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Inkwell Ideas
6 months ago
Out of Beta!
Hey Folks,
It certainly wasn't my intent to not post an update here for most of a year... I was posting updates in our newsletter, Patreon, Discord, website, and more. But somehow posting here truly just slipped my mind. We continued updating the software itself this year, except for late summer/early fall because of a complicated bug fix regarding undo & an expired security certificate.
Hopefully, most of you saw those updates and the "Update Available" in the menu bar of the beta. We've been steadily working our way down the list of features and testing the program and have now moved it out of beta last week with Worldographer 2025 v1.13. In addition to bug fixes, it also had a number of new options for configuring new terrain/features. And this week we released v1.14 with new controls for rotating labels that are part of features as well as features decorations using degrees for positioning instead of clock locations.
You can download the latest version here. And if you'd like to continue weighing in on new features we add to the program, go to our Patreon. Our first new feature poll will be open to all. Of course, everyone (backing the Patreon or not) will benefit from the new features and improvements we continue to add to the program. Later in the day tomorrow I'll post the actual poll publicly over there. If you'd like to make more suggestions, post a reply there or here or to our discord.
Thanks again!
Joe
It certainly wasn't my intent to not post an update here for most of a year... I was posting updates in our newsletter, Patreon, Discord, website, and more. But somehow posting here truly just slipped my mind. We continued updating the software itself this year, except for late summer/early fall because of a complicated bug fix regarding undo & an expired security certificate.
Hopefully, most of you saw those updates and the "Update Available" in the menu bar of the beta. We've been steadily working our way down the list of features and testing the program and have now moved it out of beta last week with Worldographer 2025 v1.13. In addition to bug fixes, it also had a number of new options for configuring new terrain/features. And this week we released v1.14 with new controls for rotating labels that are part of features as well as features decorations using degrees for positioning instead of clock locations.
You can download the latest version here. And if you'd like to continue weighing in on new features we add to the program, go to our Patreon. Our first new feature poll will be open to all. Of course, everyone (backing the Patreon or not) will benefit from the new features and improvements we continue to add to the program. Later in the day tomorrow I'll post the actual poll publicly over there. If you'd like to make more suggestions, post a reply there or here or to our discord.
Thanks again!
Joe
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Inkwell Ideas
over 1 year ago
Updates, Updates, Updates!
Well, somehow with the holidays, various life events, and working on Worldographer 2025 and releasing updates, I didn't actually post a status update here!
Sorry about that. I have been consistently sending out license codes every few days. We still get someone filling out a survey every day or two. If you haven't yet, please do! If everyone left does it today/tomorrow, then that means more time for me to work on the last bits of functionality. (It is easier to do 20 at once than 1 or 2 every few days.) If you need help, email me at support at inkwellideas dot com.
Hopefully you've been seeing the updates we have been making over the past several weeks via either the "Update Available" button in the Worldographer 2025 beta version, or in announcements to our Discord, or our newsletter, or mentions in our Youtube channel. Here is where to get it: https://worldographer.com/2025-preview-release/
Here is what's been done lately (these are just the highlights from the list of updates on that page--there are many more listed):
Sorry about that. I have been consistently sending out license codes every few days. We still get someone filling out a survey every day or two. If you haven't yet, please do! If everyone left does it today/tomorrow, then that means more time for me to work on the last bits of functionality. (It is easier to do 20 at once than 1 or 2 every few days.) If you need help, email me at support at inkwellideas dot com.
Hopefully you've been seeing the updates we have been making over the past several weeks via either the "Update Available" button in the Worldographer 2025 beta version, or in announcements to our Discord, or our newsletter, or mentions in our Youtube channel. Here is where to get it: https://worldographer.com/2025-preview-release/
Here is what's been done lately (these are just the highlights from the list of updates on that page--there are many more listed):
- Various small UI improvements like better feature/terrain button layouts (see text at bottom of button).
- Dynamic Terrain - for Ring Lord icons, set up terrain to automatically place some matching random features so every hex is different.
- 30 new Isometric icons such as Primitive Village, Statue, Standing Stones, etc.
- World/Kingdom coast/empire/river/road/hex-crawl settings are now saved & reloaded.
At this point, I feel we're only a couple weeks from exiting the Beta stage. We'll be feature complete after I add more export options for notes; a couple new room types to the room generator; and the "generate multiple planets per system" feature. I might table the multiple planets feature for later in the year, but I'll look at it further before I decide.
Thanks again. And if you're not using the 2025 version, I highly encourage you to use it now.
Thanks again. And if you're not using the 2025 version, I highly encourage you to use it now.
