April studio update

In my head, I publish an update blog once a month which tells you all where we are with the game and RPG content. Now that I actually look through the blog I realise how irregularly I do this. I will try harder in the future.

Here's what we have going on:

On Kickstarter

Right now we have the campaign for :

• Starship Scavengers: Gorgon's Wake This is the latest adventure for Starship Scavengers and the first, in a whilst, to return to the original premise of the game namely a derelict starship. In this instance, the ship in question is a dying bioship that you have been notified about. You have the jump on the corporate salvaging teams but only have a limited amount of time to get in, get the goods and get out. Campaign Link: Gorgon's Wake

The campaign does have one of the best videos that we've done for a campaign so far. I'm really quite pleased with it!

I also update the Frontier Times, with this months free Starship Scavengers content and can be found here.

Fulfilling

• Starship Scavengers: Pyramids of Infinity This adventure is mostly posted. We had expected to finish the posting by tomorrow but it looks like it will be next week now due to staff sickness. (I have explained that just because there is more of them it doesn't mean they can start taking time off because they are ill!)

• Zilight: Wild West This should have been shipping this week but the card printers have had internal delays which has pushed back our considerable sized order to May. I'm not happy about it and I have expressed by displeasure. Backers have been incredibly understanding and supportive which has been great - thank you.

  The PDF is available here, and the rules here.

• The Oracle #49: Dangerous Orcs Is due to be released next month in print and PDF and it is on track for that.

• Arena Rumble: Orcs This pocket quest game is with the editor after being redesigned and thoroughly play-tested. You play an orc who aims to prove they are the toughest around and enter their local arena to prove it. You fight across multiple bouts until you take on the arena champion! It is due for a limited release with The Oracle above and then a further release later. See Arena Rumble in Creating below.

• Rage at the Moon This interactive fiction book had it's campaign finish about ten days ago and I'm delighted to confirm that the core content is written with the game testing and editing stages now underway. It also grew by 15% and is, I think, a lot of fun to read/play through. I might change the combat system prior to release but that's why we now have several months before it is due for release and we can nail down the best system.

  

  I will neither deny, nor confirm, reports that I was spotted raging at the moon whilst writing the incredibly complex 460 paragraph, interactive fiction book!

Creating/Developing/Drafting

[Fantasy card game]

Further to the last blog and the announcement that the company has expanded by Ben joining the company I can confirm that the game idea that he walked in with on day one has borne fruit and it will very likely be coming to a Kickstarter near you very soon...

I can't share any images as he's literally done the whole thing himself and he has all the files!

I did chip in with design ideas and pointers but the game is very much his, and so is the design of the cards. We are currently in the play testing phase (which is going well) and this one will be a finished product prior to the Kickstarter launch.

I am under orders not to say more about it for now, but expect a fantasy card game that is NOT like Zilight, but will still enable a regular deck to be used if you don't want to purchase the custom deck. The game plays out over eleven rounds, and in testing has lasted anything from 30 - 60 minutes per game which we think is about bang on for a game of this type. More on that in the next news blog.

[Pocket Games] Zilight High Noon and Arena Rumble

More people brings more ideas. It also brings more time to expand on what we have done before. That said, we are also conscious that there is only so much time for folks to play games so we aren't going to go crazy with a ton of new campaigns. What we do think we have time to do however is expand our range of Pocket Quest games.

We have three games already finished (prior to editing) that have been sitting in the design folders for a while. We aim to get those edited, and along with Zilight: High Noon (which was released as a Print and Play title to the Zilight:Wild West backers) we can also add Arena Rumble which is a series of six compatible, but independent games, that are all mostly finished.

Arena Rumble sees the player character setting out to become arena champion. Each title has the same core rules and variations based on the faction/race. Those are currently orc, elf, lizardkin, undead, demon and human.

We have designed the games so you can intermix the cards if you want. That means you can either run your orc character against human foes, for example, or make them work harder by going up against orcs and human adversaries in a longer match!

We are planning a quarterly release for these games where we bundle them in groups to help min/max content to postage. Again, more details on that in May.

More might be happening in May, but for now, that's where we are in April.

A final word should go to the troll in the room - tariffs...

We have had confirmation this morning, that currently, our content is exempt from tariffs when we ship to the US. And when I say confirmation - this was from a group courier company who emailed all their clients and explained why. So, all good, at least for the moment. Long may that continue.

Right, I should get back to creating.

Until next time, keep gaming.

Stephen