The Plan Revealed!

Finally, after much deliberation and consideration for pending projects and making up for lost time, the staff at the studio have finally made a determination for where the road will lead us in 2023. We have decided to go ahead with the launch of a new tabletop role playing game as was originally slated for this year. The missed projects for last year, which included expansions for True Agenda and Chronofields, have been put back on hold. If time allows, then one of those projects will begin again later this year, most likely being the Chronofields expansion as work had already begun on it in early 2022 before things went south.

So far, work is progressing nicely on the new game title, with page design and writing already completed for about 20% of the game, with the rest in between initial draft and final development stages. We have also begun reaching agreements with some freelance artists for this game and are excited to be able to add more custom artwork from a variety of talent! This takes some pressure off the small in-house staff, allowing us to focus on the writing and development of the game, including some new elements never before used in any previous titles. Final playtesting will also be done in the coming months, although with us using the already successful framework of our previous games, any tweaks should prove minimal.

Game reveal details will not happen until much closer to release, which isn’t scheduled until towards the end of this year. We might be able to release teasers, and potential artist information, a little sooner. As always, keep checking back here for more information.

Looking Ahead... 2023 I See You!

Hello again. Hopefully everyone has been enjoying the holiday season, whether with a traditional Christmas or something more meaningful to you. Regardless of how everyone celebrates, there is no arguing the new year is right around the corner! For us here at the studios, we are looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. There has been a lot of creative discussions over the past several weeks, and we are eager to sit down and get working! We were able to shake some of the dust off our creative skills and fire up the digital art apps. We are hoping for a better start to this new year than what we endured last year, and with that hopeful outcome in mind, we plan to release more news in the coming weeks of our purposed schedule and upcoming collaborations with some new artistic talent. As always, keep checking back here for the newest information and reveals.

Bundled days are here again!

Even though the studio suffered a setback this year, and no new products will be released in 2022, we still wanted to put out an offer to everyone who has been considering trying our tabletop game line. Starting this morning, we have bundled together the main rulebook for our very first game, True Agenda, alongside our most recent game, GRID. Both are in PDF format and are available over at Drive Thru RPG for just $15.00. That means that while paying full price for GRID, you get True Agenda for just a nickel!

The reason these two games are bundled together is because they are the easiest to run cross-over games with, as they both deal with future situations and alien lifeforms. Additionally, it’s a good way to showcase where the studio began and where we are currently. Both games are a source of pride for everyone here and we are confident one, if not both, games will delight fans of science fiction, alternate futures and alien conspiracies. You can find the bundle here.

The long road back...

As I sit here and write this, it has been almost five months since the entire studio staff contracted Covid. While everyone else recovered, albeit with some lingering effects, I took a turn for the worst. Pneumonia settled in on me while I was trying to recover from Covid, and I ended up in the hospital and had to be put on a ventilator. While I was in a serious drugged state where I had tremendous delusions for seven days, doctors and my family did everything they could to ensure I would recover. That I am writing this now is testament to their efforts and I am eternally grateful for everything they have done.

The business, as could be expected, halted during this time, and we are just now looking at getting back to work. While most of the staff have other jobs, as this is still primarily a labor of love, we do have quite a few people that have become interested in what we do. While I do not feel I have let anyone down, I do believe I owe these words to explain our situation and our commitment to come back. We had two loose release dates scheduled for this year, but we will not succeed in achieving them. However, we will begin again in the coming weeks to work on the many projects we still have planned. While my recovery is finally near complete, it will still take some time for the studio to get to back into the full swing of things.

I want to thank everyone out there who has been following us, whether from the beginning or recently. Keep checking here, and eventually on our other social media sites, for future news and eventual release dates of new designs. Thank you again, and it is absolutely wonderful to still be here.

Multiple Title Launch Day!

It is finally here, the official launch day of our third tabletop roleplaying game, GRID (cover art to the right). Get ready for some sci-fi intrigue and action as this new game takes place about 100 years into the future, and boy have things changed! As always, the game will be available for purchase on this site as well as over at Drive Thru. Check it out here. GRID is the pinnacle of our earliest full game design work, but it has waited until now because of the work required to bring the entire game to life. True Agenda and Chronofields laid the framework for GRID’s redesign, and we are extremely pleased at the final result. Also, don’t forget, GRID contains commissioned art by Mike Faille who was responsible for bringing a powerful antagonistic alien race to life for the game. You check out his other work here. Hopefully you will enjoy the game as much as we did in creating it.

Additionally, we are also releasing the second resource pack for True Agenda (cover art included on the right). This mini-expansion adds new rules that were included with GRID, and since all of our games are compatible with each other, we wanted to make sure that True Agenda also had those rules. The resource pack is pay what you want over at Drive Thru RPG found here. This can also be purchased on this site for a nominal fee.

