Monday update 5/29
almost 7 years ago – Mon, May 29, 2017 at 09:13:29 PM

Hello again, featherheads!

Work continues on the pdf and print-ready versions of the corebook and we are getting very close to submitting the book to the printers. As of today, we've applied the last of a huge number of small fixes to the corebook and are combing over each page to make sure that we catch any new errors which may have been introduced in the process of fixing the old ones. Being human, it's inevitable that these things happen, but we're on the final pass! Thank you so much to the backers who sent us corrections and an extra big thank you to those of you who tackled this backer proofing phase like a full-time job. Your hard work has had a tremendous impact on the project. (You know who you are!)

While this correction process is wrapping up, we've also been working on adjusting the book for print. One of these projects is designing the front and back covers, and getting the spine and bleed areas placed just so. Well, that's finished and we've created a mock-up of the book to give you an idea of how your printed copy will look when it arrives (see below). We are so pleased with the way it looks! The back cover illustration is the roboman mathemagician which is the project image for the Kickstarter.

We're also making progress on the Player's Guide, standalone adventure, the final art pieces for the chapbook and all the other bits which are coming your way when the project ships. 

Did we mention that Team Ravendesk is running a booth at Gen Con 50 in August? We are really looking forward to meeting some of you in person! If you can make it to Gen Con, please remember to come visit us! In addition to sessions of the Vurt RPG run by Alexander and myself, one of our backers, John Denning is running a session titled "Addictive Color Theory" which sounds like it's going to be epic!  Get over to the Gen Con Events page and sign up!

Until next week!

Lee

Dear Manchester
almost 7 years ago – Tue, May 23, 2017 at 07:55:02 PM

Dear Manchester,  

Monday Update - 5/22
almost 7 years ago – Tue, May 23, 2017 at 01:44:26 AM

Greetings Kittlings!

(TL;DR- All still on schedule, and we ended up with a LOT more material for the future)

As many of you already know, our initial Vurt corebook was going to be around 300 pages. We had the design and layout done, we would have been able to make our announced date, but were not happy with it. The layout was garish, the design felt uninspired and we simply couldn’t fit all the settings, adventures, images and other details into 300 pages. You lovely backers were patient and understanding and it reinforced our dedication to stay true to what we'd promised to ourselves and everyone else. So, we went back to the drawing board and set a task for ourselves to put everything we ever wanted into it, page count be damned.

While this delayed us quite a bit, it was also a decision that we are so happy we made. We have a book we’re proud of that contains the game we wanted to create. The end result is 425 pages and now that the final proofreading passes are complete and we’ve addressed some uncertainties a few of you brought to our attention, it’s time to send it off to the printers.

One of the major (unexpected) advantages we've ended up with was well over 100 pages of setting and adventures already finished that will be included in our next Vurt publication. We simply ran out of space, and now we have all this (playtested) material! What a wonderful problem to have, yes?

The next Vurt gamebook will be a compendium and will answer all the questions as to what happened to the rest of the Real World outside Manchester, introduce several more job-related foci, get deep into feather crafting, extensive blurbfly customization, sonic warfare and cooking hacks. New adventures will take place in Lost Angles, Chroma, Cao Paulo, Joberg, Guangzhou, Dublin, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London. 

Every last District and Borough of Manchester will be expanded and described, so that anywhere you choose to go in the megacity will be packed with adventure hooks, exciting locations, NPCs, and everything you’d ever need to go neck deep. Full details of the Royal City council, Manchester PD, and Vurt-star hierarchies will be expanded and laid out. New foci, abilities, powers and cyphers will open up an even more dangerous way to enter and travel in the Vurt World-- Edgeriding. We already have vast parts of the Vurt World mapped out by Vurt Cartographers and detailed suggestions for how characters might become Vurt Cartographers themselves. Want to know the full details of ALL 200+ feathers in the corebook that will introduce dozens of new Vurt creatures, gods and dragons? We have this already done, it just couldn’t fit inside what was already a 425 page corebook. Again, a lovely "problem" to have.

