Hey folks, Sylvan here once again!

From what I hear, Gen Con was a delightful, chaotic, incredibly fun experience for everyone that went, and I am so thrilled that so many of you got the chance to chat with Nic about Before the Flood while you were there! On my end, I've been plugging away all weekend at the game, noodling around with playtest balancing. I figured that you might want a bit more of a devlog-esque update at some point, so I've started working on a design diary type of post for you. Stay tuned for that before the end of the campaign, I'll be sending that out soon. I'm looking to key you in on a few more specific design choices that Nic and I have made--in particular, I'm going to be telling you about what goes into writing a picklist for Before the Flood and why we decided to ritualize certain elements of the game. Hopefully that'll be interesting for you!

As of the time of writing this update, we're right around the corner from our $10,000 stretch goal to double the length of the Book of Legend. When we hit that goal, I'll be posting a much-requested preview of the Book of Legend itself to give you a taste of the sorts of story hooks we're including inside. And of course, as we've said previously, we've been brainstorming new stretch goals for that 10-20K range!

The first new goal will be a $12,000 stretch goal to give our team another small raise as a thank-you. I can't express to you how much work everyone has put into this project--MC did, at one point, field business calls with us from a mountaintop in the middle of a backpacking trip. Reese sketched concept art for us on her lunch break in between shifts at her day job. Nic and I would frequently clock out of our day jobs and immediately go home and work on the game manuscript (or, in my case, work on the game during my shifts... don't tell my former managers). The point is, I can't think of a better first stretch goal than another raise. Trust me--these people deserve it.

We'll be posting more stretch goals as we get closer to them--I don't want to make any promises yet, but we're considering some really neat stuff, like a guest artist for the map template, discounted copies of Gravemire available as an add-on for this campaign only, even more art from Reese, and more. We've got ideas! We'll see how the campaign does as we're entering the last few weeks to gauge feasibility for each one.

I know this update is getting pretty long, but I did want to clue you in on ooooone last little thing... we're going to be doing a little end-of-campaign livestream on the campaign page next weekend. I won't give away too much until we have all the details finalized, but you can expect a couple of guest game designers (names you will likely recognize) to come and chop it up with Nic and me about game design philosophy, the power of ritual narrative, our favorite games, and lots more. Think of it as a just-for-you talk show with some incredibly brilliant people (and me), live streamed one time only. I am unbelievably psyched for it, and will give you new details soon!

You'll be hearing from me again soon. Until then, rest up and take it easy after your busy, busy weekend!

A little too verbosely,
Sylvan

PS: The Garden of Automata won the sticker poll, and will be our sticker design! Huzzah for robots!