IGS, C19, & Production Update
about 4 years ago – Tue, Apr 07, 2020 at 09:47:20 PM

Hi all!  During these bizarre times, I hope that you and your families are staying sane and healthy, and that your lives and livelihood are as unaffected as possible.

I wanted to provide transparency as to how things have been going for Infinium Game Studio in the context of the global pandemic.

TL;DR

The short version is that I've lost about 3-4 weeks of productive time, nearly entirely, from what I had been working on as my main focus.  However, I'm back online and being roughly as productive now as I had been prior to the quarantine situation starting.

The Situation: More Detail

For the past 3-4 weeks, I've been watching three young kids and taking care of my mother and mother-in-law so our older family members don't have to leave the house but are provisioned.  My wife has been finishing up her critical patient load so starting this week she can watch the kids at least half the time so I can be productive again.

Unemployment, reduced hours, and other factors have affected many of our family members and friends.   We're hardly alone in this, and truth to tell, we are extremely fortunate that one of us has a job that can be done 100% remotely, so we're better off than many who have been struck hard by the situation.

However, it's still an impact.  I continue to scrounge up every single minute and hour to throw at IGS work, and thanks to my new situation with my wife helping with the kids, I'm able to recover 3-4 hours per day, which is fantastic.

But I've lost time.  I'll try to estimate what the impact to the timeline will be, but for the immediate situation, I've started Volume 4 of Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm for 5E and P2E editions.  Should be finished that by the end of the month at the latest.  I should be able to sustain that pace of two 500-page books per month for the foreseeable future.

The Good News

I've made available two "Quarantine Edition" bundles on DriveThruRPG, specifically for and to benefit those affected by the coronavirus crisis: one is a bundling of our four published mega-adventures, and the other is a Pathfinder-only assemblage of crunch.  Those have sold fairly well and all proceeds will be used to help friends and family affected by the crisis continue to manage life.

Also, my favorite RPG book reviewer, Endzeitgeist, has pored over many of our recent works and has found quite a lot to love.  As ever, his attention to detail unearthed some imperfections, and it's always useful to receive constructive critique.

In Closing

I greatly appreciate everyone who has sent me favorable and understanding messages over the past few weeks.  I realize that particularly for those without kids and under quarantine, this situation would benefit greatly from delivery of more of the products that you are owed.

Despite the C19 delays over the past month, the outlook for 2020 I published earlier in the year remains solid, and remains the best outline of where things stand and where I expect them to be.

Please realize that despite the unprecedented craziness and anxious frustration of the situation, I continue to spend every available moment toward the goal of completing and delivering what I have committed to.  It's probably not an exaggeration to say that I have managed to remain sane largely because of the focus this work has given me, and I hope that for those who have received IGS products already,

Roll20

One final note: given that many of my friends have much more free time these days, I've spun up a Dark Obelisk 1 game on Roll20.  I'm learning a great deal about the tool, and about what sorts of assets help a VTT experience.  As most of you know, we've always published standalone high-res map files with every adventure product, with an eye toward supporting VTT and remote play, but I realize already there are ways I can improve the experience in that regard.  More info as the situation develops, but it certainly is nice to play the adventures I've spent so much time creating!

Onward!

Production & Fulfillment Update: ABRE Volume 3 for 5E / P2E, Revisions to Vols 1 & 2 for 5E / P2E
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 09, 2020 at 06:50:12 PM

Production & Fulfillment Update

Volume 3 of Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm for 5E and P2E has been completed, and published.  PDF fulfillment has been triggered for all backers who are entitled to this; please message me or comment if you believe you are entitled to it and you have not yet received your message from DTRPG.

Revisions to Volumes 1 & 2

The 5E and P2E versions of the first two volumes of ABRE contained an error: namely, that the Challenge values were a "default spread" of 4 / 8 / 12 / 16 for every single monster.  That's been corrected, thankfully, and the listings on DTRPG have been updated.  DTRPG should be sending updated-version alerts to everyone who has already downloaded their copies of these volumes.

