Updates From the Book Mines 1: Layouts and Labyrinths
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Oct 18, 2024 at 05:59:18 PM
Dear Goldenagers, noble backers,
I'd planned on including this update from the book mine in the pledge manager update from the EF crew so your inboxes don't get swamped, but some of the backend work is fiddly (UPDATE COMING EARLY NEXT WEEK WITH PLEDGE MANAGER START DATE! 😊). Definitely fiddlier than I understand, being just a pixel pixie. Thus—this is just a "Luka making stuff" update (this one's a bit late, next one will be a bit early).
BROAD STROKES:
Over the next months I'll be (I) finishing the books, then (II) all the other content for the campaign. See [far] below for the week-by-week breakdown of work.
STAYING INFORMED:
(1) Once a month (every four weeks of work) an update from the book mines in the style of this post. I'll respond to comments on these posts.
(2) On my stratometaship patreon, I post roughly every two weeks, sharing illustrations, pdfs, cast-off bits of content.
(3) On the stratometaship discord (
https://discord.gg/bDcc9WYus5) I offer a much closer look behind the scenes, with regular screenshots, pdfs, snippets, creative anguish, and more.
Again! Behold item (1) above. I don’t expect you to sign up for a discord server, much less join a patreon, to stay au courant! You'll be getting nice, compiled summaries once a month and I'm here in the comments.
Take care and welcome to Pumpkin Season.
—Luka.
***
NOW WEEK BY WEEK:
***
Week 7 - Oct 14–21
- OGA Work: revising draft and laying out the Green Land region (that’s the one with the big living city and butcher bankers and ... well, see attached file for the first half—I wrote this update on a Wednesday). I’m testing the structure I setup the previous week to see if it works. I’m not tightening all the layout screws yet—I’ll do that after text edits. Otherwise, phew ... doing a layout thrice isn’t great.
- OGA Art: colored the map of the Emerald City (see above)
- New kitchen table: thank you IKEA.
***
Week 6 - Oct 8–13
- OGA Design and Content: finished structure revision. Completed half of local city maps / illustrations.
- OGA Map: revised cartographic symbol font to use assets from Noto Symbols Sans, making it a free font (our golden age-cartographic), so everyone will be able to use it afterwards as well (see image for current character set, request additional location types in the comments). Updated map. Set up region map for layout test.
- Travel Journal Design: laid out region + settlement pages
- Working Version: Orange Pumpkin
- Korean Alphabet Day - went to the zoo with the kiddo
***
Week 5 - Oct 1–7
- OGA Design and Content: continued revision of structure and content to final chapter structure (adventures + regions), opening of second adventure, including district generator for town environs (surrounding hexes).
- VLG Content: revised background traits to be more in line with those in the UVG.
- Travel Journal Design: layout of interior pages, tests of first pages, prep for test prints to see color and covers.
- Working Version: Autumn Android
- Korean Armed Forces Day - Jets and tanks flying by
- National Foundation Day - Korean holiday celebrating the day when the Grandson of Heaven and Son of a Bear (Dangun) founded the first Korean state of Gojoseon in 2333 BC.
***
Week 4 - Sep 23–30
- Project: prepared component descriptions for backerkit, reviewed and prepared files for dice production
- OGA & VLG Design: revised structure to reduce size of appendices (moved twenty character paths from OGA to VLG since they are player-facing content, moved lexicon to OGA and stripped out UVG content to avoid duplication)
- OGA Design: began revising structure to reduce miscellaneous chapter with content on gods, strange cosmologies, features, so they are located within the lands / regions where they are most pertinent. The goal is to cut page count down to 250 from current ~280.
- OGA Content: began revising and adapting content to fit new structures, (e.g. temples of the blue and yellow gods)
- Working Version: Autumn Android
***
Week 3 - Sep 16—22
- vacation
- Chuseok - multi-day Korean mid-autumn festival
***
Week 2 - Sep 9–15
***
Week 1 - Sep 2–8
- Project: after-campaign review, priorities review
- OGA content: completed travel tables & first adventure frame
Thank you!! Pledge Manager Timeline, PDFs, UVG Dice, & OGA Discord Link (BACKERS ONLY! 😉)
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Sep 06, 2024 at 09:50:44 AM
Hello!
A big THANK YOU from Luka and the team at Exalted Funeral for a successful campaign! We appreciate you all so much and are really excited you've joined us in making OGA come to life!
Pledge Manager Surveys and Pre-order Store
We will send out the Pledge Manager Backer Surveys in early October. They will be open for about a month and then orders will be locked and cards charged.
The Pre-order store will also open at that time so if anyone you know missed out on the campaign they will get a chance to purchase items then!
There will be an update later this month before we send them out with more details, so stay tuned.
PDFs of Previously Released Titles
After the orders are locked and cards are charged in the Pledge Manager then we will send out the PDFs to backers for all of the previously released items like UVG and the SDM zines.
$11,207.69 away from the last achievement, UVG Dice! Now what?
Campaign Updates
Updates will go out once a month with progress updates, pictures of prototypes (and pets), and any pertinent information.
Thanks again for all of the support!
-Exalted Funeral Team and Luka
FREE Vastlands Guidebook: Bootleg Beta - Early Release PDF is HERE! Two Days Left to Back!
almost 2 years ago
– Wed, Aug 28, 2024 at 03:59:57 PM
Hello backers!
Just over two days remain in the campaign 🤯 We have some exciting announcements for this update!
Vastlands Guidebook: Bootleg Beta - FREE PDF!
From Luka:
Good backers! Human frailties have delayed this digital book, but I hope this small file may give you some inkling of the direction of travel of this simple document. I hope you enjoy it!
About the Vastlands Guidebook: Bootleg Beta:
Rules loose, psychedelic metal roleplay in the Vastlands at the edge of time and space.
