January: BIG NEWS! Digital release imminent! Files to printer! OST preview!
over 3 years ago – Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 12:49:39 AM

Hey folks!

This update is dedicated to my partner, who has done far more than her fair share of childcare this month to give me time to work on ORBITAL. While I’d been making good progress, I knew I needed a big push to get the project delivered in line with my plans. 

So here we are! It’s amazing what a few nights of unbroken sleep and uninterrupted days can produce. Let me tell you all the things that have happened this month.

Bucket of Bolts

I don’t want to bury the lede, so here we go: Bucket of Bolts is my ZineQuest project this year, and it launches next week, February 2nd, on the anniversary of Artefact launching.

It’s a hack of my first Kickstarter project, Artefact, but instead of magical items this one focuses on spaceships. You can read much more on the project page when it goes live.

The header art is still incoming, but I wanted to share it with you in my January update anyway. There will be a limited number of Collector’s Editions, so get ready at 6pm GMT on 2/2 if you want to grab one :)

I didn’t want to let ZineQuest pass without doing a fun little project, but rest assured that managing Orbital fulfilment is still my focus. The work I’ve been doing this month has been all about getting my jobs on the project finished up, so pretty much all that’s left is to coordinate the final push.

So, on to that!

Playtesting/editing

Firstly, thank you so much to anyone who playtested a version of Orbital this month (or before!) and given me feedback. It’s been such an interesting process iterating and revising the game in response to playtest feedback, and I’m so happy with how it’s turned out. Learning what worked well, what needed improving and what was a little superfluous was hugely rewarding.

I’ve also had the game passed through our consulting designer Luke Jordan, who’s comments have been really illuminating and resulted in refinement of moves, replacing weak sections & clarifying my intent. And, of course, it’s been to our editors Jarrett Crader & Fiona Maeve Geist (MRC) who have made the whole thing easier to read & more consistent (and picked up all my little errors!). Each stage of this process has made the game tighter, richer and easier to play, and it’s all possible because of your overwhelming support for the campaign. Thanks!

Digital Release

With the text now complete, I’ve sent the book over to Torben to fill with fun little margin illustrations. Once that’s done it’ll go over to Yubi who will ensure that the text & images are all formatted properly for screen readers and prepare an alternative version for those with visual processing needs.

I’m aiming to launch the digital edition in the first half of February.

You should all already have your codes for itch.io — if you don’t, drop me a message either on Kickstarter or Twitter.

Printing

Once the margin illustrations are done, I will be sending to book to print! We’ve already ordered the paper as it’s arriving from Italy and we’re aware of potential delays to EU-UK shipping because our government are a bunch of clucking fowns. As long as the print shop & finishers can avoid a covid shutdown, we should be on track to start shipping in March. I‘ll share some pictures of the finished zine as soon as I have a copy in my hand. I’m extremely excited :)

Fulfilment

I’m not shipping anything out myself this time around (woohoo!). I stuck ~3000 labels onto Artefact packages last year, and swore ’never again’! 

I’ll have an update on expected timelines for delivery of physical rewards when we’re closer to the mark.

Outstanding

There are a few things left on my to-do list that are worth mentioning here, just so you know I’m still working on/aware of them.

•  Guest playbooks: These are coming along great but are not quite ready for release yet. All the art is ready. Not long though!
•  Online play resources: Coming along nicely, but I’m awaiting a response from a certain popular VTT provider to figure out which route I’ll be taking.
•  Satellie Descent: the four solo / epistolary games I’m working on are coming along nicely. I’m hoping to have the first to share with you sometime in the next week, about a postal worker delivering a package to someone on the station.
•  Soundtrack: Christopher has been working steadily on the soundtrack for Orbital while also handling the mess that was 2020. Here’s one of the character playbook themes, intended to be played as you read through the introduction:

Thanks

While changing years won’t have solved anyone’s problems, I hope that most of you feel like you’re moving towards brighter times. Here, as the days get longer and we catch the odd pale glimpse of the sun, we’re feeling cautiously optimistic.

The support you’ve all shown for my games over the past year has been incredible, and has really kept me going through some tough, gruelling months. 

So yeah, thank you. You’re great.

See you next month,

Jack

December: Playtest packet released!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 03:57:40 AM

Hey folks,

Listen, I'm gonna be real for a moment. When I chose to pitch ORBITAL as my second Kickstarter project, the core of that decision was pragmatism. Dream Station, ORBITAL's predecessor, was a complete, playtested game but I had never been quite happy with how it was presented. So, I figured it would be nice to take it, jazz it up with a new layout & art, and release it. It would be a relatively simple project, because 2020 is a dick and because I knew we had a second child on the way.

But I messed up my plan! I started teasing at the edges of the design, pulling at threads that had never quite looked right to me in the original. Before I knew it, I had a big pile of yarn in front of me and not much to show for it.

I ended up reworking the design at a pretty fundamental level to better achieve the goals I had for the game, and rewriting almost all of the character and setting content because I knew I could do better. So here we are, later than I intended (but still well on track!). I've got something for you. I hope you like it!

The Playtest Packet

So, here's what's in the playtest packet:

•  A nicely laid-out playkit, with six character roles, six aspects and a station sheet.
•  A barebones rules explanation, with (hopefully) all the information you need to play the game.

At this stage, I’m writing for experienced role-players who can improvise a rule if necessary and have established safety tools for use during play. If you’re pretty new to RPGs or the idea of playing a GMless game is challenging, please wait for the full release — we’ll have worked out all the kinks by then and provide guidance to ease you into it!

For reference, here's what's NOT included:

• Safety tools, content warnings.
• Guidance on how to play.
• Rules for playing with a GM.
• Bonus content from the guest contributors.
• VTT optimised sheets & reference.
• Musical accompaniment.

