Hey friends,
Thank you so much for supporting this major expansion to Monster of the Week! Over 2,000 of you helped bring this proje...
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Evil Hat Productions
8 days ago
6 Stretch Goals unlocked! Final 5 hours!
Friends there's less than 5 hours left in the campaign and we've funded six stretch goals.
Not only are you getting the new playbooks, gear, ...
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Evil Hat Productions
9 days ago
The Mystery Countdown Clock turns to Nightfall...
Hey friends, we're down to the final 50-odd hours and now is the best time to lock-in any special add-ons you like or upgrade your pledge to one of...
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Evil Hat Productions
15 days ago
Design Diary: Scenarios
Greetings cryptid hunters! Eight days left in the campaign and we've pushed past the $120k mark which means we'll be creating two new hunter playbooks for you:
• The El...
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Evil Hat Productions
28 days ago
Design Diary: Dealing with the Box
Hey friends, throughout the campaign we'll check in with the designers behind both the Slayer's Survival Kit and the Hunter's Journal to share their thoughts about the inspirati...
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Evil Hat Productions
about 1 month ago
Roll +Cool
Thanks to nearly 1100 of you, the Hunter’s Journal and Slayer’s Survival Kit is fully funded! In the three and a half days since we launched, you’ve knocked down three stretch ...
Thank you so much for supporting this major expansion to Monster of the Week! Over 2,000 of you helped bring this project to life and we added over $17,000 on the final day to unlock our seventh stretch goal: Rollable Mystery tables and Zoom In/Zoom Out combat moves!
The next couple weeks will be fairly quiet in terms of updates. BackerKit needs to collect and distribute your funds to us. We are in the process of commissioning art and revising the layout, and once that's finished we'll fire off the order for the print books. We'll also be working with Campaign Coins and our print shop to get the premium gear into production.
We'll keep you apprised as we hit milestones, but for the near future we're going to keep our heads down. We take pride in delivering our crowdfunder rewards ahead of schedule and we're going to make every effort to do that here.
On a related note: in order to get you the books as quickly as possible, we choose to put the bonus material of the stretch goals on a separate production timeline. We'll deliver them digitally, as they are completed.
We don't make a habit of commissioning stretch goals until we know that the goal has actually funded. And, if you've backed projects from other companies, you've likely seen how the work of delivering stretch goals can dramatically delay delivery when they're folded into the final rewards. We want to get the goods that are finished out the door first rather than make you wait for the main deliverables.
Finally, if you have an issue with your pledge, your payment, or anything else you need our customer service team to tackle, please email us at [email protected]. We do our best to monitor the comments here, but emailing us directly is the most efficient way to get eyes on your issue.
On behalf of the whole team, once again: thank you again for being part of this project! Monster of the Week is a steadfast bestseller in our bullpen of games, and your passion for playing it is a big reason for its success.
Friends there's less than 5 hours left in the campaign and we've funded six stretch goals.
Not only are you getting the new playbooks, gear, Weird moves, and story options in the Slayer's Survival Kit and Hunter's Journal, but your support has also unlocked upgrades to those books plus: two new Hunter playbooks, new Ensemble Team rules, and another Team playbook!
And we're just $8k away from dropping new Mystery generation tables and additional combat moves to help you zoom in (or out) during a battle so your group can notch up the tension or keep the game flowing.
It's going to be a bit of a lift to get there, but we put on $8k yesterday alone. It's definitely attainable!
If you prefer to pick and choose, each of those deluxe extras is also available as an add-on. Just keep in mind that the system doesn't allow you to select physical add-ons if you're only backing for digital rewards.
Thanks again for your support. We're in the home stretch here and finishing strong!
Please note that you must make a pledge for a physical reward in order select physical add-on items (like dice, coins, or the Investigator's Casebook). That's so we can charge you the appropriate shipping when the time comes and make sure well ahead of time that we actually ship to your home country.
The campaign is in its crucial final hours - it's a sprint to unlock that next stretch goal!
At $140k, Marek will create Ensemble Team Rules and a new Team playbook! And, like any good keeper, we have more waiting in the wings.
So keep sharing the campaign on socials (follow us on BlueSky if you're joining the current Twitter exodus) and lock in for those final 48 hours.
In the meantime, we're turning the rest of this update over to creator Michael Sands as he shares what it was like to bring these two massive books together.
Over to Michael...
When we first got started with this project, there was a huge amount of material from Luke and Marek, and it was obvious we weren't going to be able to use everything. (Or would we?? -more on this later). That meant that my first round of developmental editing was focused on working out what would be the most useful for the most people, and what could be dropped or combined.
On top of that, we had to polish what was there: tuning each move so it was as cool as possible, tightening up phrasing and word choices, arranging the sections to flow sensibly, and making sure the "voice" of the text was right for Monster of the Week (while still keeping Luke and Marek's voice too).
As part of this process I found things I knew I needed to add to the text: the Action Scientist, Good Monsters, and a few small advice and rules sections to address common play questions and issues.
That stuff is hard work, and although I've gotten pretty good at it over the years, it's draining to look over text in such detail. It took a few months. Once we had everything as close to perfection as possible, we handed it over to Karen Twelves for editing and then to Fred Hicks for layout.
Which is where the length of the text jumped out of the closet, giving us all a huge fright. It was too much to fit into a single hardcover! Our printer literally couldn't print it!
Which is the point where we decided to split it into two books.
Illustration by Fernando Salvaterra
...And that meant going through the careful arrangement of all of the sections and rearranging them to figure out what belonged in each book.
Slayer's Survival Kit became the expansion with all the new playbooks, optional rules, and general advice. The Hunter's Journal collected all the individual playbook advice and the new hunter stories for each.
Once we'd figured that out, we had to assess the structure all over again. Plus there was new cover art to commission and separate layouts to build for the two volumes.
And so, after this long journey, we've finally reached the point where we're crowdfunding not one, but two books for you, each packed with exciting new options for your games.
The BackerKit campaign is almost done, but the best part comes next: hearing the stories from your table and what you all do with this giant trove of new material! I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.
As title says, I am a PDF + POD editions backer but metal dice/tokens does not show up in addons? Will this be available after the pledge drive has ended? Thanks.
