Dear gamers,
about 5 years ago – Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 04:57:48 PM

Hey there! It's been about a month since the last update, so I figured I should post one. Here's where we're at:

Layout and editing are still underway, though we're on the final chapter. The main obstacle here is actually the book size: I was planning for Hard Wired Island to be 200-250 pages, but the final is coming closer to 300, which takes longer to work on.

We're still planning to be done this month, but it's possible we'll need to push it back a bit to make sure everything looks right (especially since editing got me to rewrite some things to make them better). If that happens, we'll do early February.

This is 100% down to me adding more setting material than I'd planned—I hope you like locations and NPCs, because they're nearly a third of that. I wanted Grand Cross to feel like a real, lived-in city, and if that means telling you about cat cafés and some guy named Max Babylon then so be it.

That's a big book, so I'm probably making a smaller companion PDF with just the rules and basic setting that players can use as a reference. That wouldn't be printed for budget reasons, though.

Anyway, that's where we're at. Hopefully I'll see you soon with good news!

December update
over 5 years ago – Wed, Dec 16, 2020 at 05:26:11 AM

 Hey there! This will hopefully be the last general update.

Where We're At

So, we're almost done. First off: all the art is done. Every piece! Hiring extra artists to help out worked out pretty well.

Text-wise, Freyja has finished the mechanics. I have to clean up the plot hook section, but everything else is done and the game is playable. Most of the remaining work is editing and layout.

Finally, most of the OST's tracks are done and the rest are partly complete.

(Near) Future Plans

I'll try to get everything done and launch the PDF in late December if possible, but if it's not doable without pushing people to work through the holiday break, we'll launch in January. Either way, expect your game soon. I hear a cyberpunk game that's hundreds of hours of fun just came out so this should give you geeks 'n' gamers time to wrap that up.

Once it's out, we'll get printing figured out and work on that behind-the-scenes PDF.  It will basically be commentary on the game's production and some of the choices we made, plus larger versions of some of the art pieces—there are no plans to insert extra content in there, so the core book will have everything.

After that, we'll be done!

For Now...

No preview this time—prepping those takes time, and at this point I'd rather knuckle down and get this done. For now you can:

• Check out the October preview, which contains both of Hard Wired Island's main setting chapters;
• Follow Freyja on Twitter for some rules posts;
• Or chill out in the Weird Age Games Discord (which has sort of expanded into a general gaming/virtual YouTuber server at this point).

Happy holidays, and I'll see you soon!

Cover art! (Also, read the setting preview)
over 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 06, 2020 at 03:55:44 PM

Check it out! The final cover will say "Hard Wired Island" on it, of course.

And now that I've got your attention: I posted an update a few days ago, but I'm told a lot of folks didn't get an email or see it in their activity feed. I was considering making it backer-only, so I might have changed the settings and forgot to put them back (though I don't know if I have power over the activity feed, so who knows).

Just in case:

1. The news is that we're taking some extra time to get things right and probably not shipping this year. The PDF is still dropping this year, though.

2. Check out the last update to get both setting chapters in their entirety. (And let me know what you think!)

That's all for now. I'll see you soon with more news!

Update + Setting Preview
over 5 years ago – Sun, Nov 01, 2020 at 08:37:53 PM

Hey there! Here's another quick update.

Where We're At

Long story short, print probably won't ship this year. The game still needs a little work! Since we're doing a proper print run instead of a print-on-demand service I don't know if we'll have enough time to get that done and get books in people's hands this year, and I'd rather not rush it. This just enhances the retrofuture if you ask me, though.

The PDF is still coming out this year and I don't think 2020 can stop t at this point. In fact, here's something in the meantime.

Setting Preview

If you head to the Hard Wired Island Preview page on itch.io, you'll find a new 15MB download! This contains both setting chapters in their entirety, in a draft version of the layout. It'll be touched up before release, but this should give you a good idea of what we're going for here.

As usual, if you have any feedback let me know. (Don't worry about sending editing notes or anything, we've got someone for that.) Hopefully this tides you over until release.

Good luck to everyone voting this week, and I'll see you soon!

October Update
over 5 years ago – Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 07:37:48 AM

Hey there! Here's an October status report. First: BackerKit closes tomorrow. I am going to be a pill about this and message the dozen people who backed for a print copy and never finished their surveys. After that, no more chances.

Anyway!

The above image is an ad for the game I've been playing with. Apropos of nothing. Not sure what it's referring to, really. Anyway, here's the art as it appears in the book (which incidentally does not have a clickthrough link, unlike the image above):

 Where We're At

The short version is we're almost done. We're not gonna hit the mid-October mark I was hoping for, but we've also been aiming to have something ready to send to the printer by early November, and we're currently on course on that one. The worst case scenario is that these books ship in January instead of December, but if you ask me that just makes them more retrofuture.

Now, a little more detail:

• Remember when I said I hired a bunch of artists to get the book done? Well, it worked. I'm still waiting on finals of the cover and two other pieces, but we'll be all greased up and ready to go in time.

• Still writing the back end of the book, but I'm in the end zone. The two main problems I've had this year are a) the setting chapters turning out longer than I'd estimated, though I think that's worth it, and b) all those art commissions taking up a bunch of my time. Now that art is sorted, I'm hoping to knock this out within a week or so.
• No problems with layout and editing at the moment.
• As for the soundtrack: it's 2/3 done, and progress has been speeding up now that we've nailed down some basics. We've nailed down the basics of the sound and what the remaining tracks are, and neon shudder should make them a reality before the print version drops.  

 That's pretty much it for now. If all goes well, the next update will be the PDF! Soon you, too, can be this guy:

 See you soon!