What a great finish! Stretch goals, pledge manager, late backing, shipping, Roll20, and more...
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Nov 26, 2021 at 04:50:27 PM

Hey everyone, this thing really took off in these last three days!  Thanks so much for all the support!  We're crazy excited to be able to make this game - we definitely want to see it exist as much as you do.  Victor, Cass, and I now get to ease our way into designing a ton of titans!

Playtest Kit & Roll20 Prototype Sheets

I think the biggest thing was getting the playtest kit out there for people to see. If you haven't grabbed it yet, please do!

I regret not getting this thing out earlier, but a confluence of events, scheduling, and such kinda kept pushing this back. Along those same lines, I also want to make a note - we said prototype Roll20 sheets would be available immediately after the campaign.  With the playtest kit coming out so late, Eike is working on bringing the sheets in line with the latest playtest. He'll be working on that through early December and can hopefully have something to show a few weeks in or towards the end of the month.  Until then, the playtest includes pretty good Google Sheets that you can use for online games.

Pledge Manager, Shipping, & Late Backing

There will be a pledge manager post-campaign (Backerkit). That should open a few days from now - it takes a bit to get set up.   In the pledge manager, you will be able to upgrade your pledges if you'd like.  We will be collecting shipping MUCH later, almost at the very end. Shipping costs are so extremely volatile right now that it's impossible to predict a year from now. Our fulfillment center has advised us not to collect too early.

Late backing will be available on Backerkit as well, so if you have some friends that are interested or if anyone is reading this that isn't a backer - go check that out.  The link will be available on the main Kickstarter page.  If you cannot back via this method and would prefer something like Paypal, reach out to [email protected]

Stretch Goals

We busted through a ton of stretch goals which is great - it gives us a bunch of room to get all of our ideas out there. But I also wanted to make clear that totals taken in via Paypal backing (for the few that couldn't use Kickstarter, about ￥100,000) as well as any late backing will count towards the final stretch goals! I have a feeling this thing will get up to that ￥7.5m mark.

Playtests & The Future

Throughout this next 6 - 9 months, we'll be rapidly developing and playtesting the game.  The current plan is to keep the basic playtest (Sunrise Island and its three titans) updated with the most current rules and available for all. This should let you get the rules out to your players, but will also bring in a broader community and more late backers. Oh yeah, those 3 titans from the playtest? Those are bonus - they'll be included in Windfall, but won't count towards the total we intend to develop there.

As we develop content for each of the three settings, I'll send that out to people who backed at those tiers.  For example, if a new titan gets done for Sea of Stars, I plan to put it out there for people that backed Sea of Stars to playtest with and give feedback on.  In this way, over the next year, there'll be a pretty constant drip of content for people to engage with.

Community Content & Relic CORE

I just wanted to put a reminder that we think that this is only the beginning for Relic. We're building the core system to be a great framework for games that want to play out in a fast flowing, cinematic style. We'll be making this CORE available for free as an online and downloadable SRD that creators can use to build their own systems.  I'm hoping to see this up within the next 6 months.

Relic itself will also have an open community content license, allowing people to release their own settings, havens, talismans, scenarios, titans, and so on for it!  I'll have more news on this a bit down the line.

Odds & Ends

I'll try my best to write regular updates on the Kickstarter here.  I've had bad habits in the past where I spend a lot of time talking about things on our Discord and the non-Discord users fall a bit out of the loop - I'll strive to make sure that doesn't happen. However, if you ever feel like you'd like to know more about what's going on, don't hesitate to hit that Kickstarter "I want an update!" button!  It's a nice reminder for me that I've been a bit lax.

Speaking of Discord, it's always the easiest way to get ahold of me and I love throwing around ideas for the game or explaining game design decisions, so please come hang out!  I'll be opening up more Relic channels on it soon and organizing it a bit better so people can participate more, hopefully getting some playtests going. Also, we intend to start streaming our weekly playtests again! We just didn't have the time / mental bandwidth to actually stream them during the Kickstarter, but it's a great way to show people how the game is intended to be run. So you can expect that.

I think that's all for now!  I probably forgot something in the excitement here at the end of the campaign, but I'll update later if I remember.

THANK YOU!

- Ben, Victor, and Cass at the Bandit Camp

Updated stretch goals, 5e companion PDF, and the home stretch!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 04:45:45 AM

Hey everyone,

We're right in the middle of the mid-campaign doldrums, just kinda humming along.  Things have been going great, but we've thought a lot on how to energize the campaign a bit towards the end and make sure we can do a lot of the things we want to do with Relic.