Joe
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Inkwell Ideas
over 1 year ago
Licenses & Icons Sent!
I'm sorry that many of you didn't receive your licenses when I initially sent them. More than I was expecting seemed to have gone to spam. But the weekend of the 22-24th I did send them to all backers here who had completed their surveys by then. I then followed up almost every day after that for any late surveys--and I plan to continue that.
But as I said, many of you are reporting that you didn't get them. So I was struggling for another way to get them to you. Then I realized I can treat them as "Tracking numbers". So if you didn't get your license yet, you can log in to your Worldographer Backerkit account:
But as I said, many of you are reporting that you didn't get them. So I was struggling for another way to get them to you. Then I realized I can treat them as "Tracking numbers". So if you didn't get your license yet, you can log in to your Worldographer Backerkit account:
- Log in, then go to "Your Pledges & Surveys" from the drop-down menu when you click your "My Account" icon. This link should help you get there if you don't know where to log in.
- Find the "Worldographer 2025" survey link in the list (assuming you have more than one survey there, of course) and click that.
- To the right on the page that comes up is a pane titled "Survey" with the words "Your order has shipped". Below that is a "View order" link - click that.
- That brings you to the order page, at the top left of which under the "Track Your Package" section is the link with the download & install code. The install code has the following format: 2025-XXXXX-XXXXX It may get appended into the link text, but it should be there.
Or email us at [email protected] and we'll get them to you. (Hopefully you emailing us lowers the spam threshold.) Note that if you post "I didn't get my code" my answer will be "Email me." :) That said, if you have emailed and a day or two has gone by, please do post a comment or join our Discord and ask there because email isn't working.
We've also sent all the icon packs as DriveThruRPG links for anyone who backed for them. These were sent by/through DriveThruRPG, so hopefully they arrived more reliably. If not, email us at the same address and we'll figure out what went wrong.
If you'll be at PAX Unplugged this weekend, see us at booth #4118. Let us know what you'd like to see, ask any questions, and see what else we have there.
Finally, we've started a bluesky account. If you'd like to keep up with all our goings-on (sample maps, worldbuilding tips, Inkwell news, and reposting other great TTRPG advice) please follow us!
Happy Mapping!
Joe
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Inkwell Ideas
over 1 year ago
Licenses Ahoy!
Starting Friday evening and running most of the day Saturday, I sent out license codes to everyone who completed their survey here before Friday afternoon (US east coast time). And just now I sent codes out to the 10 or so additional folks who answered the survey in the past 2 days. And if you're just 'following' the project you can still make a late pledge here--but that will end in the next week or two.
If you want to make a late pledge or you lost your survey link, this link should take you there.
I'll loop around again tomorrow and once/day to send licenses to anyone new most days until surveys slow to a trickle.
Meanwhile I'm packaging up the icon sets and plan to get those sent over the course of the next week. (Not sure when--it will depend on how easy it is to do, US Thanksgiving, any bugs that pop up, and so on.) They will likely come from DriveThruRPG.
BTW, if you did download the beta promptly when you got your email, well it already had a bug fix. An update to the beta already went out on Sunday evening so Beta 1.01 is current. It fixes an issue of adding a schema code to the file format (which was needed because we've got 3 different version '1.00's). Fortunately the likelihood & impact is very low in both cases. Also, we fixed a zoom issue when using "toolboxes" instead of the right-side-tabs for that the terrain/feature/shapes/etc editing. This zoom issue also made it impossible to select map objects. And one new/improved feature is in 1.01 as well: we're re-loading any settings changes you make when generating rivers/coasts/empires etc. on the individual dialogs that you can access via the "Generate" menu when you have a world/kingdom map already open. Previously these settings were only re-loaded on the main new world/kingdom map dialog.
We're still working on several features that are incomplete and of course ironing out bugs. But the nice thing about software is we can put out this "Beta" and continue that additional work. I expect to truly finish those features near the end of the year.
Finally, we'll be putting out our regular newsletter later today as well... As a quick preview of our Black Friday sale: Use the code '25percentoff60' to get 25% off deck/dice/book orders over $60 in our store, plus free US shipping.
Thank you!
If you want to make a late pledge or you lost your survey link, this link should take you there.
I'll loop around again tomorrow and once/day to send licenses to anyone new most days until surveys slow to a trickle.
Meanwhile I'm packaging up the icon sets and plan to get those sent over the course of the next week. (Not sure when--it will depend on how easy it is to do, US Thanksgiving, any bugs that pop up, and so on.) They will likely come from DriveThruRPG.