We can’t wait to get those super-quality Vurt corebooks and remaining backer rewards in your hands. All is still on track, we’ll have a specific delivery timeline very soon from the printers. 

Stay tuned, featherheads, the future of Vurt is bright and right around the corner!

Cheers,
Alexander

p.s.- Check out one of the many images we’re already commissioning for the future Vurt Compendium!
 

Corebook PDFs are released!
almost 7 years ago – Wed, May 10, 2017 at 01:02:44 AM

OPEN ALL CHANNELS. CONNECT TO EVERYTHING.

It's been a long road folks, but I am overjoyed to announce that the PDF copies of the corebook are now loaded into the digital rewards page at backerkit and on their way to you as we speak!

As we mentioned in our previous email, the 300-page, full-color RPG that you backed is coming to you as a 426-page tome!

Backerkit is distributing the Corebook PDFs to all backers whose reward tier includes it. If for some reason you don't receive an email in the next few minutes, go ahead and log into your backerkit account and download it there.  If you have any issues retrieving your PDF copy, or if you are one of the backers who opted out of using that service, simply send me an email at [email protected] and I'll email you your copy directly! No problem!

We have spent a tremendous number of hours in the past weeks ferreting out little inconsistencies in formatting, fixing typos and the spellings of certain creatures to make sure everything syncs up perfectly. However, in any project of this size, there is a chance you'll spot things in the book that need fixing. Before the document is revised and formatted for the printing of the physical books, we have time to fix anything that slipped through our proofreading and editing processes. We would be so grateful if you would participate in this process with us! Send us an email at [email protected] and let us know what you found, and on what page, so we can squash it before we got to print!  

Naturally, when the book goes to print, we'll have a new, updated version of the PDF for you with all fixes in, and you'll always have access to the latest version of the PDF on your backerkit portal.

Folks, it's been an epic saga and a labor of love bringing this game into the world. We are so thankful to each of you for making this game a reality and for being supportive of us as we took the time to finish it. We are looking forward to a long and exciting relationship with our gamers, playing Vurt with you, hearing the accounts of your feather trips and showdowns with corporate goons, street thugs, Whoompy's Cops, blundersnatchers, dreamsnakes and jabberwalkers. 

Get out there and start dreaming, featherheads!!

Team Ravendesk

Update 4/27
about 7 years ago – Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 10:44:27 PM

Hello Vurt Backers,  

I’m releasing a second update this week for a couple of reasons. First, I missed the promised update on the 17th and I’m making it up this week with an extra look at the book. The page spread below is from Chapter 10: Vehicles, and gives you a look at the layout and some of the artwork you’ll find there.  

The second reason for the update is less of a treat: we need a few more days to get the corebook PDF ready for you. Right now we have several proofreaders finishing up their final passes, and we’d allotted what seemed to be a pretty generous amount of time for this process. We also scheduled the indexing and cross-referencing for the very end of the project so that we could be sure that any final adjustments will not reposition text and mess up the accuracy of those page indicators. We figured that proofreader’s corrections wouldn’t affect page numbers much if at all, so there could be some overlap between the proofing and cross-referencing schedule. In retrospect, this was kind of naive. Even the smallest changes can have a surprising impact on page numbering, and trying to fix those effects by adjusting tracking (the space between characters in words) is a clumsy solution.  

This in itself might not have caused a few days’ delay, but since hyperlinking the book (so that you can click on a cross reference and you’ll automatically jump to the appropriate part of the book) also needs to be done at the same time, that’s more than we feel we could do properly in the time we had left.  

So, in order to be sure we can get these final bits in without mistakes, we are moving the PDF release date to May 8th.  

I know it can be disappointing when a project deadline is missed. Believe me, we’re not happy about it either. But we’re learning the craft of making a book along the way, and we think these lessons are only valuable if they go into the service of delivering to you the high-quality book you’ve been waiting for.  

We are very close to being finished, and one additional week will allow us to knock out these final, important details. As always, we’re tremendously grateful for the patience and understanding that you’ve shown us throughout the development of the game. And we’re super excited that you’re about to get the RPG that you’ve made possible.

Sincerely,  

Lee Pruitt, Project Manager