I hope you enjoyed your April. Around here, it’s finally spring, and I am so ready to say goodbye to winter. Here on the last day of April, we’ve got a short update for you.
We have approved all of the stickers, patches, and temporary tattoo proofs. The last thing is the most important one: the book itself. We have approved the digital proof from the printer, after a few rounds of back-and-forth to confirm colours, margins, and page count across interior and endpapers. The end result is a really nice endpaper treatment where the book attaches to the hardcover. We’re now awaiting the pre-production copy (PPC). If everything there looks good, we’ll give the go ahead for production to begin.
While the PPC work was kicked off, Jordan selected a nice matching spine and bookmark ribbon that matches the blue in the endpapers. I’m really excited to see how this turns out in the final product. We’ll be sharing photos once Jordan has the PPC in hand!
I know Devil’s Due has been a long time coming, but the arrival of the PPC will be a big milestone. We expect to provide you with a concrete timeline once the PPC is approved and production begins. Thanks for sticking it out with us. Once production begins, we’ll update the digital downloads on BackerKit to include the final PDF.
As always, we’re here to answer any questions or help with pledge surveys. There’s roughly 80 backers who need to fill out their surveys, so please reach out if you need a hand.
Happy Tuesday, everyone! We’ve got a lot of exciting news to share with you about Wages of Sin, so let’s dive right in!
First, Adam received the finalized samples of the books. Check it out!
Adam sent us a couple of videos to link so we can give you a quick look through Wages of Sin. We can't embed YouTube shorts into updates, but you can click the links below to see the videos.
The standard hardcover is so easy to navigate and the bounty numbers look great as you turn the pages. The deluxe version is stunning, with beautiful gilded edges that disappear as you flip through.
Like many of you in the comments, I am particularly stoked to get my hands on the hardcopy of Megadamage. I have loved scrolling through the stories and interviews in the PDF, but there’s something about holding a physical copy of a book that makes me appreciate the artistry and work of the creators even more.
Nearly 200 pages of pure awesome.
We’ve also received samples of the cards and stickers from Whatz!
So cool!
So shiney!
We hope you are as excited to crack the packs as we are!
Last, but definitely not least, I wanted to let you know that the books are still on schedule, currently making their way to the freight forwarders. Daniel says we are expecting everything to arrive at our warehouse in early June, which means you should receive your books in late June.
Thank you all for your support of all things TKG. If you have any questions or problems, please reach out to my old pal Tyler at [email protected]. Thanks for reading!
Ok, first—sorry for such a long period of radio silence.
We had some backend issues with storage and shipping, which always seemed like they would be solved the very next week...and I kept waiting for it to be resolved, before coming back to you with another update with good news, and waited… and waited… and kind of got stuck in this loop, instead of telling you right away that things were delayed, which would have been the proper way to handle this.
BUT now I finally have good news, and was able to get myself—and my mind—out of this goddamn waiting loop!
The addresses are being locked (I think we have the last 24 hours right now), and the module will finally be shipped! Woohooo! My god, I cannot wait to finally hold it in my hands after it sat for several months at the storage company. I hope you are excited too!
As a small way of saying “sorry,” I created a small pamphlet with a couple of unused ideas from the module, which is added below in the backers‑only section. I will be adding one (or two) illustration to it over the weekend, but all the text is already there. Once the illustration is finished, we will add it to the Pledge Manager and/or send you a new link.
Ok, I think the main message has been delivered—thank you very much for your patience!
Hello! I just realized that this project is still listed under "Your Surveys" (with an estimated shipping date of 4/2025), instead of under "Past Surveys" as it should be. Have I forgotten to do something, or is it the same for everyone?
Apologies for the delay. On my end and among other obstacles, a close family member has been battling a scary condition for some time. Recently it has required a good deal of my time and attendance.
Now I'm back home and back in the saddle; you'll be seeing the PDF and shipping details coming through soon.
I currently have only 2 of the 5 projects I backed for MM '24. Hopefully MM '25 stuff is going better, but I'm ready to take a break from crowdfunding altogether.
In November we were told that shipping would begin in January. There has not been an updated timeline since then. Communication on this project has gone beyond disappointing into unprofessional.