Welcome, curious explorer, to the Vastlands. To a time beyond the end of time.
Here, in the heart of the world, is the Circle Sea, the pond of panhumanity surrounded by polychrome lands. An overgrown garden of humanity, here neat, there feral, sprawling out of sight of its absentee Builders, safely kept by the inscrutable might of its warden angels, the Phylakes.
There, to the west, the psychedelic Ultraviolet Grasslands stretch beyond the edge of civilization and its faded histories, a deep, vast, mythic steppe littered with the detritus of time and space and memory.
Safe travels at the end of time, beyond the edge of the last safe world.
Characters, rules, equipment, and powers for the Ultraviolet Grasslands and Our Golden Ageand other games in the synthetic dream machine.
For everyone at the table: the player who referees the game and the players who run the characters.
Final Stretch Goals
We are just over $15,000 from the next Achievement!
And about $65,000 to go for the final one!
Share the campaign and lets unlock these together! 💪
OGA Discord for Backers - Coming Soon
Shortly after the campaign closes, backers only will receive a link to the official OGA Discord channel!
THANK YOU again everyone for all of your support!
- Exalted Funeral and Luka
Voidwalker covers revealed! Poll results! Black and Gold UVG Eyeburner Dice sneak peak!
almost 2 years ago
– Fri, Aug 23, 2024 at 01:10:21 PM
Hello backers!
Lots to update about today!
May we present to you, the Voidwalker editions of OGA, VLG, and the Void Box!
Campaign exclusive limited edition, black box with teal printing and gold foil stamped logos.
Campaign exclusive limited edition, cloth bound and gold foil stamped cover.
Campaign exclusive limited edition, cloth bound and teal foil stamped cover.
All three of these Voidwalker exclusives are included in The Void Box pledge tier, which comes with all of the items you see below as well as the recently unlocked Void Dice and Poster (see more below!)
Void Dice Results:
The
Azure and Orange dice have won in the poll for
Void Dice colors! These will be added to the
Void Box in addition to the
Yellow Nemesis Dice and will also be available as an
add-on for backers.
Poster Results:
The
Flying City poster has won in the poll for $400,000 Memorium Poster Achievement! This poster will will be added to all physical and digital pledges and will be available as an
add-on for backers.
There were backers that expressed the desire to have the other posters as
add-ons so we decided to make them
all available as
add-ons as well!
Three more Achievements to unlock!
-
$425,000: Upgraded Travel Journal — More pages, more colorful, more perfectly bound. For better travels. Pages added, upgraded from staple bound to perfect bound, and from black and white interior to color. All physical backers receive physical and digital versions, all digital backers receive digital version.
Let's unlock them all!
One more week to go!
More info on the Vastlands Guidebook Free PDF in the next update. Luka needs to make some last minute tweaks but we expect to have that out soon. Thanks for your patience!
Luka and everyone here at EF would like to again thank everyone for their incredible support! We excited to deliver the best books we can and hope everyone is as excited as we are about these Voidwalkers!
-Luka and the Exalted Funeral Team
Wave 3 Achievements are here! New Poster Poll, plus Voidwalker covers coming soon!
almost 2 years ago
– Thu, Aug 15, 2024 at 02:22:47 PM
Already Unlocked!
$225,000: Book Ribons — So you don’t get lost in your books! Ribbons made of authentic narrativium* (*not actually narrativium).
One gold ribbon added to all copies of Our Golden Age and the Mother Machine, standard and Voidwalker editions. One teal ribbon added to The Vastlands Guide Book, standard and Voidwalker editions. *UNLOCKED!*
$250,000: UVG Post Cards Reprinted — Ten time travelling post cards from the Ultraviolet Grasslands five years ago!
All physical backers receive physical and digital versions, all digital backers receive digital version. *UNLOCKED!*
$275,000: Second Ribbons — A second ribbon for each book, so you can mark more places! Two colors for the two faces of the world.
One turquoise ribbon added to all copies of Our Golden Age and the Mother Machine, standard and Voidwalker editions. One orange ribbon added to The Vastlands Guide Book, standard and Voidwalker editions. *UNLOCKED!*
$350,000: Void Dice — A second hue of dice for the void boxes. With unfriendly numbers.
Poll is ongoing to determine the colors. Limited Void Dice added to all Void Boxes in addition to standard OGA Dice. Available as an add-on for all backers. *UNLOCKED!*
Remaining Locked Achievements
$425,000: Upgraded Travel Journal — More pages, more colorful, more perfectly bound. For better travels. Pages added, upgraded from staple bound to perfect bound, and from black and white interior to color. All physical backers receive physical and digital versions, all digital backers receive digital version.
$450,000: SDM Codex 3: BIOMANTICA - Digital Edition — The power of the flesh source protocols. Spells to make terrifying evil biotech wizards. All backers receive digital version.
$500,000: Black and Gold UVG Eyeburners — The original roman numeral UVG Dice reissued with new livery! Available as an add-on for all backers.
Unlocked items added to Add-ons
All unlocked items so far available as add-ons will be added to the campaign by the end of today.
Voidwalker Covers COMING SOON!
Luka is finalizing the campaign exclusive covers of the OGA Voidwalker Edition, VLG Voidwalker Edition, and the Void Box. The Void Box with be black with foil stamping. The books will both be black cloth with gold foil for OGA and teal foil for VLG. They will compliment the UVG Voidwalker cover that was available in the UVG 1E campaign (not available in this campaign), seen here:
Vastlands Guide Preview PDF
In the next few days we will have a FREE Preview PDF of the Vastlands Guidebook (VLG) as well as a deep dive discussion thread with Luka.
Thanks for the continued support! Happy unlocking!
- Exalted Funeral and Luka
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