A Cry From The Crypt
about 7 years ago – Wed, Apr 03, 2019 at 02:19:33 AM

YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT 

Traveling, twice the speed of light
 Orion's stars are high tonight
 Gentle madness touched my hand
 Now, I'm just a cosmic man 

Behold! From realms beyond  death come the dice renders... I'll just go ahead and say thank you to Q Workshop and WTF for bringing to life something so stupendous.

These are the mockups please keep that in mind. But...Possibly..maybe?...what do you say??? There could be other colours too. Stay frosty.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

Add Ons that will be available*

•  Shirt(s) $20
• Extra Tome $40
• Dice $20
• Screen $15
• Map $10
• Postcards $15

(you read that correct, you will be able send news from the Black City to confused loved ones.)

Luka is hard at work coloring, doodling, traveling aeons to bring thunder.... 

Moonrat is hard at work making the engine to drive you into the heart of the sun..

Exalted is hard at work scavenging the ruins. 

UVG is almost here.

*Prices and availability are subject to change on these per production. 

Fear of the Monochrome
about 7 years ago – Mon, Apr 01, 2019 at 02:17:39 PM

All the colors, all the time, of course.

Uh, that's a joke, actually. So, this update is a little later than it could have been, since we hit the stretchy milestone a few days ago - we're over 74 kilodollars now and steaming ahead to cover the costs of Saker Tarsos (at $85K) developing a sweet digital referee screen (basically a website with push-button generators for all the tables in the book—and the option of adding more later on).

We're honestly completely blown away by the response. Exalted Funeral's had to set up a sale to start clearing out space for the books and screens and everything, because we did a bit of back-of-the-envelope calculations, and they'll be getting around two tons of book for shipping.

Meanwhile, we've also gotten mostly positive feedback from Q-workshop on the designs. Luka will have to adjust some of the faces to accommodate the engraving machinery, and he was planning to get all that done by now, but he's a bit late on that because there was one major #NeedsMore to take care of first. With this one done, all the locations in the UVG book have been completely detailed. Not laid out yet ... but detailed.

Yup, it's the Near Moon

And yes, there's a table for mashing it into the ground, because every campaign setting needs a few "detonators" scattered about.

So, what's the status? What's next?

Well, we've got a dozen days to go. That's enough time to rustle up a bit more excitement and support and push through the ultimate stretch goal ... a completely daft heavy metal yoga video to celebrate the delivery of the books. In anticipation, we've already secured a technical death metal vocalist and a devoted black metal fan who're willing to give voice to the video. That happens at $99,999.

But as far as the project: we're all systems go. Based on rough work estimates, the first rough layout (before the nipping and tucking and adjustments) will take another 15 days, then head out to the MoonRats for another week or two of proof-reading during which we'll hide Luka in a dim bunker with three crayons and several Venus fly-traps to work on coloring the remainder of the art.

After we have the book ready for print, we'll set up the map, complete dice adjustments, and finish the referee screen for print (the turnaround on those is fortunately shorter than on the book). Some folks asked and yeah - we'll prepare some desktop backgrounds too.

It's going to ... stay busy for the next ten weeks or so.

Thank you again for your support! You are astounding and amazing.

-WTF Studio & Exalted Funeral

Dice For The Red Sun
about 7 years ago – Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 01:11:05 AM

Ultra Old School Dice With Somewhat-roman Numerals

In a day or two we'll find how close we can get with the actual dice ... there will almost certainly be some changes because Luka's concepts aren't 100% to spec (some of the thin pink lines carved out of the black plastic flesh of the dice will have to be thinner, some of the remnants of that plastic flesh will have to be a bit thicker). This won't affect the numerals - but the very thin black and pink lines might become more of a stipply pattern, or a bit chunkier. We're talking 0,14mm (0.005511811 inch) adjustments here.

The good folks at Q-workshop are having a look and will soon let us now how much adjusting it's going to take.

But, since we've got the v1 designs, we might as well share them, right? Right?

Here's fingers crossed Q-workshop can manage this extravaganza bonanza.

Oh, the other reason they're v1? If you see something utterly stupid or unreadable in one of the designs let us know! We've already caught one ... ahem ... "dong" before this upload. If there are more, yeah ... more eyes see more things.

How Is Layout Moving?

