I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date totally platonic professional Backerkit update with no romantic implications whatsoever!
What the hell is that rabbit doing here...?
New Astral Crystal Firearms! Art from the lovely Bianca Papalardo
The Murka fulfillment timeline is here!
First off, apologies for how long this took. As I'm sure you can imagine, there are a lot of moving pieces in putting together a schedule, organizing artwork, getting quotes from manufacturers, and coordinating with all the teams with hands on a given book—and we're making three books, so this took three times as long as I had originally estimated. That's on me; we've never taken on such a huge undertaking, and I underestimated what a lift it would be to get a complete picture.
But no more waiting, here are the major milestones you can look forward to, distilled into a TLDR;,
October 1st - Orders and Surveys are locked
October 18th - Arcana Americana Beta PDF is completed and released
December 6th - Chromatic Gamut and Restaurants & Retail Beta PDFs are both completed and released
December 20th - Books begin printing. After they're printed, the manufacturer will ship them overseas to us.
March 2nd - Books begin shipping from our warehouse here in the US to all backers
One of the biggest shifts we've made is hiring an additional layout artist to move us along quicker. This is going to allow both Chromatic Gamut and Restaurants & Retail to finish out their layout processes in parallel, saving us a boatload of time.
Expect some more preview content from us for Arcana Americana soon, as we're trying to get this material into your hands as quickly as possible. You can expect additional preview content for the other two books as we go as well!
Thanks for your patience and understanding - this has been a transformative process and a monumental effort from everyone involved. We're moving as quickly as possible, and there are a lot of hands on this project, but as it's coming together, I couldn't be more proud. I really, really think you guys are going to like what's on the way. And once the books are in your hands, I think you'll feel that it's worth the wait.
The updates will continue until morale improves. After that, they will continue to continue, because we make the rules.
(Literally, we wrote all of the rules in these books.)
A mockup of what the Deluxe Edition cover of Arcana Americana will look like! Foil on clothbound cover. Still a ways to go before we finalize it, but it's coming together!
PDF Preview for Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Arcana Americana is here!
Our layout artist is absolutely CRUISIN' along right now, and has put together a nice, new, sizable preview update for your enjoyment!
Rather than linking the preview, the PDF is being distributed through Backerkit. You should get an email with a link to the download shortly, if you haven't got it already. All future previews will be disseminated the same way (this helps cut down on our file storage costs).
This is a work-in-progress preview of Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Arcana Americana. This contains information about the three main setting locations: Washtown (the capital of Murka), Sea Addled (the jewel of the pacific northwest), and Holly Woods (the dark heart of Murkan mass entertainment).
Some quick notes:
This is a work-in-progress.
Many of the elements you see here are still being re-worked or re-arranged. Some of the page elements are not final, and you may see art placeholders throughout. This is close to what the final product will look like, but expect some changes along the way!
If you find any concerns, issues, or errors, please tell us!
There is now a QR code at the beginning of the preview PDF, which you can use to provide us feedback! You can also leave a comment here, send me an email (jaron at valafoundry.com), reach out to us on the QuasiReal Discord, or send a carrier pigeon if you can manage it! Happy to take any feedback you have.
There's more where this came from!
We're hard at work figuring out exactly what our cadence for these updates will be. I want you guys to have a steady stream of preview material, but I have to reconcile that against asking our layout artist to provide frequent updates - please be patient while we keep figuring this out, we appreciate you!
Short update this time around, really just wanted to get this preview content into your hands.
Okay so look, I am acutely aware that I am late to this particular posting party, BUT!!! If Ohio can show up 150 years late to *checks notes* becoming a legitimate state, then I politely ask for forgiveness for my week of tardiness. Please have mercy!
Look we all know why you clicked this update. You know it. I know it. Your neighbor's cat is somehow vaguely aware of it. You wanna see this PDF preview. I'm glad to hear it!
This is a work-in-progress preview of Chapter 1 for Arcana Americana. This contains some of the setting and history of Murka, updated from the first book to encompass some of the more-recent (but not PRECISELY recent because otherwise we'd be writing and rewriting indefinitely) events that the kingdom of Murka has faced.
Some quick notes:
This is a work-in-progress.
Many of the elements you see here are still being re-worked or re-arranged. Some text wraps incorrectly, like on page 23. Some of the page elements are not final. This is close to what the final product will look like, but expect some changes along the way!
We're planning on replacing the chapter image for this with that Murkan Gothiccc piece I shared in the last update—if you haven't seen it yet, go check it out!
If you find any concerns, issues, or errors, please tell us!
You can leave a comment here, send me an email (jaron at valafoundry.com), reach out to us on the QuasiReal Discord, or send a carrier pigeon if you can manage it! Happy to take any feedback you have.
There's more where this came from!
We're hard at work figuring out exactly what our cadence for these updates will be. I want you guys to have a steady stream of preview material, but I have to reconcile that against asking our layout artist to provide frequent updates - please be patient while we keep figuring this out, we appreciate you!
The Roadmap
... is coming soon! Sorry about this. Vala Foundry, QuasiReal, and Vala Marketing are in our busiest season, which also happens to coincide with vacation season. We're still putting this together, we just need a bit more time. The main thing we're trying to do as we build this roadmap is figure out the most efficient path towards finishing this book as quickly as possible—the last thing we want is to bring you a roadmap that's like "Yeah okay, so we'll have the finished books done sometime in 2029, enjoy waiting!" because that would suck for everyone, lol.
So, seriously, I apologize for the delay. I promise this is on the way. The person who is in charge of this roadmap (and like a million other things), Cheyenne, has been working SO hard to get all of this put together, there's just a lot of moving parts, and she's got a lot on her plate. Please send some love her way in the comments.
