Last Legs of Distribution
about 1 year ago – Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 09:32:24 PM

HEY EVERYONE!

Not much to say as we wind down our Kickstarter.

Obviously, we’re not actually done yet, with Jon Fink working on the audiobook, which I might have mentioned earlier, will be released episodically.

However, there are a few things I wanted to bring up.

All the books have been shipped out from distribution.

Please check your spam folder if you have NOT received a tracking notice. A lot of emails are being dumped there. If you still have not, private message me, and I will find your tracking notice. I know that all US backers “SHOULD” have received their physical rewards, and most international backers are also collecting. The oddity appears is Canada. I’m Canadian, and neither I nor any of my friends have received their books. Many of these are pending arrival at their Canadian processing facility, though TODAY (Friday), I have discovered many have arrived at the sorting facility in Etobicoke, which is in Ontario.

All I can ask is still be patient.

That being said, I am happy to say those who have received the books have responded with overwhelming praise. I am so glad the books look so good. I still haven’t seen any luxury editions numbered 1, so the search is still on.

Oooh...lookey!  An unboxing video!!

THE FUTURE

I have spoken recently about us bringing on a new partner to help facilitate the future. To that end, we are working on a series of adventures compatible with Ultramodern5. This will result in a new crowdfunding campaign launching in late May or early June. I can’t offer details just yet. My partner, William Miller, will head this project as I will be neck-deep in Amethyst for the next few months.

Will have more information soon.

CHRIS

SHIPPING UPDATE
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 08:40:53 PM

HEY EVERYONE

Update from Bridge Distribution. 

Currently, a good chunk of the staff is out with the “flu”. 

Also, the failure of Funagain Games (another company) is creating a deluge of new inquiries. 

The president is PERSONALLY overseeing the rest of Affinity's distribution.  He even had his brother (the CEO) fly in from Ireland to help manage to flood. 

Bridge can certainly use some of those lucky charms...

...

(cough)

MODULES RELEASED
about 1 year ago – Mon, Mar 06, 2023 at 04:11:33 PM

Hey everyone!

Not much new on the KS front. Work chugs along. However, I did want to mention two digital modules we released.

INVASION PROXY

BIOHAZARD

If these look familiar, that’s because these are expanded versions of those found in the original 2016 Ultramodern5.

We are currently in the preliminary stages of releasing an updated version of Threshold, which was found in UM5-REDUX. However, inspiration took hold, and it’s getting much larger than initially planned (it’s at like 48,000 words). So, I had to put that on hold to focus on Amethyst, which probably won’t see the light until early Summer.

SHIPPING

So, people are still receiving their games. Please be patient, especially with those living outside of the United States.  I wish I could hasten this process, but it's out of my hands.
ALSO

If you happen to be one of the lucky people with a deluxe version, I'd love to know what number you are. So far, I've only seen high values, so I am wondering who's going to get #1. 

CHRIS

DELIVERY & THE FUTURE
about 1 year ago – Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 11:53:34 AM

HEY EVERYONE!

Well, the news is obvious! I’m getting photos from people and even a few unboxing videos.

People are getting their games.

And so far, the praise has been unanimous. Load off my back! It looks like we don’t have to worry about printers for the next project.

I know many of you will ask about the progress on delivery.

From this point, they are still working out the USA. Even we Canadians haven’t received tracking notices yet. I imagine the EU and beyond will come after that.

THE FUTURE

With this project nearing completion, we are hard at work on Amethyst. The reboots of the first two books are already finished, and preliminary work has already begun on the third.

For those that have not backed it, you can still get in on the late pledge here:

https://amethyst-revelations.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

We also plan on launching an expansion for Naramata, our board game, and a reboot for NeuroSpasta and APEX once writing on Amethyst has finished.

Thank you to everyone that supported this project!

CHRIS

WHAT A JANUARY!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 03, 2023 at 12:08:06 PM

HEY EVERYONE!

The month of January was a…well, you can imagine it was a bit of a mess. I don’t think I need to explain why; it was international news for some time. I also had to keep re-writing updates as every day would bring new information that would change the landscape on which we travel. Each time there was an update, I would imagine, “we’re unlikely to know more for a couple of weeks,” only for everything to change the next day.

I made NUMEROUS videos on my YouTube Channel detailing our opinion, our change in opinion, our final decision, and our revised decision. I mentioned in a previous update that the OGL fiasco was not going to alter our release schedule, and ultimately, it wasn’t. Likewise, in reference to our plans to support 5E.

People have asked why we don’t publish for multiple systems. Well, obviously, we do with Amethyst. The core book and Factions are available for Savage Worlds, Fate, 13th Age, Pathfinder, and 4E, and those sales combined are 10x less than the 5E sales. And when I have to create the same book for multiple systems, it is time-consuming and a nightmare. The first Amethyst Kickstarter took four years to finish. I would spend more time adapting than writing new content. The only reason we can offer Amethyst Revelations for both Savage Worlds and Fate is that Christopher Stilson offered to write those adaptations. We are not offering a Pathfinder, 4E, or 13th Age edition because if I did, you wouldn’t be receiving books until 2025.  That being said, I am not against it, and if someone reading this is interested in handling a mechanical adaptation for another ruleset, reach out to me, and let’s talk.

So I am grateful for the recent update from WOTC, where they offered all of their rules to Creative Commons. For one, it finally means that we may be able to say “Dungeons & Dragons” on our promotional material as that was a condition of the 2000 OGL, which, technically, books like ours don’t need to adhere to anymore.

Will Dias Ex Machina produce content for One D&D? Potentially, but it will depend on what WOTC offers to entice us. They’ll have to win us over by this point.

As we move into February, I have been somewhat badgering distribution for an update on tracking numbers, impatiently waiting for those first few customers to announce their arrivals and potential unboxings. We hit a lull through Christmas, and then we got hit with the true culprit.

CMON.

No joke. I seriously mean one of the biggest reasons for the delay in distribution is because of publisher Cool Mini Or Not.

Unfortunately, 10,000+ copies of Marvel Zombies arrived before us, so we had to wait dutifully for that distribution to finish before our MUCH small project began. I have been assured that Affinity followed that project and got another update that they have finished or at least got enough people on that one to divert resources to get ours started.

Yeah, kind of not impressed. It took two months to get our project going. And this has nothing to do with shipping or production. Our games have been in the United States since late October. Moving things around Christmas was a nightmare. I’ll make a point to remember that for Amethyst and ensure we time distribution to spring or summer.

OSG 5.75

Also, some of you know that as an experiment, I have been running live streams where I invite people to watch and throw out ideas for a variant ruleset. This is entirely a thought experiment and we are still on the fence if we plan on publishing it.

You can check out the current progress in this video...

And download the current iteration of rules here:

DOWNLOAD THE CURRENT OSG 5.75 HERE: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BYddn3ZydBNNHI0-mXEU0e4zYvHUlXDh/view?usp=sharing

Anyways, this was technically January’s update and I do plan for another soon.