March Production Update: Dark Streets to Print
almost 8 years ago – Tue, Mar 07, 2017 at 05:58:46 PM

Hey folks!

After much writing, editing, rewriting, more editing, and proofing... Dark Streets is finished! 

Andrew and I are incredibly proud of this book, and we can't wait for you all to get your hands on the physical copies. Here's how it's all going down:

Dark Streets PDFs on DriveThru

We'd sent out links to free copies of Dark Streets to all our backers via Backerkit. You should have already gotten an email from Backerkit with the link, but if you didn't you can download it directly from your Digital Downloads page:

Backerkit Digital Downloads Page [LINK]

Any changes we make to the PDF from this point forward will be updated on the PDFs hosted through DTRPG, including any new changes to the finished Dark Streets playbooks. We expect Dark Streets to go up for sale on DTRPG next week. Yay!

Dark Streets Print Copies

Now that the Dark Streets PDF is finished, we'll send it to print this week. The printer usually takes about six weeks to get books to us, so we'll expect to ship those out before the end of April 2017. We'll let you know right away if we hit any snags.

Since so many folks who ordered physical copies of Dark Streets have moved since our original shipments of Urban Shadows, we're going to deliver these books via our online store instead of using the addresses in Backerkit.

Here's how it will work: when we get the books back from the printer, we'll send you a coupon you can use to get the book for free from our webstore. Use the coupon and we'll ship your book to whatever your current address is now!

Production Update: Final Pieces

We've got just a few pieces left to wrap up this whole Kickstarter! Thanks for your patience while we get these last few bits out the door.

• The Immortal and The Dragon - Andrew and I have been meeting to finish these while we wrapped up Dark Streets, look for new betas of both Archetypes in the coming weeks.
• Los Cazados - I'm a bit slammed with my day job at John Wick Presents, but... progress continues on Los Cazados, my small game about werewolves running from an ancient evil. I'm hoping to have a draft out to you all by the end of April.

Again, thanks to everyone for supporting this project and playing Urban Shadows. It's been an amazing experience for the last few years to be a part of this community, and we can't wait to get these last few pieces into your hands.

Dark Streets PDF Preview
about 8 years ago – Sun, Jan 01, 2017 at 06:51:19 PM

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August Production Update... and the ENnies!
over 8 years ago – Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 11:19:34 AM

Hey all!

Thanks so much for your patience this past few months. We’ve got some fun, exciting news today and a solid production update on Dark Streets. Things move forward, even if they take a little longer than we hoped! 

WE WON AN ENNIE 

So… we might have won an ENnie at Gen Con:

We got nominated for three ENnies this year: Best Rules, Best Game, and Product of the Year. While we set our vampire agents and werewolf enforcers out to round up votes, we knew that we had quite an uphill battle to win an actual ENnie. You have to win a popular vote to move from the nomination to Silver or Gold, and the Powered by the Apocalypse community is still pretty small next to something like Dragon Age or Pelgrane Press.

But you all made it happen. We won a Silver ENnie for Best Rules (right behind Feng Shui by Atlas Games) and it totally knocked our socks off. It’s the first ENnie Magpie Games has ever won, and it was an honor to go up on stage with Brendan Conway (rules editor), Amanda Valentine (copy editor), and Marissa Kelly (Magpie co-owner and art director) and accept the award.

PbtA Trivia: This marks the second time that a Canadian/New Mexican pair has won a Best Rules ENnie for a PbtA game… Sage (Las Cruces) and Adam (BC) won a Gold ENnie for Best Rules for Dungeon World. Both Adam and Andrew are sad that they didn’t get to write either book in their native language (COLOUR!).

Dark Streets Production Update: August 2016

Dark Streets is coming together nicely, if a bit slowly. We’ve finalized the last of the art from the book, including all the chapter pieces and the playbook art (both from Juan Ochoa). Here's a preview of one of the new chapter pieces:

We’ve also finished ALL OF THE CITY GUIDES. Check your Kickstarter messages later today for a link to a Dropbox that contains PDF, text-only versions of the City Guides from our awesome authors!

These eleven City Guides make up the bulk of the text for Dark Streets. Now that they've been through copy editing with Amanda, we're going to pass them on for Thomas to lay out, along with the maps Mark Richardson finished last year. In the meantime, though, you can use them at your table! 

We’ve got just a few more elements that need polishing:

• The Hallowed and The Scholar are going through final dev edits 
• Creating Archetypes and Historical Play essays are headed to copy editing 
• Mark is writing one more essay on criminal organizations

So… we’re close! We expect to wrap up the text in September and have the PDF out to you by the end of the month. We’ll have a better sense of shipping print copies when we have the final PDF in hand and we hear back from our printer.

