Work and Progress
almost 3 years ago – Thu, May 06, 2021 at 02:36:24 AM

Well wildsailors, it's a big day on the rustling waves - some real progress to share, and an update on exactly how things have been going behind the scenes! 

 Layouts, Software, and Transcription

As some of you may know, a lot of my time over the last few months has been taken up with the transfer of the old Wildsea writings to a new, shiny document created specifically for printing and distribution. This process of transferring and reformatting several hundred pages, while learning to use new publishing software, has been a long one (even with a massive amount of aid from the layout artist, Leo).  

To be perfectly honest it left me mired for a while - I'm at my best with the creative side of things, and it was crushingly uncreative work. I missed being able to dedicate myself to new content, or even to the rejuvenation of the earliest work on the setting and system. The artists were working overtime on new pieces that were adding so much flavour to the world, but I couldn't write around them like I usually did. There was always something to copy, paste, reformat, recolour, move by a half-inch and then gaze at vaguely critically. 

It was all necessary, but it was far from fun. 

... And now it's over!

Of course, there will still be changes, modifications, re-jigs and unexpected problems, but everything created for the Wildsea over the past four years has been re-read, evaluated and either cut or reworked for inclusion in the new document. One particularly weird day I spent half an hour searching for a hazard write-up I used at the start of open playtesting last year and came away with 5,500 words of forgotten creature concepts written around the winter of 2019 (Found the hazard I was looking for too - Makadrills will be making their way back to the Wildsea in time for the next update, and woe betide any crews that run afoul of them). 

And with all of the older safely tied down, the new stuff is all that's left - the Tusker and Mesmer, Outriders and Airships, guidance for the Firefly when crews delve too deep and so, so much more. 

The layouts are still a work-in-progress, especially the smaller details, but they're also in just the place I need them to be. Now when I have a new idea (for an aspect or a ship part or a variant journey rule) I can put it straight on the page to see how it feels in the wider scheme of things, rather than squirreling it away in a notepad document or scrawling it on whatever paper I have to hand. 

And to be able to be genuinely creative again after months of having more pressing concerns? 

It feels amazing. 

What Comes Next?

For me as a writer and designer it's time to focus on the new content we promised for the kickstarter stretch goals. That means...

+ A focus on pushing the playable rules and options for outriders, airships and submersibles out to the backers for an open playtest. 

+ The finalization and release of the seventh core bloodline and few remaining origins and posts. 

+ A bit of polish and extra guidance for the Wild Words Engine, based on the last few months of feedback from campaign playtesting. 

+ More art, more words, more options and more... birds. 

The Actual Play

The other big thing promised in the Kickstarter has been bubbling away behind the scenes for the past few months, with a test-campaign session every couple of weeks for the potential Actual Play crew. I won't delve into too much detail on this yet, but it's entirely possible that next month you'll have some new Wildsea audio-visual content to enjoy!

So, In Closing...

I'm happy, I'm productive and the book is taking shape. The bit I was dreading is over, and the bit I was looking forward to is here. Just in time for the slow awakening of British spring-time, the Wildsea is growing again. 

So to compound my positivity I'm going to pass you over to Ray for some "important business stuff" and then get back to being creative - these new ships aren't going to build themselves! 

Until next time (which may well be sooner than you expect)...

Thank you, from Felix. :)

-------------------------------

From Tooth to Tail
about 3 years ago – Sun, Apr 11, 2021 at 01:04:27 PM

Welcome to your April update, sailors of the wild waves! Today we're talking mysteries and massivities, and at least one of those things is definitely a real word. 

Let's dive in!

Developing Leviathans

What is a leviathan, really? It's more than just a big, dangerous beast, and it's more than an obstacle to be conquered. 

Narratively a leviathan is a challenge - something to be encountered, fled from, researched, understood, hunted and (if you're very lucky and even more persistent) bested. It's a living hook for stories, an active force on the world that can draw both player characters and NPCs in its wake, physically and metaphorically. Leviathans are living legends, focal points for folklore. 

They're a pretty big deal, is what I'm saying. 