BTW, if you did download the beta promptly when you got your email, well it already had a bug fix. An update to the beta already went out on Sunday evening so Beta 1.01 is current. It fixes an issue of adding a schema code to the file format (which was needed because we've got 3 different version '1.00's). Fortunately the likelihood & impact is very low in both cases. Also, we fixed a zoom issue when using "toolboxes" instead of the right-side-tabs for that the terrain/feature/shapes/etc editing. This zoom issue also made it impossible to select map objects. And one new/improved feature is in 1.01 as well: we're re-loading any settings changes you make when generating rivers/coasts/empires etc. on the individual dialogs that you can access via the "Generate" menu when you have a world/kingdom map already open. Previously these settings were only re-loaded on the main new world/kingdom map dialog.
We're still working on several features that are incomplete and of course ironing out bugs. But the nice thing about software is we can put out this "Beta" and continue that additional work. I expect to truly finish those features near the end of the year.
Finally, we'll be putting out our regular newsletter later today as well... As a quick preview of our Black Friday sale: Use the code '25percentoff60' to get 25% off deck/dice/book orders over $60 in our store, plus free US shipping.
Thank you!
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Inkwell Ideas
over 1 year ago
Pledge Manager Link Coming Soon
Here's our second update--as promised about two weeks after our previous. I had this update ready to go a couple days ago, but I had to wait for BackerKit to review the pledge manager.
We've just sent our pledge manager link to 5% of you! If you're one of them (randomly picked) you'll have a message from BackerKit to that effect. I'll send the pledge manager link to the rest of you on Tuesday unless the smoke test finds an issue. Note: We mostly need to do the survey because we need to ask which icon set(s) you want if you didn't pick all of them.
Also note: You won't be getting your licenses & icons immediately. We're still working on some of that, but we do expect to get them this month--I'm targeting November 22nd.
Hopefully you saw there was a new release to the software a few days ago. (We posted a video about it and if you're using the current 2025 demo version you likely saw an "Update Available" button in the menu bar.) It centers on the Export to UVTT format. Get it here.
As mentioned in the video about the UVTT export functionality... while the main feature is working, there is still much to do such as how to handle non-battlemats (a key stumbling block there is that the UVTT format has nothing about hex orientation or sizes of the other dimension). Plus, as I describe in the video, you need to make your walls break for any doors or windows. Which Worldographer's battlemat generators don't do by default. So I'll have to address that in the coming days.
Also as mentioned above, I still expect to be getting licenses & icon sets out to you by November 22nd but I am also continuing to spend a good chunk of time standardizing all the past icon sets. (Setting them all up in similar folder structures, fixing some names, etc.) These will update the files on DriveThruRPG & our web store, so if you've already got them, you'll get the benefit of this work too!
The writing for our next project, Hexploration Decks, led by Andrew Shields, is well underway! Over two-thirds of these cards feature fantasy locations with art on one side and charts on the back for bringing them to life in your campaign. About five cards offer hex-crawl and sandbox guidance, while the remaining ten add themes like hauntings or fey involvement for even more variation. A 54-card sample is linked on our campaign teaser page, and with a launch set for next year, we’ll have ample time to complete Worldographer 2025.
Thanks again for your support!
Joe
Thanks again for your support!
Joe
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Inkwell Ideas
over 1 year ago
Post Campaign Worldographer 2025 Update #1 & Our next Big Project!
Hi All,
I promised updates every two weeks, so here's the first!
Hopefully some of you saw there was a new release to the software the other day. (We posted a video about it and if you're using the 2025 version you likely saw an "Update Available" button in the menu bar.) Get it here.
The key changes vs. the prior release are:
I promised updates every two weeks, so here's the first!
Hopefully some of you saw there was a new release to the software the other day. (We posted a video about it and if you're using the 2025 version you likely saw an "Update Available" button in the menu bar.) Get it here.
The key changes vs. the prior release are:
- Extend the demo expiration to Nov 15th 2024. (If you're using v1.10, the pro features expire Oct 31st.)
- Add a few new terrain types in Classic icon set: extinct volcano (& change the dormant one), tundra, hard clay desert, farmland varied, cooled lava beds.
- Add several new feature types in the Classic icon set: horse fair, metropolis, magic portal, new waterfall icon (& change the old one to rapids), and a couple new simple features: barbed circle & crossed square.
- Default Label styles and Shape styles don’t get re-added to a loaded map, loading a configuration adds those styles to the open map; styles are separate based on map type (a battlemat doesn’t have a world/kingdom map’s road style, etc.)
