Pledge Manager went live a couple of weeks ago; i wanna thank everyone who reported a few miscalculations here and there (sorryyyyy!). Those have all been fixed, i hope, and everything's working properly now. There are still around 150 backers who haven't completed their surveys yet, so please do so when you can, otherwise you won't receive your rewards.
ALSO, PROGRESS!
The rulebook is officially being edited and proofread , which should take another week or so. I also wanna publicly thank everyone who took the time to submit suggestions for improvement, new ideas, typo hunting, etc. If you'd like to throw something in, you still have a few days. You can do by heading over to this document. Once that's done, we steer towards to production. FLAIL's boxset is pretty much locked in, everything's good there. For the Hexcrawl Toolbox, I'm still working with the printer to figure out the best size and inlay for storing the hexes. My goal is to have print-ready files and everything approved for production in July. I'll keep you all informed.
ALSO, NEW PATREON DROP!
I made a new adventure for my Patreon. Instead of a location-based module, i decided to go for a Quest Scenario this time. This format has been gaining a lot of popularity, since it's very easy to pick up and run while giving players whole regions to explore. Sooooooo, the premise is simple: a gnome hires the party to deliver a sealed chest across the realm. Players are told not to open it, paid not to open it, and will lose their reward if they open it. When they finally arrive, the recipient wants nothing to do with it. It's in this mess that your players are drawn into. Lemme know how they handle it.
ALSO, CONVERSION GUIDELINES!
I made a conversion guide between FLAIL and other systems, such as DCC, Into The Odd / Cairn, MORK BORG, OSE and Shadowdark. People had been asking for this for a while and I finally got around to it. It took an embarrassingly long timeeeeeeeeee to put together, so please don't tell me it's completely useless right away ;D You can check it out here.
This is very much WIP and i shall be updating it as needed in the resources folder, so if you have solid experience with any of these systems and spot that something looks off, please do tell. This is the best i could do, but things sometimes are a bit subjective, so who knows.
ALSO, I HAVE A PODCAST!
Johan Nohr (of MÖRK BORG) fame and I started a new podcast called MAKING GAMES. It's a laid-back show where we talk about making tabletop RPGs and everything that comes with it: inspiration, design, art, publishing, production, and the occasional catastrophe. In the first episode, we talk about where ideas come from, how they evolve into actual projects, and why the earliest stages of design are often the most exciting, all while trying to figure out what this podcast wants to become. Check it out.
Quick update to say that the pledge manager is live as of now. Also the pre-order store is live!Please dive in, add more stuff to your cart (if you so wish) and type in your address. Cards will be charged in a month or so. I shall let you know.
There's a bunch of cool add-ons!
T-shirt Games Omnivorous: yellow, swaggy t-shirt for those who like GO.
T-shirt FLAIL: black, white logo t-shirt for those who want to FLAIL around.
FLAIL custom dice: pack of nine custom FLAIL d6s. These are identical to the one offered as an early backer incentive.
Hexcrawl Toolbox Upragde Pack: this was made especially for those already own the first print run of the hexcrawl toolbox. All contents here are already included in the Hexcrawl Toolbox offered through this campaign. Do not buy this if you already pledged for the new Toolbox, unless you really really really need a second guidebook or more item cards/tokens for some reason.
Just a quick update to say that i've managed to set up the Pledge Manager relatively quickly, soooooo the Smoke Test is coming. The Test will randomly select 5% of backers from each pledge tier just to make sure everything's functional and shipping charges are correct, and people can see and buy add-ons and so forth and so forth.
Please keep an eye out for incoming emails and respond as soon as you can, so i have a solid enough sample to confidently launch the real deal maybe next week.
Hey hey hey. Soooooo, the funds have landed in GO's bank account, there are still some stragglers here and there, but the bulk is here. This means i can now start setting up the pledge manager, which will probably take a week or two - need to make sure all shipping quotes work, all rewards are uploaded correctly, etc etc etc - then it goes live. When it's live, you will be able to see your rewards, add another boxset to your pledge if you so wish, add dice (we have packs of FLAIL custom dice!) and maybe t-shirts. Does anybody want t-shirts? I can probably get some t-shirts going.
ALSO, PRODUCT DESIGN!
I know some people like a behind-the-scenes look into game design... so, how about some product design?! I've been going back and forth with a supplier to create a custom space in the Hexcrawl Toolbox for people to store the hexes (18x per biome). This is what we have so far. The idea is that the punch-boards with all the hexes go on top, you punch them all out, and then sort them into their designated spaces. I'm still evaluating whether this actually works or not; it might be the case that too much space is left over after people punch out the hexes.
But I wanted to share this so you can see that these things take a good amount of time. This is the third design the supplier has come up with over the last 3–4 weeks and we're still perfecting it. So many things to consider: final weights and sizes (so that shipping calculations still remain valid), how much space is left after the punch-boards go away, how tight can the custom spaces be so that we have more of them, how the toolbox behaves if it gets knocked over or stored on its side, how it all looks when the lid is off (presentation matters!), and so forth. Not easy.
ALSO, PATREON DROP!
I keep dropping content for FLAIL over on Patreon! There's already a bunch of adventures in there, and i've just started a new collection with extra content. This time, I wrote a bunch of new Cutthroat Guilds, as follows. Check it out!
The Midnight Exchange: syndicate of brokers that move illegal goods.
The Ashen Hand: arsonists, saboteurs and revolutionaries who burn down corrupt nobles, kings, etc.
The Mourning Bells: union of corpse-bearers and grave mourners that rob the dead before burial.
The Black Banner: professional battlefield scavengers who follow wars to loot the dead.
The campaign is officially over. When i first started designing FLAIL, i had my fingers crossed that maybe 500 or so people interested in the game (and as excited as i was about it), and that we might raise around €40k or €50k tops. tops.
Well.... we've ended with more than 1600 backers, nearly 1000% funded and over €144k raised. On top of that, the Discord community exploded, third-party creators are thriving on itch, and the Patreon has grown beyond anything I expected.
I just wanna say i don't take any of this for granted. I am truly humbled by your support.
NEXT STEPS!
Now i need a few days to rest :D After that the plan is this:
May: receive and process the funds from Backerkit.
June: build and launch the pledge manager, where everyone will be able to add some stuff to their carts like additional boxsets, dice and more.
July/August: send everything to production.
Beyond this, who knows. We shall see. If everything goes well, maybe we'll have FLAIL for fulfilment in the fall or right before the end of the year. Otherwise, we'll do it in early 2027.