Mechanically they're a bit more tricky. They have aspects and quirks just like regular hazards, and the Firefly can assign them tracks too to give them that granular, eventually-defeatable taste. But in terms of rules, though their stat-blocks are larger and give a little more flavour, up to now they've essentially been monsters-writ-large. 

But things change as books grow, and with the extra space afforded by double-page spreads I've been considering the potential for additional information. Narrative definitely, mechanical maybe... but I try my best to avoid writing just to fill up a space, and would rather have something concrete and useful to offer. So rather than take some shots in the dark, I thougt I'd involve the community in this one! 

So as soon as this update goes live there'll be a new 'Questions from Felix' post on the Wildsea Discord based around the potential information found alongside a leviathan. Feel free to hop on over and contribute your ideas and suggestions and, if you aren't a discord type, feel equally free to leave your thoughts in the comment section of this very update! 

Sponsored By Nobody

I recently had the pleasure of listening through the episodes of the Sponsored By Nobody Wildsea podcast, a multi-part campaign (plus offshoot one-shots!) moving from Reach to Reach across the Wildsea. In fact, before I post a link to their stuff, I'll let them briefly introduce themselves!

"Sponsored by Nobody has been recording our tabletop role playing game sessions since late 2015 and putting them online. As time has gone on we have covered broad range of games, topics, and a number of experimental ideas."

Anyway, after thoroughly enjoying their weird take on an already weird world I actually ended up as the special guest on their final episode of the season! It's not airing for a while, so you have plenty of time to catch up, but if you want some behind-the-scenes info and don't mind waiting a couple of months for it to be released, I highly recommend tuning in and giving them a listen, especially if you enjoy a) Horrendous banana-based atrocities, and b) Bees. 

Small Art Update

Though I have a lot to show, I don't want to spoil *everything* before the book comes out. But with that caveat out of the way, have a gander at one of the newer versions of one of the oldest character art pieces, quite possibly the very first humanesque tzelicrae ever conceived of! 

And a very sneaky peek at something you'll likely see more of in the next update. Feel free to guess wildly at the nature of the whole! 

And with that, I'll hand you over to Ray!

Stay safe, people!

- Felix

Timeline Update

So after evaluating the amount of work we've completed and what's ahead of us I can definitively say we are behind our timeline, which means that there almost certainly will be delays in our estimated delivery time. 

What's the holdup? Namely, the assembly of the book vis a vis the overall look and feel of the layouts. Felix and the team have made tremendous strides in putting together strong templates over the last few months, but we still have a bit to go before we get it just right. 

Most likely we are at minimum a month delayed from our initial Gold goal of June. It may take longer through to the end of summer before we lock down that PDF. We were initially planning on releasing another Quickstart D prior to the full rules, but we're opting instead to focus on the main rulebook instead and incorporating the new material that would've been in the new playtest into the full ruleset. 

We're doing this because importing the rules over to inDesign took a ways longer than anticipated, and it's become clear from a workflow perspective that partitioning off a new document for the sake of a new Quickstart will result in more doubling back and forth. 

The silver lining is we are ahead in different parts of the timeline; namely, two of the guest Reaches are largely finished, with a third in progress. That coincides with our internal goal of having 5 Reaches done by May, and a 6th in June. The truth is right now the writing is the easy part. Design is hard and our standards are high. 

For next month's update, we plan on showing the new look and feel of the book. Expect a sneak peak at multiple layouts, and a full progress report on where we're at content wise. Sorry folks, I know it's not the news you wanted to hear but we figure it's best to be transparent and upfront about where we're at rather than hold an indefinite silence as we crunch away.  

In the meantime, you can always reach us at the discord, here on Kickstarter, or via email. 

See you there! 

- Ray 

Bite-Sized Update: Surging Ahead!
about 3 years ago – Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 01:21:14 AM

Felix here, with a miniature update for you all! Today marks the rough release of our first contributor-designed reach and a little dive into the progress of character-based art and design.

The Kremich Surge - Our First Contribuor Reach

Over the past six months I've seen a lot of Wildsea content created by players and fellow designers, from music to art to fully-fleshed-out character options. A lot of it has been absolutely jaw-dropping - in fact, some of it got us to bring the creators onto the team in an official capacity, and there isn't much higher praise we can give than that! 