- Terrain flood fill & wide area & similar & randomness settings apply to terrain placed on other layers.
- Copy across maps now works! The recent video goes over the nuances of using it--basically, using undo/redo to get things to line up.
- And several bug fixes.
I hope to finish some of the export options (UVTT and/or another format) in the next update.
I expect to be getting licenses & icon sets out to you all by mid November, but I am also spending a good chunk of time standardizing all the past icon sets. (Setting them all up in similar folder structures, fixing some names, etc.) These will update the files on DriveThruRPG & our website, so if you've already got them, you'll get the benefit of this work too! We'll have the pledge manager running in mid-November as well.
So what's next for Inkwell Ideas? Honestly, I'm usually putting my time into several things at once. Prior to launching the Worldographer 2025 crowdfunding I had been working with writer Andrew Shields on a few new card decks with a new concept: Hexploration Decks! Andrew has taken the lead with writing these after we worked out the format and initial samples. We've got over 1/3 of the three planned decks written and the rest spec-ed out. He's leading the remaining work--I just enjoy/read/critique/test what he creates.
In a nutshell, over 2/3 of the cards are "Location" cards with intriguing art of a fantasy location on one side and the back has a few charts of ideas to bring it to life in different ways for your campaign. About 5 cards are guidance for making a hex crawl or sandbox and rules for running a player-driven campaign. The remaining cards (about 10) have a theme on each side with charts centering on that theme which can be applied to most Locations for even more variety. For example: interesting ways to make the location haunted, have historical significance, be involved with fey, etc.
We've got a large 54 card sample linked from the campaign teaser page. It won't launch until next year, giving us plenty of time to finish the features promised in Worldographer and a few rounds of further bug fixes.
Thanks again for your support!
Joe
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PROJECT UPDATE
Inkwell Ideas
CREATOR
6 months ago
Project Update: Out of Beta!
Hey Folks,
It certainly wasn't my intent to not post an update here for most of a year... I was posting updates in our newsletter, Patreon, Discord, website, and more. But somehow posting here truly just slipped my mind. We continued updating the software itself this year, except for late summer/early fall because of a complicated bug fix regarding undo & an expired security certificate.
Hopefully, most of you saw those updates and the "Update Available" in the menu bar of the beta. We've been steadily working our way down the list of features and testing the program and have now moved it out of beta last week with Worldographer 2025 v1.13. In addition to bug fixes, it also had a number of new options for configuring new terrain/features. And this week we released v1.14 with new controls for rotating labels that are part of features as well as features decorations using degrees for positioning instead of clock locations.
You can download the latest version here. And if you'd like to continue weighing in on new features we add to the program, go to our Patreon. Our first new feature poll will be open to all. Of course, everyone (backing the Patreon or not) will benefit from the new features and improvements we continue to add to the program. Later in the day tomorrow I'll post the actual poll publicly over there. If you'd like to make more suggestions, post a reply there or here or to our discord.
Thanks again!
Joe
It certainly wasn't my intent to not post an update here for most of a year... I was posting updates in our newsletter, Patreon, Discord, website, and more. But somehow posting here truly just slipped my mind. We continued updating the software itself this year, except for late summer/early fall because of a complicated bug fix regarding undo & an expired security certificate.
Hopefully, most of you saw those updates and the "Update Available" in the menu bar of the beta. We've been steadily working our way down the list of features and testing the program and have now moved it out of beta last week with Worldographer 2025 v1.13. In addition to bug fixes, it also had a number of new options for configuring new terrain/features. And this week we released v1.14 with new controls for rotating labels that are part of features as well as features decorations using degrees for positioning instead of clock locations.
You can download the latest version here. And if you'd like to continue weighing in on new features we add to the program, go to our Patreon. Our first new feature poll will be open to all. Of course, everyone (backing the Patreon or not) will benefit from the new features and improvements we continue to add to the program. Later in the day tomorrow I'll post the actual poll publicly over there. If you'd like to make more suggestions, post a reply there or here or to our discord.
Thanks again!
Joe
PROJECT UPDATE
Inkwell Ideas
CREATOR
over 1 year ago
Project Update: Updates, Updates, Updates!
Well, somehow with the holidays, various life events, and working on Worldographer 2025 and releasing updates, I didn't actually post a status update here!
Sorry about that. I have been consistently sending out license codes every few days. We still get someone filling out a survey every day or two. If you haven't yet, please do! If everyone left does it today/tomorrow, then that means more time for me to work on the last bits of functionality. (It is easier to do 20 at once than 1 or 2 every few days.) If you need help, email me at support at inkwellideas dot com.
