TFT Progress Report

[Steve Jackson]

I think I'll start a locked thread where I can occasionally blog, for those who are interested, about TFT progress.

I have now hammered on the text from all eight releases, and with the exception of some remaining ENTHUSIASTIC CAPITAL LETTERS, it's corrected, d-OCR'd, and up to current standards of grammar and typography.

Phil, Ross, and I continue to discuss release formats. Current thinking - and this may change, but I know you are curious - is a Kickstarter comprising Melee, Wizard, Everything-Else, and a PDF of the whole shooting match. We have toyed with the idea of doing the two Death Tests in Ace Double format - a single book with two fronts - since nobody will be using both adventures at the same time. It would save a bit of money and might be kind of cool.

[Steve Jackson]

Except now we have a news column for the TFT page at thefantasytrip.game - so this thread will be discontinued and I'll post news on the page.

[Steve Jackson]

Whoops, lost track of this thread. Update time!

You are all aware, I hope, that Guy McLimore is the new Line Editor.

Work continues apace. We're now just a couple of weeks from the KS launch. Hunter and I have been playing Melee on Facebook Live; I slaughtered his character today, and perhaps he won't take DX 9 again right away. He'll get a chance for revenge soon.

All books have been rough-laid-out at least once. Everything but the BIG book is now a pretty good fit. I have made enough changes in ITL that I'm not sure where we are on length.

Articles are regularly appearing on the website at thefantasytrip.game.

And you people are being very helpful. Thank you.

[philreed]

Useful Links -

Steve and Hunter create characters - https://www.facebook.com/sjgames/vid...6295430871007/

Steve and Hunter take those characters into battle - https://www.facebook.com/sjgames/vid...6312380956007/

[Steve Jackson]

Created and added a glossary. This will use up about a page, but it's probably worth it.

[Steve Jackson]

Today Hunter and I will do a Facebook Live at 4pm Central, with 3 on 3 Melee combat.

Art continues to come in. We have all the Tollenkar's Lair art now. Rick Hershey nailed Tollenkar's appearance. I'll show off that cover soon.

I have been spending a very tedious afternoon "verifying" the new printout of Death Test. About half done; found three trivial typos and one that I'm glad I found.

Phil has been working very hard on the Kickstarter page, and it looks good. I think it tells the story well.

(I'll catch up on other forum postings tonight after dinner.)

[Steve Jackson]

Two days until launch! Thanks to everyone who has been amplifying our signal on social media.

Today is a workday for me; catching up with the forums and dealing with feedback therefrom.

The 3-on-3 Facebook Live fight went very well. I won, but with only one figure surviving out of my team of 3. We started with no terrain, but fallen bodies soon provided all the terrain we could handle.

[Steve Jackson]

And we are launched!

Hit the goal in less than an hour. Past $50K now. Most of that initial support is probably attributable to you folks here - thank you!

Several of these stretch goals involve me writing new material to post. Not being an idiot, I have put some work into this already, but being an idiot, I did NOT have every possible stretch goal article already "in the can" – I have been concentrating on the game itself. However, I just finished the first stretch goal article, 5 Magic Items, and it will no doubt go up very soon.

I am almost done with "verifying" the links on Death Test, and will soon start, a page or so at a time, on Death Test 2. Tedious work but necessary.

All Liz' sketches are in and approved. If you will be at Gen Con, come by the booth for a Melee demo and see the beautiful counters and the great character card design that Ben did.

Please - take a few seconds to share the TFT info on Twitter and Facebook - the reason we have social stretch goals is that, with more shares, the algorithms show the posts to more people and increase overall the project's chances.

[Steve Jackson]

Have finished validating the Death Test 2 file. Boring boring hand work but necessary. Actually found two glitches - one in the Yellow Room map (a chest needed to be moved by one hex to leave room for slimes to surround it) and one in a direction (at 245, you should be facing west, not east).

[Steve Jackson]

Good progress. I have completely-for-now finished with the ITL text, and tonight it goes to Guy for his review.

Now I need to try to catch up on forum posts as much as I can, just in case I see something that makes me tweak this "final first draft" before sending.