December Update: Playtests and Timelines
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 06:59:48 AM
Hi friends,
Over the last few weeks we have been putting the finishing touches on the adventure, which has primarily included quality control efforts. After finding a handful of orphaned paragraphs (entries with nothing linking to them) during this process, we've decided to go back through everything with a fine-toothed comb. This will push back delivery of the book, but our ultimate goal is a player experience that is completely free of frustrating errors and dead-ends to the story.
Over the next two weeks, we'll be reviewing the manuscript a final time for any errors involving the story diagram. Once that is completed, we'll be ready to open things up to a public playtest. I hope to have the playtest to you before Christmas, and that process will last two weeks.
After that, we'll compile the feedback, make corrections if needed, and then go through final editing and layout. The plan is to have the PDF ready by the end of February, and immediately go into physical printing after that.
This means a delay of a few months from our January deadline. While we never want to push a project back, I am confident that the final book is going to be more polished thanks to taking a little more time with it.
Surveys Have Been Corrected
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 07:17:05 AM
My apologies for those of you incorrectly charged VAT, but the surveys have been corrected. For a few of you, you will need to re-do you survey with the correct VAT details applied. You will be getting reminder emails from BackerKit for that. I apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience!
On that note, I'll be uploading the rewards from previous campaigns over the next 24 hours. Note that this will not include anything from the Festival of Tombs itself, but if you backed for our other PDFs you will have those in BackerKit shortly. Expect a separate email from BackerKit when those rewards are ready.
We're tying up some loose ends on the public beta test, but we expect that to go forward next week. I'll post another update for when it is ready.
Wait on Filling Your Survey if You are in EU / UK
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Nov 28, 2023 at 09:09:17 AM
Hi folks,
Surveys are out after what seemed like a successful smoke test, but minutes after sending the full survey it appears I've calculated VAT wrong for digital backers. If you are in the EU or UK and are a digital only backer, hold off on filling out your surveys until I can correct this with BackerKit's team. If you are outside of that area you should be good to complete your survey.
Surveys Coming Soon: Smoke Tests are Out
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 07:46:22 PM
We are ready to open up the pledge manager, folks. We'll be using BackerKit, and your surveys will go out soon. In fact, some of you will be receiving them this evening. This is part of a "smoke test," which involves us sending surveys to around 5 percent of backers to check for errors and generally see how things are going. Don't panic if you don't get an e-mail yet, the rest will come soon.
Assuming all is well with the smoke test, we expect to have the full survey out this weekend. We'll have more information about the beta test at that time, too. Thanks again for your support!
November Update: Public Playtest is Coming
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 08:21:14 AM
Hello friends,
As it stands, the adventure is finished and has gone through two different rounds of playtesting. After discussing things with our author Randall Right, we both agreed that offering a public playtest before we finalize things for print would be a good way to nail down any final issues while also giving those of you who want to participate a chance to get a playthrough in early.
We aren't quite ready to release the playtest document, as we are stilling taking into account feedback from the previous round of testing. When we do, I'll link our discord where you can grab the documents and provide us with any feedback you might have. the more feedback we get, the better!
What else is new? For starters, the cartography for the book was just submitted for review! We are in the process of reviewing that now, but we expect to have the maps finalized in short order. Keep an eye out for our next update as we make the public playtest available.
The Almanac of Allies
Scoundrel Game Labs is closing out the year with a final Kickstarter campaign, and it might be of interest to solo D&D players. The Almanac of Allies is currently live on Kickstarter, and the book provides 30 well-balanced, easy to use sidekicks for D&D 5E. These are more than just stat blocks, as our allies scale from levels 1 to 20 along with your player characters. They include lots of lore, quest hooks, and even some new magic items. what's more, they are easy to use and simple to level, making it possible to run alongside your own PC without issue.