• First, I've updated the stretch goals.  The ones towards the very end are the most interesting for me!  We want to make some very large, printed maps to slip into each copy of Relic and sticker sets to go along with them. Ideally, you can mark up the map as you traverse across it, coming upon titans, new settlements, dangers, and discoveries.  The map itself will become a living history of your campaign. Also, excitingly, Victor has just started in on one of the first settlement maps so we should have some in-progress pics of that to go up really soon!
• Second, we'll be releasing a playtest kit soon. We had expected to have it out a bit sooner, but real life got in the way a bit.  I just got a somewhat-final map of what we've been calling "Playtest Island," a small island to the northeast of Windfall.   At about 1/5 the size of the island of Windfall, it has just enough room for a couple of settlements and a few titans - those you see detailed on the KS page. I'm looking forward to getting that scenario out in front of everyone.
• Third, the playtest kit with one island, three archetypes, three talismans, six gear kits (which have been drawn up!  I'll post them soon, they're really cool), and three titans will be available for all.  However, we will also be making content available to backers as we finish it up.  I know the release date is a bit down the line, but there will be a steady drip of maps, titans, talismans, and so on as they get finished!  That way we can get them out to backers and into playtesting and get feedback, then incorporate that feedback right away. A healthy, active playtesting ecosystem is one of our main reasons for even being on Kickstarter.
• Fourth, we've decided to release 5e conversions of each book, as a PDF, for free for each tier. This way, even if Relic's FitD-inspired fiction-first system isn't to your liking or you can't convince your table to take up something new, most can find a way to get the setting and content to the table. The conversions will also serve as very helpful guides when converting the setting content over into the system of your choice! This is something we were hoping to add and we're happy to be able to do it. Hopefully, it'll expand the amount of people interested in Relic's world.

That's really it for now!   I've been a bit dormant towards the middle of the campaign, as there's just not a whole lot going on. As always, I'm active on the Discord (or here or by PM), so feel free to ask any questions you might have!  Also hoping to get an Actual Play up next week, but we'll see - scheduling amongst my playtesters has become problematic.

Looking forward to seeing this thing through to the end and getting to make the game we've been dreaming of making.

- Ben

More stretch goals down!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Nov 02, 2021 at 07:47:21 PM

Hey everyone, this update is going to be a bit short. I'm in the midst of Halloween weekend with two girls and funding came in faster than I'd imagined, so didn't have time to properly update the stretch goals graphic.  This is a good problem to have.

Second Stretch Goal Powered - More Talismans!

We unlocked that second stretch goal, adding more talismans per book (3 extra, a total of 11/book now)!  Each of these has its own custom art and unique abilities, so adds to our playtesting time but we have plenty of ideas for things we want to pursue design-wise there so glad to see we have the funding to make more happen!

Two New Stretch Goals

I just added the next two stretch goals.  Next up is one we're really happy we'll probably be able to work on. Every setting comes with its own details types of settlements - Windfall has havens (small communities with safety from titans), Wartorn has cities (some mostly in rubble) and encampments, and Sea of Stars has island communities.  We'll be detailing several of these per book and they're just another layer that you can drop in around the sandbox maps wherever needed. They provide a bunch of roleplaying options and hooks and also offer a place to do seasonal downtime activities in the relative safety of a community. At this stretch goal, we'll give one of these communities per book its own map allowing it to come even more alive. We've found that visual aids can really help get the imagination going.  This goal is right around the corner - we might even hit it before I finish typing this update. :P

A bit further down the line, we can see more titans. Each time we hit that milestone, it adds a substantial amount of content - 3 titans, each with its own full-page art and animated figures.   

Early Next Week

So, I'm checking out of the Kickstarter for the next 24 hours or so.  We have some Halloween activities planned here and I imagine it'll eat up most of my day.  Just a heads up on if it takes a bit for me to get back to you - we've had plenty of comments and that's been very nice!   On Monday and throughout early next week, you can expect to see:

• Shipping rate estimates
• More stretch goals announced, including some info on other potential physical goods
• A mock-up of the character sheet (we were waiting on some art for this)
• A preview of the mechanics in a bit more detail
• News about when the playtest will potentially begin

That's it for now!  Thanks so much for the support!

- Ben and the Bandit Camp

Funded and our first stretch goal powered up! What a colossal first day!
almost 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 05:37:06 PM

FUNDED!

Thank you all so much for the immense amount of support!  We had a fantastic first day, completely blowing away our expectations and we're pumped to see everyone is as excited about the game as we are! This thing is now funded and we're getting ready to march through some stretch goals.

FIRST STRETCH GOAL POWERED - MORE TITANS!

As you can see, as it gets funded, each sigil gets powered and unlocks the attached stretch goal. The first one means that each book will get an additional titan added to it - 13 in each book now!  As funding increases, we want to focus on adding more content into the books. Up next is adding more talismans! 

THE PATH FORWARD

As funding increases, we'll announce new stretch goals down the ley line and see if we can get them powered. Our plan is to focus on increasing the value of each book, mostly through additional content, art assets, and printing quality upgrades. I'll have more details on those over the next few days. For a lot of our decisions, we needed to see how much support there would be for the game and now that we see people readily turning out to support it, we can consider some printing options (or even additional add-ons!) that we weren't sure we'd have the number of backers to support.

As always, getting out there and posting up a note on social media is a huge help. More backers = more stretch goals = the books just get better and better. You might also hop on the Discord as we're very active there and can answer any questions you might have. 

I'll be back soon with more exciting details, but thanks so much for this amazing first day!

- Ben and the rest of the Bandit Camp.