My apologies for the oversight!  It's been corrected, and both Volume 3, as well as the remaining volumes, should not have this error going forward.  Also, please note that the Pathfinder 1E version of all six volumes does not contain this error.

Onward!

Production Update: Vol 3 Completed; CRs To Be Updated!
about 4 years ago – Fri, Mar 06, 2020 at 02:04:50 AM

Sorry to spam your inbox twice today, but there's good news and mixed news.

Good News

I've completed Volume 3 of the 5E and P2E editions of ABRE.  I'll be finishing them up tomorrow and likely publishing sometime weekend; I'll advise when fulfillment triggers of course.

Mixed News

The short version is that, as several backers and customers pointed out, the CRs for the published Volumes 1 and 2 of the 5E and P2E editions of ABRE contain "standardized spreads" of Challenge Ratings.  That is, it simply lists 4/8/12/16 for each and every monster.

That's not what was intended, and the error wasn't even because I didn't pay attention to your feedback: I ran a double-check, and spot-verified a dozen cases in each book.  The thing is--and I'm sure there are some software testers and/or stats or research geeks among you, like myself--there's external validity and internal validity, and if what you're comparing against is itself incorrect, then checking doesn't really do anything useful.

The problem was in the code I wrote to scan through the thousands of files of generated crunch and adapt it into a quickly copy-able format.

So, mixed news:

• Bad news: Volumes 1, 2, and nearly all of 3 have mostly meaningless CR values.
  
• Good news: It's fixed now!  And we caught this before I spent an ungodly amount of money printing your hardcopies, thank goodness for that.
  

So, What Now?

I'll publish Volume 3 this weekend as-is, simply because it's done and I want to get it into the hands of folks who are waiting for it.

I will be tweaking Volumes 1-3 to amend the mistake, so the critters have meaningful CRs again.  I'll publish an update when this is complete (and of course, you'll get an update from DTRPG when the new file versions are available there).

Summary

Once again, thanks to the several backers and customers who pointed out the error.  And thank you all for your continued patience as we continue to roll out thousands of pages of content a month, until this is all fulfilled.

Onward!

Production Update: Volume 3 :)
about 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 05, 2020 at 09:57:36 PM

I don't want to jinx it or anything, but there's every probability that I will finish ABRE Volume 3 for 5E and P2E sometime later tonight.

I'll let you know.  :)

Onward!

Dark Obelisk 1: Collector's Edition
about 4 years ago – Mon, Mar 02, 2020 at 12:51:31 PM

A quick announcement that we have launched the Dark Obelisk 1: Berinncorte: Collector's Edition Kickstarter.  You can find it here.

What & Why

The intent here is to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of when Dark Obelisk, and Infinium Game Studio, began, by producing Collector's and Limited Editions of the urban sandbox mega-adventure that started it all.  To summarize, we'll be combining the now-two volume adventure into a single book, refining it and removing redundancy.  Also, the 5E version will be fully converted finally, as there had been a file corruption which had prevented this originally.

Pipeline Impact: Zero, Then Even Better!

Of extreme importance, IGS will be partnering with a commissioned layout and design artist with extensive experience laying out indie RPG books like this.  This "outsourcing" is planned for two reasons: first, to avoid any interference with the long pipeline of committed books that we're hard at work on and do not want to become distracted from; and second, to establish a longer-term relationship so as to be able to further accelerate our ability to produce quickly.

Who Gets What: Existing DO1 Owners & Backers

Please note that existing backers and customers of DO1 are entitled to automatic rewards for this campaign, as follows:

• We Few, We Happy Few: If you are one of the backers of the original Dark Obelisk 1 Kickstarter campaign, you will automatically receive all of the benefits of the Platinum reward tier for free, without having to even pledge.
  
• Citizen of the Realm: If you already have a copy of either the Adventure Book and/or the Dramatis Personae & Bestiary books, in either current rules system edition, you will automatically receive all of the benefits of the Silver reward tier for free, without having to even pledge.
  

Onward!