Four programmed adventures written for Old-School Essentials. Play them Choose-Your-Own style, or with a referee.
Look what arrived today! 114 copies for US Hub fulfillment.
Right now I think I’m on track to get all four solo PDFs to backers this coming Monday. Then it’s final proofing, spooling out cards, checking THOSE, and then printing.
I spoke to Gavin this morning (very, very early my morning as it happens), and he told me he had no issue with me distributing the Rules Tome PDF (v1.4) through Backerkit.
So...now it's in your email boxes, so to speak.
This means that Dungeon Grappling, Dragon Heresy, Lost Hall of Tyr (2nd Edition), and the Rules Tome are all waiting for those with completed surveys, locked orders, and charged cards via Backerkit downloads.
My push this week is to get all of the files into publishable status, and then go from there to spooling out the PDF of the monster cards.
Then hopefully get some more fight test feedback (thus far, most of the feedback has been "hard but winnable, if not always on the first try) just to iron out any hidden bugs...and then out to the majority of backers. I'll let those hang for a week or so, then do the call for final shipping address corrections. This is feeling like "order books by end of September" and "fulfillment begins mid-October."
At least for the USA. Honestly, UK/RoW shouldn't be that much different.
This morning I hit "go" on charging cards, after the orders locked.
So that's that, and for those who got Dragon Heresy, Dungeon Grappling, or Lost Hall of Tyr (2nd Edition), I also hit go on that distribution.
I'm also in contact with Gavin at Necrotic Gnome about distributing the Rules Tome PDF; I expect to hear back from him on how he wants to do that soon.
I got my first set of fight tests back on Dragon Hunt!, which were encouraging. There are a few things that need to be tweaked - not a ton - and I also went through and put all the hyperlinks in.
Wow, if I knew JavaScript for InDesign, that would be hugely less tedious. There's a script begging to happen there...
In any case, that's done, and with a few tweaks, one more round of fight test, and a bit of housekeeping for things like ensuring artists and playtester credits are proper, ISBNs are accurate, etc... that one should be ready to distribute.
I'm doing these in reverse order of complexity, so Vampire Hunter Belladonna gets the full set of hyperlinks and ensuring all monster stats are ready and accurate. That is tedious but should be finished tomorrow. Tues/Wed will be the last two, and that should also bring me to the point where I can start spooling card PDF files. Let's call that Thursday/Friday, because Life tends to happen whenever I announce plans for things.
Even so: I'm going to pester my fight testers for feedback during the week and see if there's anything that needs changing. If not...files go out for your consideration. Hopefully we've caught what needs catching, but I'll leave some time for "hey, you missed..." and then I'll get manufacturing orders in motion.
At that point, I'll want to send out the call for "validate your shipping addresses" and do a check for "forbidden fruit" (orders going to places I can't get them) to make sure there are no shipping incompatibilities. Then we finish this thing.
Very briefly: I pushed the button this morning that started the order-lock process. That means everyone gets an email reminding you to complete and finalize your survey, including payment and shipping info.
They'll lock on Sunday morning and I will charge cards then.
Pre-orders will remain open until I lock addresses, right before fulfillment commences.
There are a total of 463 backers with a physical, rather than digital, component to their order. Of those, there are 32 that have not yet completed their survey.
I obviously can't ship them their stuff without those surveys finished. So I'll begin the process of reminding folks to jump in and complete them.
If not...
One way or another, all pledges will be dealt with at that point.
So: please fill out your surveys promptly, and none of this will matter!
I can almost stop at the title.
There are about 10% surveys remaining (a bit less). This is excellent.
I'm going to push the "lock orders with 48-hour notice" button tomorrow, and so they'll lock and I'll start charging cards Sunday Morning.
Then I can start distributing files, and the ones that are done will start going out.
Lock/Charge is required to get your stuff...so yay, surveys.
I've made an order that looks to cover the current OSE Hardback demand. If I need more, I can order more. But I processed an order from Exalted Funeral's shipping agent for 114 copies of the thing, which will start moving to my place of business soon. They will obviously sit there until everything is ready to go out, but it's the first step in assembling all of the physical items.
It will probably be the most expensive single line-item of the campaign, though. Second will be the cards, and then each of the four books. Obviously the four books together (as one order) would be the largest.
I worked almost two days straight to get Dragon Hunt into fight test, so that required a down day yesterday. Today I'm going through and doing the hyperlinks on Dragon Hunt (so...many...hyperlinks...) to allow easy navigation of the PDF.
I'll also take some time and clean up formatting and whatnot as a proofing pass. I'll basically target to do one book each day this way, So that should be by next Tuesday. After that, it's incorporating errata and fight-test feedback, then I can distribute the PDFs. I obviously want the first version to hit backers' hands to be as perfect as possible.