But, that said, there's always a certain level of worry that comes from letting others into the official side of the Wildsea. As much as we'd sometimes love to be, we aren't a tzelicrae hive-mind - collaboration and contribution comes packaged with scheduling conflicts, clashing ideas and (everybody's favourite) the signing of contracts, all things that have the capacity to suck the fun out of creation if you don't manage them carefully. 

As letting other people join in on a creative endeavour is new to me I took it slow, parcelling out potential Wildsea space to people that I'd loved the work of in the past, or that had a real knack for firing up my own imagination with their suggestions. 

The Kremich Surge is the first reach-scale result of this process, and I couldn't be happier.

Though the layout, art and formatting are still a little rough around the edges (turns out making an entire 300ish-page document internally consistent and attractive is a big job, who knew?), the new reach for this month is in an eminently playable state. It's designed with darkness and hunger in mind, delving into some of the more unsettling themes of the Wildsea that are a bit too eerie to splash across the wider waves. In short, I think it does exactly what a reach should do - offer you a play-space to incorporate non-standard themes and ideas, while still feeling essentially Wildsea. 

While there will inevitably be content changes and minor alterations in the future, Rob has done an amazing job with it and has been an absolute pleasure to work with. He was also one of the Wildsea's earliest supporters, way back in the days of my tentative reddit posting and nervous design questions. 

And here it is - THE KREMICH SURGE! 

From Rough to Ready - The Alchemist 

And on the topic of Omercan's artwork, I thought it might be interesting to give you a bit of a backstage pass to his creative process. In fact, I'll hand you right over to him now...

Hey everyone, my name is Omercan. I’m the concept artist/character artist of the Wildsea. I’ve been working on the Wildsea for quite a few years now and it’s been a wonderful experience to be a part of this setting and see it grow so much. 

I wanted to share with you my process of finalising a character illustration for the Wildsea from an early concept sketch to the finished illustration. This is not necessarily how each character is brought to the final stage exactly but it should give you an accurate idea of the whole process. 

Some of the concepts were created about 3 maybe even 4 years ago so revisiting some of these old drawings is a strange experience for me. I have improved in my skills since then quite a bit and I have always been very critical of my own work so looking at an old sketch I immediately start thinking “Ah, I can make this look better!”. So most of the time I know these drawings are going to require a lot of rework but first I want to tackle the colour issue. Most of our older concepts were developed to a grayscale stage. Back in the playtesting days these worked well enough and saved on time. But since the Wildsea was funded to go full colour, thanks to your generous donations, each one is being fully coloured for the final book. To get started I usually talk to Felix and pick his brain for suggestions. The grayscale base really helps me slap on some quick colour variations and send these off to Felix for feedback. After a few rounds of that, we tend to reach a final decision. 

Then, I’ll go ahead with the final line art to improve upon the initial sketch. Once I’m done with final line art, applying the colour and making any further adjustments to them is a very simple process. I just have to make sure to add lots of texture, signs of wear and tear and such a lot. The Wildsea is an unforgiving and dangerous place - nobody gets to sail through it unsullied.

Rounding Up

So there you go! A new place to play and a bit of an inside look. But what does this mean for next month? I guess you'll have to wait another... uh... at least ten days to find out! But if I were to give a hint, I'd say it may well involve something large. Very large, in fact. some might even say... 

Leviathan-sized? 

Enjoy the waves in the meantime, people. Safe sailing. 

Felix Isaacs

[Insert March-Based Pun Here]: A Progress Update / Design Dive!
about 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 10, 2021 at 02:27:22 AM

I'll let you think of the pun yourselves 

Hello people, and welcome to a Felix-style update on the progress of the Wildsea. I'll be highlighting some of the things I've been working on, showcasing some of the art and music that have been created behind the scenes, talking about Reaches and guest contributors and touching on some of the (luckily temporary) developmental hiccups that inevitably happen throughout the course of creating a tabletop RPG. 

So, to kick us off...

Art!

