Greetings, pilots! It's been a little bit, but we've returned with a ton of news and updates. Buckle up!
Game Status
Shadow in the Stars is very close to being done. That's the short version, but here's some more details:
Prompt Writers
As I got feedback from consultant Cassi Mothwin and from S. Kaiya J. (fellow creator who was playtesting), they both gave extremely helpful feedback. Part of it was that a chunk of the prompts needed some tweaking. I realized I was pretty much out of juice for completing them in a satisfactory way. The good news is that since the Kickstarter did so well, I was able to bring on two writers to help me. They are:
Savannah Dawn: Savanah is a friend and has worked on several Street Wolves projects as a proofreader. Savanah is also the author of The Company of Cats and I'm very excited to have her on the writing team!
Nathan Lurz: Nathan Lurz is a Chicago-based TTRPG writer, editor, GM, player, and producer for the award-nominated actual play podcast Reckless Attack and as the host/interviewer for its sister podcast, Reckless A-Talk. Nathan has also published several independent RPGs, including “Dream Investigator” and “Your Dog’s Shadow."
They both provided extra prompts and ideas that really injected some new life into the book. With their aid we were able to complete the initial draft of the book.
Book Progress
Right now the book is in the hands of the proofreader (Savannah who I mentioned earlier). I'm currently finishing the last of graphical assets.
The main thing I'm doing is taking a second pass on some of the things like the character sheet and map to make them a bit more in-universe looking. Here you can see that I beefed up the character sheet and this is what the color version looks like (there will be a printable black and white version included):
And while it's not "book progress" I have to finish setting up Backerkit for fulfillment, so stay tuned for updates on when surveys are out and all that business.
Release Date
I still don't have an exact release date yet, operating on a when it's ready, it's ready methodology. But it is getting close! I feel like we're only a couple of weeks off from a digital release. And once the digital version is out, I'll go back to the printer and work with them and they'll be able to give me a good date on a print estimate.
Launch Event?
I'm in talks of doing a physical launch event at a local game store (so Milwaukee, WI area). Stay tuned for further updates!
Pre-Orders
If you're seeing this update, you're probably a backer, but in case you missed it or have a friend that missed it, you can find the Shadow in the Stars Kickstarter pre-orders here.
Convention News
I recently bumped off the wait list into having a booth at Game Hole Con in Madison, Wisconsin October 15th through the 18th. If you'd like to say hi to me in person, please stop by the Table Cat Games booth in the demo row. If the book isn't printed by the time Game Hole Con rolls around, I plan to have a bunch of the pages printed to show them off as a demo of what they'll look like.
More Updates
As a reminder, I only update when there are significant things to talk about and when I'm ready to share them. I don't want to send too many updates. If I do, I risk annoying you and potentially having folks unsubscribing from the emails, so they miss the big stuff like survey deadlines and what not. That being said, I know we're down to the wire on the August progress update!
If you'd like to get more progress updates (and news on my other stuff) you can always follow along at these other spots where I share more frequently (especially on the socials):
Project Status List
- Digital Release - In progress
- Physical Release - Waiting for Digital version to be completed
- Physical Sector Map - In progress
