Friday, July 10, 2015

BLINDED BY REVIEW

After a lengthy review of the manuscript
my eyes feel a bit like this guy's
I would like to apologize for the long silence on the Blog here, we've been very busy preparing Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate for the editing phase. 

After refining/reformatting the NPC entries, revising the skill sections and taking a closer look at Kung Fu Techniques, Gamemaster Advice, Equipment, and more; we are ready to send things to the editor. We are slightly over word count. Our initial aim was 200,000 words but we hit 210,000. This was originally planed as a 50,000 word book so it really just kept evolving into something much bigger.  I won't give that a page count yet, not till I've seen some of it in layout and know how our new stat block entries affect length. 

Review is murder on the eyes, but necessary. There are a lot of moving parts in Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate. To properly review and check NPCs for example means navigating all over the document for relevant Kung Fu Technique info, setting material, etc. Any change to an NPC could potentially produce another change that needed to be entered in their Sect entry, the setting section or in the Technique Chart. 

When it comes to making books, I've learned for me, this is the worst and the best phase. On the one hand, when you get to the edit phase you're finally starting to see the project you've been working take real shape. Not only is the book in a state where you can easily use it to run your campaigns, but your starting to see the art come in and its been interplaying with the text. On the other hand, this is the most exhausting point in production in my experience. Your eyes get burned out from the reading and re-reading. 

The good news is we remain on schedule. We're making good time and this should hopefully be available sometime in the Fall/Winter. 

I mentioned this on social media but it needs repeating here: we received a lot of help from fans and play testers who not only gave us a ton of feedback, but pitched in with review, research, and design. This is somewhat unusual for us. We occasionally get feedback and suggestions but nothing like this. So we are grateful for the support. 

3 comments:

  1. Of all the art I've seen so far, that piece reminds me of One-Armed Swordsman the most.

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  2. It is a great illustration by Jackie Musto.

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    Replies
    1. Let's be honest: I haven't seen a bad illustration by Jackie Musto~!

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