For hazards, for chapter-splashes, for minor page elements and backer-created characters, the commission and creation of the Wildsea's art is a ceaseless yet extremely fulfilling process. But rather than talk about it at length, I'll pepper some examples through the rest of the update to give the eye a rest from all of my terrible words. :)

So with that said, here's a devastating cactoid worm and a particularly tentacular carnivorous plant...

... and let's talk about some...

Ongoing Changes

I like the Wildsea. In fact, I love it, which is probably for the best. But it's certainly not perfect yet, and the last couple of months of playtesting have definitely highlighted that fact. Here's a quick rundown of some of the systems that are being worked on at the moment, and my rough goals with each one:

Drives/Mire Integration: I really enjoy the basics of the drives and mire subsystems, but they do tend to stand apart from a lot of the other rules as a whole. Now not every subsystem needs to link to every other subsystem, but having good clear mechanical ties that make sense for the world is important (both for internal logic and ease-of-use during play). 

Making Charts More Useful: Specimens and salvage have a hell of a lot of flexibility, and whispers (while they could use a little more guidance) have proven themselves interesting little game-changers in a variety of situations. Charts need to be raised to the same level, but it'll take a little playtesting and a few iterations to get them there. 

Damage & Injuries: Aiming for a minor rework and a lot of additional clarity. I don't want to overcomplicate the system, as the Wildsea isn't the kind of game that needs a whole lot of extra crunch during a combat scene, but there do need to be clearer rules laid out in easy-to-access places. That comes in the form of an examination of damage types and the effects they might have, clearer guidance for Fireflies on creating quick tracks during encounters for monsters and other hazards, and more play examples to bolster these changes. A larger task is creating a more distinct feel for some of the combat-facing aspects, meaning that those choices will carry a little more narrative and mechanical weight. 

Ship & Journey Balancing: The essentials of both of these systems work quite well, but over many, many hours of play some cracks have begun to show. This one isn't as easy a fix as the previous two and will likely take some more focused playtesting to work out, but the heart of the issue is making every member of the crew feel valid and useful throughout a journey, and reinforcing that the choices they make matter. There's also some crossover here with the injuries subsystem and how it ports over to ship condition and repair, and the much-discussed-on-discord introduction of outrider-sized vessels. 

Bloodline, Origin & Post Presentation / Information: Moving to page-layout styles more suitable for print has been a challenging one (more on that later), but it's also given me something novel to work with - space. Being able to take the bloodline, origin and post pages and stretch them over a spread rather than a single page has given everything a bit more room to breathe - the art, the aspects, the quickstart kits and the written introductions. There are no major mechanical changes here, it's more a case of adding useful information to the right sections without overwhelming or over-defining.

The Firefly's Guide: Likely the section that needs the most in terms of a complete work-over, longer playtesting has been absolutely invaluable in terms of pointing out the kinds of things a Firefly wants to have set out for them clearly in the rules (or given as options and examples). I won't say too much about this one as it's still very much in the early stages of a rework, but it will likely be significant - and to that end I'll be posting a few questions over on the Discord to collect as much extra data as I can, so if anyone has any views they're happy sharing hop onto the discord and make yourself heard in the 'Questions from Felix' channel! 

Music!

Both of the Wildsea's bardic types have been hard at work over the past few months putting together a soundscape that suits the waves, everything from festival favourites to ambient strings. I can't show off too much of what they've been doing yet (mostly because I don't want to spoil too many surprises), but here's a snippet plucked from the ever-growing catalogue of wildsailor tunes...

... And a little bit of context for it too, straight from the keyboard of Peregrine Vaughan, the creator! 

"This piece is meant to conjure up an image of a stagger-saint. The waves tremble with every gigantic, wavering step- and the drums/buildup try to illustrate that. There's a quiet aura you might hear, sounding like beeps/boops, fading in and out. That's because, at least in my mind, there's a constant wavering flurry of sound that surrounds the Saint. I was listening to Titan from the Hyperlight Drifter OST when I came up with the instrumentation, so it might be more electronic in the future ;). There's a dulcimer that carries the super-loose melody, as a stringed instrument can connect the kind of spirituality of the electric instrumentation to the physicality of the acoustic, almost a cheesy metaphor for the Stagger-Saint's strong connection to the world beyond the physical."