Both of these releases on the same day make the biggest effort yet for the studios, but we are not stopping here! We have an ambitious plan for continued releases over the next three years, and yes that includes another new tabletop game! Make sure to continue checking back here, follow us over at Facebook, or keep tabs on us at Drive Thru RPG (or all three)! More information will be forthcoming as we get closer to the New Year about what 2022 and beyond has in store.

Time Flies...

Here we are again with another holiday season right around the corner. This summer flew by faster than the other ones, or so it seems. There were a lot of things going on outside of the business ventures that threatened to slow everything down, but thankfully we were so far ahead that it is all still coming together nicely.

Case in point - the files have been sent off (about three hours ago now) to our printer as we finished the final editing, along with the conversion of the art files, earlier this week. We have just over a month to go before the planned release of our third roleplaying game, along with some additional material for True Agenda! We always like wrapping everything up before the holidays get here so that everyone can spend time with family and friends, and it looks like this year will be no exception.

This doesn’t mean that we are done working for the year. On the contrary, work for the second expansion of Chronofields will be starting as soon as next week depending on when we hear back from the printer. While there will be a break at the end of the year, we are hoping to get a decent start on the expansion. While there is no firm release date yet, we are aiming for Spring, and definitely before Summer, to release it in both PDF and print format. So, as always, check back here for more information, and get ready for more announcements coming in November!

Editing and Concept Art...

Just wanted to deliver a quick update for those of you who have been wondering how things are progressing now that we have entered the second half of the year. The new game is currently under edit and, barring any major revisions, should be done by the middle to end of August. We also received the second update of our concept art under commission about a week ago, and the design is going in a direction that everyone in the studio agrees is incredible. We are anticipating one more pass before the design is accepted and the final artwork commencing. From there, we plan to send everything off to the printer by early September and hopefully get our proof copy by the first of October.

During this time, we are also continuing to work on the second resource pack for True Agenda. This is a much shorter process because it is a smaller product. We are about a third of the way through the writing and layout, with a few art pieces already decided upon. We plan to have the writing finished and to the editor by the end of August. Since we do not ever produce print copies for the resource packs, we can work through October is absolutely necessary, but it is doubtful that much time will be required.

First Draft Concept Sketches Arrive!

Exciting news here in the studio as the first drafts of alien concept art arrived just before the weekend! The initial design is looking good with only a few minor changes being requested at this time. The artist, Mike, nearly hit on everything we wanted in the design after just one initial communication. Needless to say, everyone here is very pleased and are eager to see the next pass. For now, the first draft is remaining under wraps, but it might be shown to everyone at a later date.

The rest of the game design work progresses steadily, and we are looking to be almost six weeks ahead of schedule. This is happening even though a couple of sections have gone through a major rewrite before ever getting to the editor. Now that we have been doing this for a few years, things are getting easier as we figure out what works best along with some streamlining. Given that we are still expecting slow downs with the printing process, the extra time on the writing and design end will be invaluable. Keep checking back in here to find out how things are progressing, especially once we get into the second half of the year!

Concept Artist Commissioned!

After some deliberation here at the studios, we decided to go ahead and get some concept art commissioned for our upcoming game still slated to release this fall. For those of you who have been following our work, you know the majority of our artwork comes from Adobe resources and are then modified by the artist to better fit the design elements needed. Unfortunately, this can mean that things do not look exactly like we might otherwise want. However, since the studio is still small, we cannot afford to commission every piece, and we do not feel that Kickstarter or other routes are right for our team. So it is with great anticipation and excitement that we are able to afford some commission work, because everyone here feels this upcoming game title deserves a bit more.

So who is it, you might ask, and where will their work be found? The artist’s name is Mike Faille, and you can find his great work over here. His work for the game will showcase one of the alien species that can be found as a major antagonist to the players. Go check out his work if you get the chance. He also does custom art for individuals who might want their favorite character, or even an adventuring party, immortalized. He also does quite a bit of other work as well on his Patreon site found here. We are excited to have him involved in our project and look forward to sharing more news with everyone in the coming weeks.

Dropping the Price!

After careful consideration, we have decided to lower the price for our Chronofields game (PDF version) over at Drive Thru RPG. We had already been offering it cheaper there for $12.65 verses the retail of $14.95. However, sales have been sluggish, and so it has now been permanently reduced to $9.95. If you were considering picking it up, there are the free quickstart rules still available at Drive Thru, allowing everyone to see what the game is about beforehand. What about the prices here on the business website? We might at some point lower the price of the Chronofields PDF, but sales directly from us has always been secondary as we want people to go to Drive Thru. Most people are more confident shopping there and therefore we encourage everyone to do so, plus the people at Drive Thru have done quite a bit for us here at the studios, so we feel they deserve the sales.