Thanks again for everything. Your support, your kind words, your patience—I can't thank you guys enough.
HI YES HELLO, I-- *falls down stairs* I AM STILL HERE, I AM ALIVE, I JUST-- *falls down another set of stairs* WAIT, OPEN THIS UPDATE, I HAVE IMPORTANT NEWS, PLEASE DON'T-- *falls up stairs somehow*
Here, have a WIP preview of a new piece we're squeezing into these big-ass books. It's Sal the Dark Cloak's rendition of "Murkan Gothiccc" and I'm already loving how it's coming together.
Quick Developmental Book Update
Hey gang! Sorry it's been a minute. We're still adapting to our new lives as Vala Foundry, and we've been juggling so much new fun stuff (I'll share some more below, but wanna focus on Murka right now).
Here's a quick update of where the book is:
Setting text is 100% completed
Spells are 90% completed (need a final review)
Subclasses are 90% completed (need a final review)
Monsters are 80% completed (Brad is currently going through and updating them all to be both 2024 and 2014 compatible, everybody please comment "Thank you, Brad" on this update so I can show him)
Items are 90% completed (need a final review)
As for layout, we've finally got our new layout artist tackling the project! I've asked for a preview and it sounds like by the end of next week, I'll have a big chunk of setting stuff for you guys next week, plus a roadmap timeline for when we can deliver you individual chapters. So be on the lookout for that!
I plan to release preview material out to you guys as it goes through layout, so you can start getting your dice-chucking paws on Murka (and also so you can inevitably find the typos that we swear we fixed already). I've seen some of the sneaky beaky preview stuff and it's so t-t-t-t-tasty. But I got bullied when I asked if I could share it before it was ready, so I just need everyone to bear with me until the end of next week and then I'll hook y'all up, I PROMISE.
Here's another sneaky beaky preview for our Guillaume Fierre mini - Hermz did an AMAZING job bringing the Flavor Savior to life!
Talk more soon
I will be back post-haste with plenty more to share. Thanks everyone for your patience, you guys are amazing. I can't wait to hear all your feedback and hopefully make y'all laugh.
So sorry we’ve been quiet these last two months. A lot has been going on behind the scenes, and I’m so excited to share with you what we’ve been working towards this whole time. Action Fiction has been acquired by Vala Marketing, and will now become Vala Foundry! I know that the term “acquired” sounds like scary corpo-capitalism speak, but rest assured, very little will be actually changing, and in reality, this will open up some amazing doors for all of us.
LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!
How did we get here?
Last summer, Vala Marketing helped us push the Ratified & Radified Backerkit campaign WAY beyond our expectations. What was supposed to just cover the costs to do some light edit work and reprint books became enough for us to see that Murka (and our other games) has so much life in it, and it’s so fun to make, and perhaps most importantly, we might be able to make it full time.
As some of you know, the AF gang has never done Action Fiction game design full time. All of us have juggled having a day job, working 40 hours a week to feed the capitalism machine and pay rent, and then spending another 20 hours a week working on stuff like Monsters of Murka, Cthulhu Dreamt, and Goblin Cave (not to mention Conventions where we’ve gotten to meet many of you fantastic people). This is how we’ve always operated, and while it’s been amazing, it has also been incredibly difficult. We’ve burned out a few times, we’ve hit walls, we’ve missed bills—all in the pursuit of making games that we, and you, can be passionate about and have fun with. But now with Vala’s help, we can go full time as game designers.
Grant (the big cheese at Vala) really loved working with us on Murka, and now we get to do so much cool shit together. Meeting Grant for Murka was like finding my long lost twin in a number of ways—it was very apparent right from the rip that he understood exactly what Murka is about and why it’s so important. It’s been a breath of fresh air to work with someone with all the same passions and beliefs, and someone who laments all the same realities that we do. It’s also nice because instead of being acquired by “big business,” it feels a lot more like two small businesses forming a very cool alliance which will open doors for both of us.
So… What does this mean?
At the end of the day, very little will change. The AF gang will still own the intellectual property for Murka, Cthulhu Dreamt, and Goblin Cave. We’ll still be the ones cooking stuff up for you. And we retain all our creative control. Really, Vala is just empowering us to do our thing, and then do some more. We’ve been hard at work polishing Murka and Cthulhu Dreamt and Goblin Cave, but we’ve also started planning for our next few games and what will come next. This will be the first time in AF’s history that we can actually look ahead, we can stop to take a breather and formulate a plan, and we can pay ourselves for our work. For us, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. And for you, that means more games!
Part of our future means Monsters of Murka and Cthulhu Dreamt will be published by Vala’s TTRPG publishing arm, QuasiReal Publishing (perhaps best known for MythCraft), so you'll start to see their logo and branding more. This is because we’ll be splitting our efforts a bit, with all of our TTRPG content moving to QuasiReal, and all of our board game content staying here with Vala Foundry. But it'll still be the same folks steering the Murka ship as before, so you shouldn't expect any major changes!
From here on out, you can expect faster timelines and more frequent updates! Not having to relegate ourselves to 20 hours a week and only when we’re able to muster the energy after 40 hours of day-jobbing means we’re so much more refreshed. It’s hard to describe how freeing it feels. All we’ve felt lately is space to breathe, and a really exciting road ahead.
So, for us, the only real change we’re experiencing (other than all the new resources and focus) is that the A in AF is flipping upside-down. Now we’re the VF gang. (inb4 one of you—probably Brad—says “Vction Fiction”).
