Production Update: Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm Volume 4 for 5E & P2E Completed
almost 6 years ago
– Sat, May 09, 2020 at 05:15:31 AM
Production Update
Just a quick note to announce that the next items in the pipeline, Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm Volume 4 for 5E/Fifth Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition, have been completed. 1,097 pages of crunchy goodness is all wrapped up.
If you're entitled to one or both of these, you should be receiving a notification from DriveThruRPG imminently with your free copy(ies).
Up next of course is Volume 5. All told I've lost about 4-6 weeks of productive time to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I'm back at work full-tilt. Based on the success of Volume 4, I would predict a reasonable ability to continue to pump out an additional volume every 4 weeks or so.
My plans for 2020 remain the same as when I announced the roadmap at the beginning of the year, I've just lost a bit of ground to the pandemic situation. I'm still incredibly eager to finish ABRE and commence layout for the half-dozen-plus books on which work is entirely complete, so I expect to continue the current rate of churning out massive quantities of work every month.
As always during these bizarre times, I hope you are all staying safe and sane, and I thank you for your continued support, confidence, and well wishes.
Onward!
IGS, C19, & Production Update
almost 6 years ago
– Tue, Apr 07, 2020 at 09:45:54 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!
FTEG Factions Added to BackerKit
almost 6 years ago
– Tue, Mar 03, 2020 at 04:34:06 PM
Thanks much to the backer who noted that the FTEG v2.0 Factions book, unlocked as a Stretch Goal, was not initially included in the BackerKit survey.
If you're not entitled to Factions, and want it, but have already submitted your survey, leave a comment below or message me and I'll unlock and resend your survey. Sorry for the oversight and omission!
FTEG v2.0 Factions has now been added as an add-on where applicable; "Everything" backers automatically receive it per the campaign update below:
- This will be a FREE PDF to all Everything or Upgrade backers, and just as with the other 9 component books, some content from this tome will make it into the FlexTale v2.0 Core tome as well, so everyone benefits! One of the things I'm most proud of in adventure setting books like Druid Enclave is the Factions: More than just a quick title and snippet, these full-featured factions sport a bunch of detail that makes them feel more like rich real-life groups. The FlexTale Factions book will offer dozens of tables that help drive quick and easy creation of immersive, diverse, and interesting factions for any fantasy RPG world.