Collaborator Contribution: A New Reach Approaches!

I'm extremely pleased to introduce Rob, our first Reach Collaborator - or, more accurately, to have him introduce himself!

"Rob is an indie RPG designer and web developer from the South of England. As well as several published scenarios for Call of Cthulhu he has two RPGs to his name, Age of Steel and Tormented, and is currently working on his third. His fascination with eldritch horror has begun to worry his friends, but makes for good inspiration for his work. You can find his website at www.isolation-games.co.uk, his twitter at @isolation_games, and information on his new game at www.whenthemoonhangslow.co.uk."

He's been hard at work on The Kremich Surge, an entirely new Reach complete with story seeds, unique hazards and a whole lot of beautiful text. I'll let him give you the overview in his own words...

"The Kremich Surge is a grim reach wracked by storms and haunted by a malign presence that resents the life above the waves. Home to violent wrecker pirates, strange cults, and ominous mysteries, the reach has spelled the end of many a wildsailor. Dare you brave the waves of the Kremich Surge, and risk the wrath of That Which Hungers?"

It's grim, it's weird, it's not quite the waves you know, and we'll be releasing it early for people to enjoy some time within the next week!

Collaborator Contribution: Rotten to the Core

And I'm just as excited to introduce Seren Briar (or, more accurately again)...

"Seren Briar is a game designer from the American South currently based in Chicagoland. Their games focus on horror, fungi, and the nature of humanity, and they're excited to help bring these elements into the world of the Wildsea! 

When not writing games or working with the Vampire: the Masquerade stream ATL by Night, Seren enjoys cooking and playing with their cat. Seren can be found on Twitter (@faefatale_) and itch.io (faefatale.itch.io)."

Seren will be offering up a themed set of their own, a trio of fungal dangers for Fireflies to throw at their hapless crews. I'll keep the details light for now, but at least one of them will very likely be turning up in next month's new Reach...

Hiccups and Happenstances

I may be new to public TRPG development, but I'm definitely not new to the wide array of unexpected problems that crop up when trying to collaborate and coordinate with people spread across the world. Characters and landscapes from Europe(ish), creatures from Canada, sounds and words from the U.S.A., and me here in the south of England like a sleep-deprived spider in the middle of a thrumming web.

What I'm sayin is, timing can be a tough one to pin down. 

We had planned to get the Actual Play up and started by the beginning of March, but scheduling conflicts on my end have pushed it back a little. We have the group, we have the characters, we have the seeds of a story and we have the technology... Now we just need to find the time. 

Luckily the textual side of the Wildsea is still rolling along at a steady pace, especially now the transition from Pageplus to InDesign is done and dusted. Learning a new bit of software (and one with a lot more oomph to it) was an unexpected challenge, but with the help of our wonderful layout artist Leo it's finally feeling a bit more familiar. You can expect to see some new versions of old pages very soon, as well as the entirely new content that's in the works. The goal is to improve the placement of information and the flow of the book as a whole, improving on what seems to be a strong foundation. 

Timeline

And now the million dollar question .... are we still on task to deliver in August 2021? The answer is: we will have a better answer at the end of March. We don't mean to be cagey, but Spring is usually when everyone is at their most productive. Our internal timelines accounted for this and had March, April, and May as our 'sprint' months. 

This is the second week of March. We'll have a very good idea of where we're at once we see how much we've accomplished this month. Thank you all for being patient as we iron out the kinks of the system as well as work on making the best possible game that we can. 

Pro Patria Mori

And now for something a little different! 

Ray and Vince are running a ZineQuest 3 project called Pro Patria Mori which just now is entering its final 72 hours. The game is a micro-rpg examining the horros of World War I. If that sounds like your cup of tea, check out the link here. 

---------------------

So what's ahead of us? More everything! Playtesting the changes outlined above, working on the look and feel of the physical book via the templates and importing the existing rules, new reaches), coloured art, more iteration, and everything in between. 

We'll have more to show next month. As always you can find us on Discord or reach me directly: [email protected]

Until next time! 