In order to make sure that everyone gets the book to the right address, we’re going to do something a little different for shipping. When the book is ready, we’ll give everyone who ordered the book a special discount code to order the book from the Magpie Games website for free. You’ll enter your address then, and we’ll get the book out to you right away. 

Next Up... 

Now that we’re almost done with Dark Streets, it’s time for us to start finishing up the last few stretch goals for the project:

• The Dragon: We’re taking a hard look at this playbook now that we’ve written so many. Once we get Dark Streets to the printer, we’ll get a new version out to you all to playtest. 
• The Immortal: We originally planned to include The Immortal in the core book, but we couldn’t make it work. We’ll have a new version of this playbook out to you all around the same time as The Dragon. 
• Los Cazados: Mark has been working on the rules for this short game about the lives of werewolves who struggle to maintain their mortal facades in the face of an ancient evil. He’ll have something to show you all around Halloween.

And thank you for your support! Urban Shadows was one of the best selling products at the Indie Game Developer Network booth at Gen Con because of all of your support, and we're so excited to get the supplement out to you all this year!

Updated Files, Golden Geeks, and More
almost 9 years ago – Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:50:09 PM

Hey everyone!

First, thank you all so much for continuing to tweet, post, and Facebook about all your awesome experiences playing Urban Shadows. It literally brightens our day whenever we see someone talking about having fun playing the game, and we’re thrilled to know that you’re getting so much out of it. THANK YOU!

Now… on to the update!

Updated Digital Files

We’ve uploaded new MC Worksheet, Threat and Storm sheets, and ePub/MOBI Files to DriveThruRPG! We’ve been working for a while with Thomas on these files, and we’re finally happy with them. The MC Worksheet is basically an updated version of the sheet you’ve had for a while, but the Threat/Storm sheet and ePub/MOBI files are brand new tools for you to use at your gaming table. We’ve also corrected the typos on the main Archetypes!

[If you're not on DTRPG, you can also download all the public playbooks from the Magpie Games website.]

We’re thrilled at how they turned out, and we hope you find them useful. Please let us know if you spot any further errors or typos and we’ll get ‘em fixed. The beauty of digital releases is that we can just keep updating them…

DriveThruRPG Reviews

On that note, now would be a great time for new reviews on DriveThruRPG! Since we’ve uploaded the last of the digital files for the corebook, we’d really appreciate any and all reviews you all can leave. DTRPG purchases are largely driven by reviews, so everyone who leaves a review (especially one that says a bit about what you like and don’t like about the book) helps us out a ton!

Please note that you have to have downloaded the book through DTRPG to leave a review for the book. If we’ve sent you the link and you haven’t downloaded your copy, the system may not allow you to leave a review as a verified purchaser.

Golden Geek Nomination

Every year, the folks over at Board Game Geek give out the Golden Geeks, honoring the best in RPGs, card games, and board games from the previous year. We're thrilled to be nominated for Best RPG of the Year for Urban Shadows. (And you’ll notice we’re not the only Apocalypse World hack on the short list of nominations!)

We were nominated last year for the same award… but that was before we had even published the book. We’re really excited about this year’s nomination, and honored to have another turn at bat with a full publication. And we think we might be able to win!

But we haven’t won yet! In order for Urban Shadows to clinch the prize, we’re going to need your help! Click on the link below to vote for Urban Shadows for Best RPG of the Year:

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1538957/10th-annual-golden-geek-awards-nominees-announced

In order to vote, you have to be a BoardGameGeek member. It’s possible to purchase a membership, but you can also use Geek Gold if you’ve got some stored up in your account. Either way, we really appreciate your support!

Dark Streets Production Update: March 2016

Unfortunately, our work on Dark Streets continues. We’ve got some of the Essays in hand, but our City Guides are taking a bit longer than we hoped. We should have them wrapped up in the next few weeks, but it may be April before everything comes together in layout.

That said, we’re going to be heading to layout with the four new Archetypes very soon. We did a final rules pass on them last week, and we’ll be sending them to copy editing shortly. After that, it’s a quick pass from Thomas and you all can finally see them (with art) in their final form!

Thanks for your patience! We want to make sure this supplement is every bit as awesome as the core book. We’re close, but it’s going to take just a bit longer.

Update #39: Dark Streets Production Update and... The Hallowed
almost 9 years ago – Tue, Feb 09, 2016 at 08:36:15 AM

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