanting to connect with other scavengers. Additionally, I've made my Tabletop Simulator module for MONSTER GUTS 2e publicly available as well. Currently, this is the best way to play MONSTER GUTS 2e digitally. I am working on options for VTTs like Foundry and Roll20, but they will take time to develop and playtest.