Jinkies! It's not. Luka was designing the dice faces. He's getting back to that later today.

$85K Stretch Goal: Digital Reference Companion

We've figured out a stretch goal that should work, since it'll be completely divorced from the delivery of the physical goods. From Luka's side, all of the work on the physical products should be finished by early June - it's going to be Exalted handling the logistics from then on out - but we've received a most interesting suggestion from Saker Tarsos: to make a digital reference for the UVG - with all the tables and generators set up on a single page. Sort of like what Saker Tarsos did for Mothership.

After talking with Saker, we figured out it should be pretty easy to bundle it as a package on github that can then be hosted on a website (like the Mothership digital screen), or in an app, or in other stuff.

So, the minimum product is: a website with automated generators for everything in UVG. Maximum product: well, we might get Saker to build a small tool that makes it easy to import random tables, spit out code, and embed it on other web pages.

We've thought it over, and this little toy should be pretty cool - and it's going to be free for anyone to use. Think of it as a bonus if we do well.

How does that sound?

Cheers,

Luka writing, Exalted watching

Seven Layouts Roar
about 7 years ago – Thu, Mar 21, 2019 at 11:32:07 PM

The book takes shape ...

First a word from Luka: yes, a few people said, "whoah, that looks cooler than the limited edition cover!" That's becauseI drew that one first. I'll revise it, and make sure it stands out. Still have to get the foil details from the printer.

So, please ... peace, peace :)

Anyway, layout's begun. This is what it looks like:

And here is a section with tables and art mixed together.

The structure is working well, which means ... if all goes well ... you should be able to see the whole book laid out and ready for proof-reading in about 2 weeks! At that point, the design file goes to the Moon Rats for some hands-on editing work.

Korean and Hong Kong Shipping Options

Another small bit of news is that we're going to work with a couple of friendly local game stores in Seoul and Hong Kong to help make shipping a bit more affordable. Dice Latte in Seoul and Jolly Thinkers in Hong Kong have said they're willing serve as a pick-up point for backers from those cities, so if it turns out there are enough backers - we can bundle deliveries and get a bit of a better deal on the shipping. Still looking for options for a few other cities. Getting there!

And, hey, if you're in Seoul and ordering to the Dice Latte, Luka might drop by one day in September and sign some books.

Quirky Pretty Dice

After a lot of toing-and-froing, we've decided to try and bring you better dice than planned, with fully custom faces. We're just waiting to sign the contract and get the templates, but the plan is to work with Q Workshop to create some really cool eye-searing dice.

We thought about glow in the dark, but ... sadly we realized that we can't read books in the dark and the core of this project is a book, so no glow in the dark. Anyway, when the templates arrive, we'll set Luka on designing the dice and assigning catlords, porcelain princes, ultras, vomes and satraps to the d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20. The d4 will just stay neutral.

The catlords will probably get the d20 in the end ... meow.

Ok, that's it for now!

There are a few other bits of news in the hopper, and some brand new art because Luka couldn't help himself. Soon we should have a final run-down of the add-on and combo options, some news about the digital DM screen (shhh, half secret!), first sketches for the physical DM screen art (if you've got suggestions, put them in the comments! It's still a wide open field), and so on. Oh, and plus - regular updates as the layout comes together as one.

Cheers!

WTF Studio & Exalted Funeral

Exalted Funeralopolis
about 7 years ago – Sun, Mar 17, 2019 at 12:39:58 AM

With over 1,111 backers subscribed to the UVG, we've decided to do something a little bit ... excessive. A new limited edition backer tier — First and Last of the Voidwalkers — for those who want something a little bit more special.

Slather on your sunscreen and finish off your vampire wine, you're getting one of the last tickets off this decayed old world. This is going to be the only limited bonus pledge level of this kickstarter. If you want others, well, you'll have to wait for another book. We've talked with our printer about doing a small run of 150 books with jet black foil-printed covers and custom bookplates inside. Each of the bookplates is going to have a unique number, a signature and a Pointyhelmet doodle by Luka.

Of course, the dice and the screen and other stuff are included in this tier.

If you're with us for the psychedelic steppe-crawl ttrpg, the previous tiers are all fine. The paper will be the same weight and the content isn't changing. This is a tier just for collectors, who want a special edition.  Of course, if you do want it ... well, great!

Cheers!

-Luka