Monday, March 18, 2013

Time Heroes of Fate - Roadblock Near the End of the Road


So I've entered my week to dedicate to finishing up Time Heroes of Fate (well, the beta of the core rules, anyway). +Ashley Ishmael, my fiancee, has just started her spring break and other than working the overnight tonight, she has neither work nor school until the end of the week. This means that I'll have lots of time this week to work on the beta of the core rules while she hangs out with the little guy.

Unfortunately, at the moment I'm not (obviously) working on the document itself. I had a great head of steam going until I hit the current portion of the game master section; designing adventures. I already have the idea for the sample adventure I plan on including in the core rules (it's going to be an adaptation of the con demo I've been running), but I also want to use creating it as the examples in the design section. I just created the text box for the first example (which is just the basic breakdown of a "typical" episode of Time Heroes of Fate) and slammed headfirst into a wall.

If course the first thing that came to mind was pop over to the blog/design journal that I've been basically ignoring since I began pounding out the core rules (which now officially clocks in at 92 pages with a chapter and a half left to go) to discuss it. The problem I'm running into is that I already know the basic layout of the adventure, but am having troubles breaking down the design aspects behind it. 

Instead, I've opted to pop over here and write up a little update on how everything sits.
- Two chapters left to write up (though I am debating writing up a third and inserting it earlier in the document.
- Justin Rach has signed on as artist for the project (the art shown in an earlier post is from him) and we are currently working on how to figure out compensation for the long term.
- Initial feedback from play test groups and con demos has been overwhelmingly positive. Some criticisms came out, but everything was constructive (and much was more GM-based than game-based which, due to my newness to Fate in general, was to be expected) and has pretty much been addressed.
+GeekWorld Online has been registered as my DBA for the purpose of publishing the book and each 'i' has been dotted and 't' crossed, so that's official now (which also bodes well for custom dice bags designed by Ashley down the road to be made available to purchase).
- Several stretch goals for the +Kickstarter of the game itself have been decided upon, with plenty of time to come up with more still. At this point, we know additional art in the core rulebook will be a stretch goal, a physical copy of the book (as opposed to being strictly online dissemination) is another (with signed copies as a separate backer level from just getting a physical copy), with thoughts on my part of designing a 'Who's Who of Time Heroes of Fate' supplement (basically consisting of a large amount of pregenerated NPCs for use in the game, apart from those provided) being considered as another. 
-Several interviews have been done on camera, as well as actual play that will be spliced into the final Kickstarter video.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with progress on the project. If I'm stuck with some writer's block for a little bit, that's acceptable. I also plan on editing and posting at least one (if not two) actual play videos from Plattecon on the YouTube channel.

Things I still need to do:
- Get serious about spreading the word to people (or better yet, find excited people to assist in spreading the word so I'm not tooting my own horn all day long).
- Get t-shirts made up for the GeekWorld Online volunteers at Berserkon in May.
- Go back into the beta document once the basic chapters are done and do some minor rewriting to make the text more flavorful to the atmosphere of the game.
- Open up GeekWorld Online's business bank account so that's ready for when the time comes to start the Kickstarter
- Figure out exactly how to announce the Kickstarter at Berserkon (video at the artisan table, fliers, etc.)
- Put together a quickstart adventure with simplified rules and pregenerated characters and have that ready and available to handout at the convention in the hopes of drumming up excitement for the project.

So, that's how things sit so far. Now, I suppose it's time to get back into the document and see about taking a sledgehammer to that wall that's still sitting there.

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