Hopefully you've been seeing the updates we have been making over the past several weeks via either the "Update Available" button in the Worldographer 2025 beta version, or in announcements to our Discord, or our newsletter, or mentions in our Youtube channel. Here is where to get it: https://worldographer.com/2025-preview-release/
Here is what's been done lately (these are just the highlights from the list of updates on that page--there are many more listed):
Sorry about that. I have been consistently sending out license codes every few days. We still get someone filling out a survey every day or two. If you haven't yet, please do! If everyone left does it today/tomorrow, then that means more time for me to work on the last bits of functionality. (It is easier to do 20 at once than 1 or 2 every few days.) If you need help, email me at support at inkwellideas dot com.
Hopefully you've been seeing the updates we have been making over the past several weeks via either the "Update Available" button in the Worldographer 2025 beta version, or in announcements to our Discord, or our newsletter, or mentions in our Youtube channel. Here is where to get it: https://worldographer.com/2025-preview-release/
Here is what's been done lately (these are just the highlights from the list of updates on that page--there are many more listed):
- Various small UI improvements like better feature/terrain button layouts (see text at bottom of button).
- Dynamic Terrain - for Ring Lord icons, set up terrain to automatically place some matching random features so every hex is different.
- 30 new Isometric icons such as Primitive Village, Statue, Standing Stones, etc.
- World/Kingdom coast/empire/river/road/hex-crawl settings are now saved & reloaded.
At this point, I feel we're only a couple weeks from exiting the Beta stage. We'll be feature complete after I add more export options for notes; a couple new room types to the room generator; and the "generate multiple planets per system" feature. I might table the multiple planets feature for later in the year, but I'll look at it further before I decide.
Thanks again. And if you're not using the 2025 version, I highly encourage you to use it now.
Thanks again. And if you're not using the 2025 version, I highly encourage you to use it now.
Joe
Invested in BackerKit’s future during our Wefunder campaign
Is there a way to edit Religions to include variables that fill in the missing information from Pantheons? I do not see a means to create a variable table for this information either. The Configure World & Name Data Religions tab does not allow for creation of other fields other than Domain. Thanks. God's Physical Description God's Personality Common Followers Origin/mini-story Holidays Goals/current event
Anyone having this problem? The border keep disappearing. I end up have to delete and regenerate the whole thing.
PROJECT UPDATE
Inkwell Ideas
CREATOR
over 1 year ago
Project Update: Licenses & Icons Sent!
I'm sorry that many of you didn't receive your licenses when I initially sent them. More than I was expecting seemed to have gone to spam. But the weekend of the 22-24th I did send them to all backers here who had completed their surveys by then. I then followed up almost every day after that for any late surveys--and I plan to continue that.
But as I said, many of you are reporting that you didn't get them. So I was struggling for another way to get them to you. Then I realized I can treat them as "Tracking numbers". So if you didn't get your license yet, you can log in to your Worldographer Backerkit account:
But as I said, many of you are reporting that you didn't get them. So I was struggling for another way to get them to you. Then I realized I can treat them as "Tracking numbers". So if you didn't get your license yet, you can log in to your Worldographer Backerkit account:
- Log in, then go to "Your Pledges & Surveys" from the drop-down menu when you click your "My Account" icon. This link should help you get there if you don't know where to log in.
- Find the "Worldographer 2025" survey link in the list (assuming you have more than one survey there, of course) and click that.
- To the right on the page that comes up is a pane titled "Survey" with the words "Your order has shipped". Below that is a "View order" link - click that.
- That brings you to the order page, at the top left of which under the "Track Your Package" section is the link with the download & install code. The install code has the following format: 2025-XXXXX-XXXXX It may get appended into the link text, but it should be there.
Or email us at [email protected] and we'll get them to you. (Hopefully you emailing us lowers the spam threshold.) Note that if you post "I didn't get my code" my answer will be "Email me." :) That said, if you have emailed and a day or two has gone by, please do post a comment or join our Discord and ask there because email isn't working.
We've also sent all the icon packs as DriveThruRPG links for anyone who backed for them. These were sent by/through DriveThruRPG, so hopefully they arrived more reliably. If not, email us at the same address and we'll figure out what went wrong.
If you'll be at PAX Unplugged this weekend, see us at booth #4118. Let us know what you'd like to see, ask any questions, and see what else we have there.
Finally, we've started a bluesky account. If you'd like to keep up with all our goings-on (sample maps, worldbuilding tips, Inkwell news, and reposting other great TTRPG advice) please follow us!
Happy Mapping!
Joe
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