State of the Realm: Q4 2020
over 3 years ago – Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 07:39:47 PM

Hiya!  Hope you're enjoying the burgeoning winter (or whatever season it happens to be where you are).

Please find the Q4 2020 Infinium Game Studio State of the Realm update here.

As I established in the Q2 2020 Realm update earlier in the year, I have honest, updated targets for each and every product in the pipeline.  That policy will continue.

We've long established that my ability to estimate is not ideal, but I do enjoy sharing with you my best guess and trying to be as transparent as possible about what's going on, when, and what I'm doing about it.

Accomplishments

2020 certainly has been an enormous year.  Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm for 5E, for Pathfinder Second Edition, for OSR, and for DCC have all been completed and published.  And I even expanded all editions of the Bestiary by an additional 60 monsters, bringing the total to 1,660 monsters, over 33,000 complete statblocks spread over more than 20,000 pages of published content.

As part of that, I established my first-ever formal agreement with another third-party publisher, and got approval to publish the Bestiary for DCC using the Dungeon Crawl Classics logo and official support.

The FlexAI Guidebook was completed and published.  The FTEG Solo Adventuring Quickstart, and its accompanying Quickstart Bestiaries for PFRPG, 5E, and P2E, were published.

And more recently, just last week, the Content Conversion Guide was completed and published, along with its companion Excel Conversion Mapping Inventory tool.

All in all, four Silver bestsellers and two Copper bestsellers in the IGS library at this point on DriveThruRPG, including #1 Hottest Small Press, #1 Most Popular Under $5, and #6 Bestselling Overall honors (all for the Content Conversion Guide).

Updated Project Targets

In keeping with the new approach established earlier this year, the State of the Realm update features honest, best-guess assessments of where outstanding work will be completed and fulfilled.  I want to remain as transparent as possible, even if that frustrates some people, because as a backer of over 500 indie RPG projects myself, I'd rather have a best-guess that changes, than a vague "I'm working on it" promise.

I want to stress, and thank you for, the overwhelming amount of optimistic, understanding, sympathetic, and generally positive feedback I've received.  Most of you seem to be super thrilled; many of you are eager to hear more, and I do respect that some of you are frustrated.

I have always delivered, and I will continue to deliver, as rapidly, and as completely, as I am capable of.  I thank you for your patience, now in this bizarre 2020 situation more than ever, and for the nearly 10,000 of you who have received at least one IGS product already, I'm always eager to hear your feedback!

Thank You!

Thank you as always for your patience, support, and constructive feedback.  2020 has been a heck of a year for us all, and yet, IGS has continued to produce a TON of products spanning thousands and thousands of pages and over a dozen books.

We're looking forward to much, much more yet in what has already been a record-breaking year of productivity for our teeny-tiny indie geekfest company.  None of this would be remotely possible without you, your support, and your own passion.

So: Thank you!

Onward!

Production Update: It's Finished!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Dec 04, 2020 at 12:03:40 PM

All done.  430 pages.  Generating the export files and listing now.  Digital fulfillment should commence later tonight.

I'll make another update post once things are being sent out to give you the heads-up.  Thank you for your patience; the long wait is nearly at an end!

Onward!

Production Update & DRAFT Sample Converted Monster List
over 3 years ago – Thu, Dec 03, 2020 at 10:10:24 PM

Bad News First

I'm not going to be able to include all of the monster special abilities in the book.

This news is not as dire as it may seem: The work is done, all 4,800+ special abilities and attacks are fully converted for all five supported rules systems.  It's just not physically feasible to have them in a book format.

I'd wanted to, believe me I did--IGS is all about massive dead-tree tomes!--but as I started to lay things out, I quickly realized that it was taking up a LOT more page space than I'd planned.

If I were to lay out everything in full, it would take more than 3,000 pages.

So, nope!

The good news is that I *will* be including the Excel based version of ALL of the mappings (Spells, Feats, Special Abilities, Weapons, Poisons) to ALL backers.  For free.  As promised.  :)

It also means that the resulting book will be a little cheaper to print, for those interested in using their POD discount code.

Nearly Done!

Okay, now for the good news: I've finished the core book.  

It's about 100 pages of straight, pure, raw, writing and tables, pure engineering and guidance and energy to fuel conversions.  

I'm on target to complete, publish, and fulfill PDF versions by the end of this week.

The only remaining piece I need to write is a brief summary of how to convert between 3.5/d20 and Pathfinder, which I don't think was in the original scope, but I've been researching and doing it for a long time so I figured I'd write that up too.

What remains beyond that is to polish up the intro a bit, wax poetic about what this is all about and for, and then pump the back half of the book with sample converted monsters.

Which brings me to the next point...

DRAFT Sample Converted Monsters List

The following is my draft list of what monsters to include in the book... each will have the full complement of quadded stats for each of the 5 supported rules systems.

I believe this incorporates the feedback I've received thus far, but please let me know if you have additional recommendations or requests.