This text also hasn’t seen our line editor, sensitivity reader or accessibility consultant. That work is best done when the text is complete, but if you notice something glaring in the meantime please do let me know!

I'd really love to hear how you get on with the game if you're able to pull together a group to play it. I'm hoping to move pretty rapidly with the project now we're rolling, so I'm looking to close the feedback period for this playtest on Thursday 14th January 2021. I'm working on the game book now, so barring any major issues that come up, I'll then look for a full digital release at the end of January. 

That will also be when we look to go to print, and get the physical rewards train rolling. I'm staying fairly hands-off with the fulfilment this time around, leaving it to the professionals instead, so hopefully I'll be fairly free by February. This will let me focus on fun things like the ORBITAL mini-game collection and possibly something ZineQuest 3 related...

We could have big issues with the playtest, or family issues could delay things, or 2021 could throw any number of other spanners into this machine. But I'm hopeful! We'll see...

You should receive an email from BackerKit today with a link allowing you to claim the game on itch.io and download all the files. These files will be updated as we head towards a full release.

Test Prints

I received the second batch of test prints just before Christmas, and I couldn't be happier! In the first round of prints we'd had an issue where the dithering shading on the digital images (little dots) wasn't coming through well with the RISO printing technique. We've fixed that now, and they look great. I'm so excited to see the book in finished form now :) There's a couple more kinks to work out with the interior pages, but nothing major.

Happy New Year!

I'd just like to say another huge thank you (another one yes, sorry!) to all the backers of ARTEFACT and ORBITAL. This has been a really, really challenging year for everyone, but these two creative projects have been hugely fulfilling and a welcome distraction. You're awesome!

See you in 2021.

J

November, November, November
over 3 years ago – Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 09:49:49 PM

Hey folks!

Holy hell, what a month it's been. We're just about to emerge from our second 'full lockdown' (?) here in the UK and while I'm fully in support of the measures, I am very bored of the inside of my walls at this point. Progress on the game has been slow with a bored toddler & mewling newborn in the house, but I'm steadily working through the tasks wherever I can find the time.

 So, this is kind of a 'holding' update as I didn't want to leave it too long without checking in. Here's what's in the works:

• Test prints for the cover & interior art are being printed on Sunday, so hopefully I'll have the book spec finalised next week — and some nice images!
• The revised character roles are finished, and they're looking great. I'm really happy with the new version of the game, and can't wait to try it out with some of you soon.
• The setting elements & station sheet are also coming together. Three of the six are drafted, and the remaining three should come together easily once I'm settled on the layout.
• I'm working on a barebones rules description for the playtest — nothing fancy, just enough to get you playing using the playkit files (characters, station & setting elements).
• The two guest designer character playbooks have been agreed, and I'm really happy with what they came up with! Both bring something new to the character selection, and I'm excited to have some different voices lending their design ethos to the game.
• I'm going to lock orders & charge cards on BackerKit at the end of the month so I can finalise numbers for printing & send out the digital rewards as they're available (I know lots of you added a copy of Artefact to your basket, so I'll be able to get that to you straight away!).

So yeah, lots of stuff going on, but not so much to show for it yet. I'm hopeful that I'll be sending out the playkit files pretty soon, but I'd rather send the best version out for feedback and sometimes getting the writing just right takes much longer than anticipated! Finger's crossed though that I'll be scheduling in early playtests before the end of 2020.

Right. I'm tired, today was a long day. Goodnight!

J

Emerging from the fog...
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 10:06:15 PM

Hey folks,

Thanks for being so understanding about my family situation, it's been good not to have to worry about the Kickstarter while juggling so much home stuff. Your messages of support & congratulations were very well received! We're all home now, and things with our newborn are generally looking pretty good at this point as far as we can tell. So it's just regular baby stuff to deal with — torpedoed sleep cycles, unexplainable crying and endless nappies. But we're used to that.

Progress restarting!

With things on the home front becoming more predictable - if not less all-consuming - I've had time to start picking up the tasks for the delivery of ORBITAL again. I've been liaising with guest contributors, talking print changes with Torben & Craig, and (mostly) working on the playkit.

For me, designing a BoB-style game starts with the playkit. These are the sheets you'll be printing out (or using on-screen) as you play — the characters, setting elements and community creation stuff. As I design & layout (a tandem process for me!), I've ended up making more changes to the core of the game than I initially thought I would. I'll be going into more detail about the new direction over on Little Mouse Letters later this month, because it's not final yet (needs more playtesting) and not everyone wants a lengthy digression into design intentions & decisions!

Regarding timelines for this project, I'm fairly happy with them unchanged. Having a newborn was always going to be disruptive, so while it happened at a slightly unexpected time it shouldn't mess with the schedule too much.

Playtesting

Thanks to the hundreds of you who said you'd be up for playtesting ORBITAL before general release. I'm intending to get a first draft ready and send it out, and then use a form to gather feedback from playtesters. Ahead of that, though, I'm hoping to arrange 3-4 online sessions of the game that I'll facilitate. If you'd be interested in having me run a (possibly broken!) version of ORBITAL with you & your group over Zoom or equivalent in the next couple of months, please send me a message on KS. Even better if you're based in the UK or Europe, where the time zone situation is a bit more forgiving.

Playkit art

Torben has been doing a stellar job taking my slightly vague brief for the playkit art (our final stretch goal) and making something cool with it.

Each character and setting element will have their own little slice of art like this, showing items or scenes related to the playbook. I can't wait to see the whole set!

Right then. Back to InDesign to carry on working on this playkit. See you all soon!

early arrivals
over 3 years ago – Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 12:06:36 AM

Just a quick one - our second child was born yesterday, five weeks early. So I probably won’t respond to messages over the next few days as we figure things out.

All the best,

J