TTRPGkids Dev Log #1: A Construct’s Nature, Greeting Games, StoryGuider, and more
I want to start showing some of the work I’m doing on my own games to both keep people up to date on projects that are coming soon and to help others see what’s involved with making a game! I’ll post new dev logs on Wednesdays when there’s a solid update to share, and I hope you enjoy this first post on A Construct’s Nature, Greeting Games, StoryGuider, and a surprise or two!
*I do show a very fast flip through of the A Construct’s Nature book and one slide from the game’s supplemental slideshow; I don’t believe this should spoil anything, however… I wanted to give you a heads up.
Jump to:
A Construct’s Nature: surveys, proofs, pricing, and slides… oh my!
The main focus of my project work right now is on A Construct’s Nature to make sure I hit the Backerkit fulfillment target for June. This has been my biggest project to date, and I’ve been picking up plenty of new skills throughout the creation of this project. Right now, surveys are out, the pre-order store is open, I’m crunching away at getting the accompanying narrated slideshow finalized, and prototype copies just arrived!
Proof copies are in!
Proof copies just came in this morning! Here’s some photos and a little video (I stop flipping the book before the pictures give away any BIG reveals in the last 50 or so pages):
Based on initial review, I am going to have to adjust and reorder one of the field note books since I wasn’t too happy with how the illustration resolution came out. I’ll also be going through the big book, though that one will take more than a quick review since it is a chonky book. I do have time built in for re-ordering proofs, so this shouldn’t impact release timing.
Slides are sliding along
In parallel to the proofs, I’m also working on getting the accompanying slides finalized, which includes converting all the art over to the different page size, copying the words over, formatting and adding animations, creating links so you can jump to slides based on choices/rolls, and creating a voice and SFX editing menu for our VA/editor to begin work on splicing the audio to the images/text. Here’s a peek at one of the least spoiler-y slides that still shows what it will be like (i.e. you don’t know what path leads to the rocks falling):
Surveys, pre-orders, and pricing
There’s a couple weeks until lock order date for the surveys and pre-orders, and about 80% of folks have filled theirs out. The pre-order store is also open, and, if you missed the campaign, it is probably the only place to get the book at the campaign price for the forseeable future. Costs went up due to a combination of tariffs increasing printing materials import costs and my adding about 50 pages to the book because I couldn’t help myself, but the pre-order store is sticking with the campaign price until lock order date. With regards to shipping… after lock order date hits, I’ll be going through the orders to calculate everyone’s shipping. Fortunately, I’m printing through DTRPG, which has a location in the UK, so that helps with reducing international shipping for backers.
If you want to pre-order a copy, you can visit the page here!
Greeting Games: campaign complete and kick off coming soon!
The Greeting Games campaign finished on a high note as we hit goal #8, which adds a bonus game that kiddo and I will be co-writing as a free reward for backers! For this one, I’m waiting for the 2 week charge date to pass on the campaign and, by then, I should be far enough with a few more elements on A Construct’s Nature to focus on this project. This will involve finishing up details and playtesting on some of the unlocked games and kicking the artists off on illustrations as a priority. Following this,
StoryGuider: pre-launch + pre-funding
My late summer project is StoryGuider, which is a collection of 36 choose-your-path style adventures for little kids! The pre-launch page is up and running, and I’m working with a couple folks to help with layout advice ahead of the campaign while also setting up some of the necessary planning details.
Cost analysis, timing plan, art team, and translator (for a stretch goal) have all be worked out, so my core focus here is gaining a following and working on some of the pre-funding goals to help make the campaign easier to achieve. Anything that I earn on ko-fi or through my itchio bundle is going towards hiring artists early and reducing the campaign costs to both help with making sure the project funds AND to help reduce delivery timing. The pre-funding is not something people typically do, but it is something that I wanted to try since, if it works, it could be a good method for facilitating really fast turn around while also mitigating some risk and getting artists paid more quickly.
Check out the page here to get ready for launch!
Other projects: TTRPGkids in general and talks!
In addition to the above, I’m working on my usual reviews and features for the TTRPGkids website and am particularly excited to get into some of the community building articles I’ve wanted to write for a while. I’m also a bit eager to kick off a new series of EDU game ideas, but I think they’re going to stew in the ideas phase for a bit just due to time required for a few other ventures.
For the talks part of the section title… I have started to realize I signed up for quite a few talks throughout the year and am getting into the planning phase for all of them. While I can’t give details on ALL yet, here’s a summary of what’s up and what I can share. If you’re going to be at any of these conventions or talks, please let me know as I do really enjoy chatting with other folks about all of this:
- April: Commerce Twp Library workshop
- April: SHE virtual workshop
- May: Motor City Comic Con (MC3) game for kids
- June: Origins Game Fair – panel, meet up, games, and probably more
- Jul/Aug: GenCon – one, maybe two panel appearances in the works
- Oct: Game Hole Con – maybe a panel, and maybe also a booth!
Thank you for checking out this update, and I hope this overview of my work is either a good resource for your own project planning or that it’s a nice “keep-up-to-date” spot for what’s going on with TTRPGkids! And, if you have any feedback about how the dev log is set up, please let me know – this is my first time doing this, so I know it’s going to be a bit of a learning process to fine tune it to what I want to share and what people are looking for, and I appreciate the advice.
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