Aberration: Aboleth, Mimic, Rust Monster   

Animal: Dinosaur (Stegosaurus), Herd Animal (Aurochs), Animal Shark (Blue)   

Construct: Golem (Iron), Golem (Stone), Wickerman   

Dragon: Dragon (Bronze, Adult), Dragon (Bronze, Ancient), Dragon (Bronze, Young)   

Fey: Dryad, Gremlin (Grimple), Nymph   

Humanoid: Bugbear, Cyclops, Giant (Frost)   

Magical Beast: Ankheg , Basilisk, Bulette, Hydra   

Monstrous Humanoid: Centaur, Medusa, Ogre   

Ooze: Black Pudding, Gelatinous Cube   

Outsider: Azer, Barghest, Elemental (Fire, Elder), Outsider Elemental (Fire, Huge), Outsider Elemental (Fire, Medium)   

Plant: Flytrap (Giant), Fungal Crawler, Treant   

Undead: Ghoul, Mummy, Wraith

Vermin: Beetle (Giant Stag), Crab (Giant), Bee (Giant Queen)

Onward!

Production Update: Full Focus!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 01:25:46 PM

Hi folks... quick note to indicate that I'm working full-focus on the Conversion Guide right now.  No more obstacles, just work to be done... I'm hoping to wrap things up this week, and begin fulfillment next week if at all possible.

Fingers crossed for uninterrupted productivity!  :)

Thank you again for your patience; I'm really eager to get this out there as I know that folks are extremely eager to use it.

Onward!

Production Update: ABRE OSR & DCC Complete; Pipeline Progress
over 3 years ago – Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 05:27:01 PM

Hi all!  Happy Thanksgiving week for those who celebrate it.  Without further ado, let's get into this massive update of good news and progress.

ABRE: OSR & DCC Completed

Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm, Volume 2 for OSR and DCC have now been completed, and are published.  This brings a long-awaited end to the production of this massive bestiary across all 5 supported rules systems... and the end, finally, to basically two entire years of pipeline delay as I could not lay things out in an automated manner and was forced to do so by hand.  For nearly 20,000 pages of content, it was... a lot of work.  But it's finally coming to an end.  Which is good news not only for my hands, but for all other products eagerly awaiting my attention in the pipeline!

Digital fulfillment of V2 for OSR/DCC is underway; if you're entitled to either one of these newly-released products and don't receive an automated notification today, please let me know and I'll investigate.

Bestiary Hardcopies

For those entitled to hardcovers of Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm, good news: over the Thanksgiving break, I plan to finalize the content and cover files for every single volume of the Bestiary across every single rules system, and submit them for review.

The first week of December, I should be in position to order what I hope to be the final proof copies.  Once I receive them, likely in January, I will review them, and assuming all is well, will then commence with hardcopy fulfillment.

If you're entitled to a hardcopy of ABRE, I will reach out to you individually at that point to see what your preferences are regarding: rules system edition; address confirmation; and whether you would prefer the hardcopies still, or would prefer a partial refund if you're satisfied instead with the PDF version you've already received.

Conversion Guide

With the OSR and DCC conversions of the Bestiary completed, this Guide is about a week or so away from completion.  Look for fulfillment in December, I'd guess.

Monsters of Aquilae (MOA)

This is up next as my main focus.  I estimate it will take about 1-2 months to complete now that I can focus fully on it.

I will be laying things out for this book across all 5 supported rules system editions (PFRPG, P2E, 5E, OSR, and DCC) simultaneously.  As I've noted before, the "crunch" has long been completed for all 5 editions of this; it's just a matter of laying things out on pages.

If you're entitled to a hardcopy of this, it'll follow the same approach described above regarding the finalization, the proofing, and the individual reach-out.

Bestiary Master Index

The original vision for this was to merely include the Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm monsters, but a number of backers have urged me to also include the MOA critters in the listing, which does make sense.

Once MOA is complete, I'll be able to finish the Master Index; all told, it should take about 1 week to complete once MOA is done.

FTEG SAT

Yeah, this.  One of my most beloved initiatives, more than 30 years in the making, the Solo Adventuring Toolkit also one of the most delayed.

I once again apologize for the backup on this; everything listed above is either even more delayed than FTEG SAT, or such an easy finish (e.g., the conversion guide) that it doesn't make sense not to wrap it up quickly.  Rest assured it's still top of mind.

My full focus will be on completing and delivering FTEG SAT ASAP in the new year.  On the plus side, I can guarantee your money's worth: between the Solo Character Compendium and the QuickStart, it's already delivered quite a bit more than many backers reported expecting in the first place, so I can't wait to finish the huge entirety of my vision up on this and get your feedback.

Giving Thanks

I'm honored and just all around lucky to be able to do what I love most.  And if you're reading this, you are 100% the reason I am able to do that.  I never for a day take that situation for granted, and every time I put pen to paper on IGS work, I appreciate anew the fact that I get to do this.

So: it's trite and vapid to say this, but it bears mentioning nevertheless: I'm thankful for you.

Have a happy thanksgiving weekend, whether you celebrate or not, whether you are able to be with family and/or friends or not, and no matter your circumstances.

Onward!