January Update
about 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 31, 2020 at 02:14:34 AM

Hello!

I’m squeaking in under the wire on this January update.

I was hoping to come to you bearing a finished pdf. I’m very frustrated to say its not going to happen this month. We have a couple of pieces of art to come in, and a little bit more layout to do. I hope you agree with me that it’s worth getting it right, rather than rushing it to you less than the best it can be.

But the good news is we’re so close we can taste it! All creatures are converted, and bar a handful of pieces everything is illustrated. The encounter packs are done. It's a tiny amount of stuff that's outstanding.

We’ve also had some fun earlier this month choosing which monsters made the very final cut - space is always an interesting puzzle, with some monsters needing 2 pages, some having sub sections that push them longer. So that takes a bit of arranging, but we have our final line up. Exciting!

To keep you going before we deliver the pdf here’s some new pages.  Looking good!

(You might spot these don't have their page edge tabs - those will get added right at the end so we know on which side of the page they belong)

Commission a monster

Emails went out last week to Commission a monster backers, and we have four out of seven with us. If you’re a Monster Commissioner, please check your associated email account if you didn’t get the short questionnaire.

We’re building these in-house so we’re sure we can get them done in good time for pdf delivery. And if we have to leave a couple of blank pages in the initial backer pdf edition then that’s what we’ll do.

Scarred Lands News

Have you checked out Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad part one yet? Yugman's Guides are coming out every month and are well worth your time.

So slight disappointment this month, but we're so ridiculously close that I am extremely confident next time we speak I will be sharing a PDF with you.

Thanks again for all your support!

Jon and the Handiwork Team

December Update - Backerkit is coming!
over 4 years ago – Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 05:14:17 PM

Hello! I'm pretty sure this will be at least a two-update-month!

James from Only Path has been working very hard to get everything in place to open our Backerkit Pledge Manager.

This will be opened in stages, just to make sure everything is present and correct and it all works - this is nothing to worry about - we’ll let a few backers into the BackerKit at first just to test it out, before throwing the doors wide open and letting you all in. That will happen over a couple of days.

So what is Backerkit?
Backerkit is a service which allows us to manage your pledges a lot more effectively than we can do with Kickstarter’s native functions. It also lets you add to your pledge. So for example if there was something you wanted to add on but couldn’t during the campaign, or something you’ve realised you want to get, you’ll be able to add it in Backerkit.

It also lets us handle Add Ons very very easily, for both you and us.

Backerkit works a bit like a webshop. You’ll have your pledge locked in, and then any extra credit you added for Add Ons will be there too, and you can choose what you want for that extra support. It also allows us to add late pledges for folks who'd like to get on board.

How does it work?
You’ll get an email inviting you to take part in the BackerKit Survey. If you can fill this in nice and promptly that helps us. But you’ll also be able to change your answers up until we lock it down. And we’ll give you plenty of warning of when that will happen.

You may have an account with BackerKit already. If you don’t you can make one very easily, or alternatively you can complete your BackerKit “stuff” without an account. It’s entirely up to you. It is pretty handy to have an account if you use Kickstarter a lot.

If you used your Facebook credentials to log in to your Kickstarter account, the BackerKit survey is sent to the email address you use for your Facebook account. If you have another email address that you prefer to use, please contact support at https://scarred-lands-creature-collection-for-5th-edition-rpg.backerkit.com/faq

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://scarred-lands-creature-collection-for-5th-edition-rpg.backerkit.com/

At that link you can also pre-order a bunch of rewards if you missed the campaign entirely. We'll be fgocusing more on that in the coming weeks, and you'll see us encouraging others to join us.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions!

Project Progress

As we thought would be likely, I'm pretty sure that we’re not going to have the PDF entirely finished in December. We’re still working away as hard as we can, but I don’t think it’ll be quite done for this month, given the Christmas break. But we should get it to you in January, and given the expansion of the book, that’s not too bad. Something to look forward to after the festive season!

