Production Update: Vol 3 Completed; CRs To Be Updated!
about 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 05, 2020 at 08:05:44 PM

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 03:32:07 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 01:28:36 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!

IGS State of the Nation Q1 2020: Our 5-Year Anniversary, Production Status, Pipeline Status, Giveaways, and Much More
about 4 years ago – Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 06:53:20 PM

Apologies for the delay; typically I've been trying to publish a "state of the nation" sort of update at least once a quarter.  Today's Q1 2020 update is long overdue!

I actually have a duet of updates for everyone.

IGS State of the Nation

First, there's the actual State of the Nation for Q1 2020.  If you're only interested in finding out how things stand and where we'll be, check this out.  Spoiler alert: I'm behind schedule.  But, I'm producing at a rate unparalleled in our history: since late spring, we've been pumping out 600-1200 pages of content each and every month like clockwork.  (That's a good thing.)

IGS' 5-Year Anniversary

If you can believe it, Infinium Game Studio turns 5 years old this week: February 27th, 2015 is when I started writing what would become Dark Obelisk: Berinncorte.

I've got a lot planned for March to celebrate; if you're curious, check out the IGS 5-Year Anniversary update here.  (Note that all of the promotions etc. planned are things that will in no way distract us from our mission of delivering already-promised content to those awaiting it.)

Thank You

I accomplished more productively in 2019 than in any other single year of my life, by a myriad of measures.  I certainly did NOT get everything done that I had wanted to do, but what I did end up doing is a heaping ton of work.

There are delays.  There are day job commitments.  Things end up taking more time than I'd planned.

But never for a moment do I lose sight of my mission, or of how lucky I am to be able to do what I love doing most.  I spend literally every single spare moment working on IGS books.  And I don't see that changing any time in the future.

You can consider that, to use one frustrated backer's language, a bunch of "word salad".

But that doesn't make it any less true.

Thank you.  And, of course: Onward!

Production & Fulfillment Update: Volume 2 for 5E & P2E Completed & Published!
about 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 21, 2020 at 10:59:59 AM

Publication & Fulfillment Update

Just a quick note that Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm for 5E/Fifth Edition is now complete, and has been published.  In addition, the Pathfinder Second Edition version has also been completed and published.

PDF fulfillment for both volumes was triggered this morning; if you are entitled to either of these books and do not receive a notification to this effect from DriveThruRPG in the next hour, please reach out to me and I will remedy.

Production Update

Volume 2 was the most challenging and time-consuming to lay out, because it contains all of the "D" monsters: Demons, Daemons, Devils, and Dragons; each of these is far more involved than a typical beast so there's lots more to do.  It also means that Volume 2 tends to be the most "valuable" in terms of raw crunch utility.

In comparison, Volume 3 is less rife with such complexity, and so I'm already 30% of the way through it.  Should finish Volume 3 in the next 2 weeks; stay tuned!

Onward!