I've updated the Interloper PDF files using a lot of your great feedback and sent the final draft out to all campaign and late backers emails via Backerkit. (Linked again here in update for those who can access it. )
The files are also accepted at the printers and out contact at Jostens let us know that print copies will be coming off the presses and shipping out to Space Penguin Ink by 4/29, possibly earlier. After they arrive we'll start shipping all of these books to your doors.
It's been a long time shepherding Interloper to completion and I want to thank you again for helping to make it possible.
Also I wanted to let you know about our new RPG adventure book launching April 21st-- Citadel of the Sun Kings.
It's an excellent sandbox desert adventure for Old School Essentials by Micheal A. Curtis with cover art and additional illustrations by Logan Stahl. And the final manuscript is already 100% complete!
Beyond the walled town of Najad lies the Red Wastes: a wild region of blazing sun and shifting sands, scattered with ruins of empires long turned to dust. Within these sun-scorched lands, whispers speak of a golden citadel rising from the dunes: the last redoubt of the Sun-Kings, a place of treasure and terror, guarded by the remnants of elder powers.
• Najad: A caravan town brimming with intrigue, shifting loyalties, and dangerous opportunity. • The Red Wastes: A wild expanse of mythical strangeness filled with ancient beasts, lost shrines, petrified forests, and hallowed tombs. • Six Dungeons: A flooded cistern inhabited by unlikely residents, a desert ruin filled with traps and snakes, the forgotten sanctum of an oracle, the cyclopean domain of the Iron Behemoth, and the mighty Citadel of the Sun-Kings itself. • Realm Below Night: A sunless underworld of forgotten horrors that allows for fast travel across the desert, assuming you survive the journey. • Discover: 18 new magic items and 13 new monsters. • Flexible Design: Play it as a full campaign or plunder the treasures of the Wastes for your own setting.
We’ve got two big progress milestones for this update.
Patch and Tattoo Samples
Our printer mailed us production samples of our two patches and temporary tattoos, and they look great!
We’ll likely remove the small pink stars from the skull design for a cleaner look, as they aren’t very readable in the embroidery, and there’s a color error with the skull’s eye we’ll try to get cleared up. But there shouldn’t be any other changes to these.
The Charon’s Ferry tattoos are big. There’s a lot of fine detail in the artwork that comes out nicely at this size, and we didn’t want to lose that by shrinking it down. So if applying it to the back of your hand, you’ll want to place it a bit higher toward your wrist and away from your knuckles to help keep your skin from pulling it apart more.
Awaiting Digital Proof
We had some additional delays due to a couple of mislabeled templates we were given to rework our margins. That said, the design files have been approved and are being used to make the digital proof right now.
Once we review and approve the digital proof, our printer will make a physical pre-production copy and mail it to us for a final review. When we approve that, we’ll be put into the full production queue.
We should have more of a timeline at that point. We appreciate you all waiting patiently for fulfillment!
Somehow, 10% of you still haven’t filled out your surveys! If that includes you, do that ASAP at http://devils-due.backerkit.com/ or the link BackerKit emailed you. We’ll let you know when we’re getting ready to lock shipping addresses, so if you’re concerned that you might be moving soon or something, don’t worry about that yet.
I'm super excited to make this post. I just turned in the final main manuscript to Greenspore, and they are working on one final pass of dev edits and then copy and line edits. We'll be holding our editorial committee meeting near the end of April, and the full committee will be as follows:
Violet Ballard (myself)
Greenspore (editor of the book)
Christian Sorrell (MeatCastle Gameware, they did very early dev editing on the project)
Christopher Airiau (a good friend and great designer and editor)
We'll be having a meeting of the minds to look over the completed manuscript at a very high level. We're going to figure out what still needs work before we put in the effort of layout. This team will also meet again once we have completed layout to look at the final book to ensure we are ready to go to print.
Alongside completing the main manuscript, I have also completed the manuscript for the solo prequel adventure, now titled The Halcyon, that will be printed on the sleeve for the vinyl containing music by Anthers and art by Zach Hazard Vaupen. I'm attaching a link to the PDF of this manuscript for backers only that you can play through now. It is an even further stripped down version of the solo gamebook Mothership engine that I developed for Cassette X. This is an emotional, narrative pair of adventures there is not a huge focus on mechanics. We're moving to layout for the vinyl shortly once we finish a few other back projects, so we should be ordering them for manufacturing in May or June.