Everything continues to come together nicely. It’s a unique project, in some ways, since you’ve had such a thorough set of samples! We don’t have anything radically new to share - We’re continuing to build more pages and more monsters, and I’m very much looking forward to sharing the completed book with you in PDF just as soon as it’s complete!

Thanks again for all your support!

Jon and the Handiwork Team

November Update
over 4 years ago – Sat, Nov 30, 2019 at 02:22:50 AM

Hello!
As promised, here’s your first monthly update. We’ll be making at least one update per calendar month, with more as appropriate when we have something to say, to ask you, or to share.
So what have we been up to since the campaign finished? On this one it’s very relatively straight forward! Let's check it out:

Conversion
We’re almost there! We have a just a handful of monsters left to convert, which is bang on schedule. You’ve seen the kind of thing we’re doing, and we’ve been doing a lot more of it.

Art
Our team have been very busy, and we’ve synced up the conversions with the order the art is being produced. Again, progress is good. Nothing to report other than steady progress as planned.

Layout

That syncing of art and conversion feeds nicely into layout, so the book is coming together nicely. We have the great advantage with this one that the book is highly modular, so we can make it one  page at a time, so we're making good progress doing just that. You’ve seen a whole load of samples of layout, so you know what this looks like!

Commission a Monster

For those of you who have pledged at the Commission a Monster level, we will be in touch soon with an email survey to get that process rolling. I wanted us to have the main production pipeline in good order before we bothered you, but we're ready!

Backerkit
James from OPP has been hard at work on Backerkit, our pledge manager, and that will soon go live. You’ll be able to manage your pledge, choose your add ons, and add additional things you’d like. We’ll make an update when that goes live.

Delivery

The book expanded considerably through the campaign, but our schedule is looking good! The delivery estimate for the initial-sized PDF was December, and thanks to you all we’re working on something considerably larger. I’d like my team to have some time off to rest over Christmas, so it’s possible (but not entirely certain) that we won’t deliver the PDF in December, but instead in January.

We might still make that December estimate, but I want you to be forewarned that due to the Christmas break we may slip into January. Our next update should be able to confirm in more detail.

Progress is great, but we don’t want to rush those extra pages just to meet a date in December, rather than do it justice and deliver in January.

That’s it for now! We’ll be in touch soon with those Monster Makers!

Thank you!
Jon

Well that’s all folks!
over 4 years ago – Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 10:37:48 AM

Thank you so much for your support, pledges, votes and for a wonderfully easy to manage community.

It’s been a pleasure and we’re bowled over by the numbers. It’s been lovely speaking to you all, and thank you to everyone for being so thoroughly civilised throughout. I was steeled for managing a rowdy mob, and that’s proved completely unnecessary. You’ve all been lovely!

What’s next? So I’m taking what is hopefully a well earned break this week. I have the opportunity to visit Lindisfarne, so I’m there with bells on!

We’ll start prepping the backerkit pledge manager, and communicate with you when that’s open. We’ve been working away on material for the book since we funded, so progress is good, and our road map is very clear. This project has the advantage of being amazingly modular! Page by page it’ll come together, and then we’ll send you a pdf. Estimated delivery for that is December. The project has expanded a fair amount, but we will be doing our utmost to meet that date, and we should still be good to deliver then.

We’ll let you have a good look at that for some extra proofing. But for now we’re heads down and getting on with the business of finishing up this book!

I’ll pop in with updates as we go. I’ll be back at least once in a month - I won’t set a specific date for that, since it’s better to show up with something to share than on an arbitrary date with nothing new. But expect at least one update per calendar month.

But enough details for now. Thank you so much from me, Paul and Scott, the Handiwork Team and on behalf of Rich, Travis and the OPP squad. Speak to you soon!

Jon

It’s the final countdown
over 4 years ago – Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 07:20:36 AM

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