Latest progress
over 5 years ago – Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 07:45:34 PM

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Progress update
over 5 years ago – Tue, Oct 02, 2018 at 10:52:44 PM

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Progress update
over 5 years ago – Tue, Sep 04, 2018 at 09:12:03 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

We did it!
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 11:42:33 PM

Hi everyone!

After an exhausting and exhilarating month, Flotsam charged through its last two stretch goals in the final 48 hours, snuck over 700 backers in the last 2 hours, and, leaning forward as it reached the finish line, broke £15,000 in the last 10 seconds. I'm so pleased to have you all on board - whether you were there on day one or joined at the last minute, thankyou for your support.

Becky and I spent the afternoon celebrating with a very silly movie (Jurassic World) and Mexican Food, and we're heading off on holiday in Devon next week. After that, the work begins in earnest.

There's now four main things to do to get the game ready for printing:

• Finalise the draft game text. This is largely ready for the main body of the game, but I plan to do some light editing, and of course there's the stretch goal scenarios to write. I'll be kicking that process off in the coming weeks.
• Copy editing and proofreading. Once the game text is in its final draft I'll send it to Mo to hammer out any errors, weak drafting, and so on.
• Layout. I'll be working with Stí to finalise the appearance of the game, including the cover; actually populating the layout with text will happen later, when we've got a finished text.
• Illustrations. This is the big one: thanks to your generous support there will be quite a few of these. Anna has already started work; Claudia will be ready to start in September. The illustrations can be created in parallel to the work on the text, and dropped into the layout when complete.

I've allowed a generous amount of time for this work to take place, because you never know what is going to happen on a project like this. The planned delivery date for the PDF is May 2019, and for the book, June 2019.

From this point on I will keep you updated on progress roughly once a month - varying by maybe a week either side. I'll do this even if there's no progress to report, and conversely you won't normally get updates more frequently even if there's a lot going on, because I don't want to overload your inboxes.

Thanks again for your backing - I'm really excited to get this game into your hands. Time to start work.

Yours

Josh

Final day - and a new add-on
over 5 years ago – Thu, Aug 09, 2018 at 09:31:11 AM

Hi everyone

A warm welcome to those of you who've just backed the project - about 100 in the last day. It's very exciting to have you all on board!

New scenarios

Thanks to this rush of supporters, we funded Helen Gould's stretch goal scenario Best Served Cold in under 10 hours! So fast in fact that I haven't updated you about it. Here's the write-up: "Most of the people lurking belowdecks in The New Argonaut have been exiled there for political reasons. Above, a proud and ruthless cabal dictate who gets to see starlight and who has to scramble for survival. But not for much longer. After all, the enemy of your enemy is your friend - and the cabal have put a lot of their enemies in the same place."

Helen Gould is a writer and poet, as well as a cast member on The Rusty Quill Gaming podcast. She's written scenarios for Cthulhu Dark and Fear's Sharp Little Needles, and has been a part of the London indie gaming scene since 2014.

I'm delighted to have funded Helen's scenario, and we're now £400 off the next stretch goal scenario, Carceres by Khelren.

"Carceres is a prison where the scum of the galaxy is sent: space pirates, dangerous lifeforms, criminal superbeings, and mad psions. There, prisoners endure the harshest of the mistreatments from guards and doctors in order to become rehabilitated. During the night, they dream about getting their freedom back. But no one has ever escaped the station."

Khelren is a French indie game designer, translator and publisher. He has published The French edition of The Sprawl and several storygames/RPGs on his Tipeee (https://www.tipeee.com/khelren). He has recently written Godsend, a hack for Legacy, and won the Gamechef.

Slip cases!

I'm also delighted to announce that I'll be making a new reward available: a gorgeous slipcase for the book, illustrated by Anna Landin. Just as the back of the book shows the outside of the space station, the slipcase will show it from a greater distance still, so that you can see the whole station, with nearby ships and stars. As you open the slipcase you'll effectively zoom in to the scene on the front cover. It's going to be really beautiful.

The slipcases will be designed to fit both the standard version of the book and the Veiled Edition, and the image will compliment both versions of the book.

Slip cases will be £10 extra on top of the cost of a physical copy of the book, plus £2 extra for shipping. You can upgrade now by adding £12 to your pledge, or there will be the option to do so later on via our pledge manager (most likely Backerkit).

I'm really hopeful that we can unlock that last stretch goal, and I'm looking forward to moving into the delivery phase of this project.

Cheers!

Josh