Cheers,

Felix

Year of the Ox
about 3 years ago – Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 09:24:53 AM

Ahoy Wildsailors! 

Happy Lunar New Year! Here's we've been up to in January, and our itinerary for February.

Playtesting

We are heavily into campaign playtesting and our parsing feedback for the next iteration of Campaign Playtest D. Felix has two campaigns running - one on Tuesdays and our official Actual Play. Ric also has a group featuring many of our Discord community members on Wednesdays. I'm running a Monday night home campaign and I'm also playing with Vince in a Saturday morning (my time) campaign.

It's been a lot of fun and speaking for myself, I feel like I not only have a much better understanding of the Wild Words System, but how to be a better player / Firefly in general. Felix has been mostly focused on testing new materials like new Reaches while I've been doing experiments to stretch the system, doing stuff like running OSR modules and other weird hacking experiments. 

I know I say it every post, but we would love for you to playtest the Wildsea and provide feedback to help development! You can leave feedback in three ways:

• Our official Campaign Playtest C Feedback Form
• Leaving feedback notes in our Discord
• Emailing Felix: [email protected] 

Layouts 

We've made really solid progress on the layouts designed by Leo over the past month. We've had multiple all hands design meetings and have gone through multiple iterations of the following templates:

• Character Sheets (Bloodline, Origin, Posts)
• Chapter Headings 
• Three Column Layout

To complete these, we've designed both a border that goes on the edges of the pages to delineate chapters as well as multiple background textures to help bring together the overall composition. Things are look good, but we're not quite ready to show the public just yet. Our latest discussions have focused on how to best present Pierre's art in the chapter headings, something that requires creative solutions due to how the art was originally composed and the aspect ratio we want to present it in in the final book. Solvable problems, but problems that need to be solved nonetheless. 

Soundtrack

Here are some fresh official Wildsea tunes from Liam P Vaughan:

If you have a SoundCloud account, please give him a like and a follow! 

Rules Import

Felix is also working and nearly finished with importing the majority of rules into inDesign. So, keep in mind through all of this he's been learning new layout software and adapting to collaborating with more people and establishing that workflow therein. It's more convenient to write directly into the layout software to get the words just right on the page rather than importing the words and having to cut or add because it doesn't conform quite right to the layout. 

So, before we can think about changing or adding onto the rules, they have to be imported from one layout software to another. I know, very exciting stuff, but the realities of tabletop game design, heh. 

Cameo, Bestiary, and Leviathan Art

Our Artists this past month have been focused on fulfilling the higher tier rewards from this Kickstarter. That means coordinating between Felix, Omercan or Katy, and the Backers in a back and forth between design, sketch, feedback, draft, etc. 

We're trying to knock these out first so that they don't sneak up on us towards the end of production. All of these assets and ideas are going into the main book, mind you, so it's best to frontload this stuff. In any case, the majority of these are set to be finalized by the end of this month. 

Reaches

Felix has been playtesting and iterating on a couple of new Reaches. Namely, he's been running games in Rao Ze, a Reach featuring particularly deadly and alien environs and featuring a race of mantis-inspired warriors you may have already gotten a glimpse of already.  We're hoping to release more Reaches soon in the build up to Playtest D and the final rulebook.

Actual Play

Also, we're excited to announce that are moving into production for the official Wildsea Actual Play! We'll be recording episodes this month and next and will announce when they are up soon on the official Wildsea Youtube channel. Stay tuned! 

February Milestones

Overall, we're a smidge behind our internal deadlines. We're trying to gain ground this month but ultimately our 'crunch' period is going to be from March - May, when we have the layouts finalized and it's go-go-go with the writing and art.  Here's what we're aiming to accomplish this month:

• Release a new Reach by the end of the month in the new book format. 
• Launch and release the first few episodes of the Actual Play.
• Finalize Bestiary, Cameo, & Leviathan Collaborations.

In addition, we'll be working on all the usual stuff: more playtesting, more art, more revising on the templates and more problem solving about how to best present the art - all of that! Again, we're in active development, hanging out on the Discord. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to shoot them our way.

Till next time!  

Ray