All Quiet on the Western Front

Current Draft: 2nd

The blog has gone quiet for a couple weeks since the first draft was completed. The author has taken a mental break for a bit of recovery after the long process, before the hefty revision work begins.  Some major mechanics changes are happening that will affect balance of numbers, though nothing systematic on the dice front, most relating to character creation to bring it more in line with design goals.

Some very limited playtesting has occured, though nothing of significant consequence.

The first large piece for Dreamcatcher has been commissioned, contract will be signed tommorrow delivering a nice two page spread for the book involving Entropy, the artist's choice for most interesting thing in the book to illustrate that fit her tastes and style.

http://hanmonster.deviantart.com/ is the artist, she's very talented and great with color and mood, but this is one of the more dramatic and complex commissions she's had to do.

This artwork is a pretty penny, and hopefully will be made back up in kickstarter, but it'll be great for promotional material for the kickstarter campaign.

First Draft Get

Draft #1 is officially completed.  An arbitrary designation, as there is still original content to write, and some sections already been revised pretty heavily, but none-the-less this is a milestone.  Play-testing will begin soon, and alpha players are rolling up characters, though honestly a significant and major overhaul to the way character creation works is already being designed for draft #2, to bring the unnecessarily complex and intimidating process down to something far more manageable without losing flexibility.  This is not a small change, but a complete and total overhaul of the character creation process that brings the design goals far closer to a reality.  This should not be overwhelming or intimidating for new players, unlike the current design.

The first draft was 138,500 words, without either of the unfinished vignettes, though there may be additional content written in the forms of Dreamcatchers, Traits and Flaws as character creation happens during play.

What does this mean?  Dreamcatcher is on track still for a December or January Kickstarter still, and hopefully will not slide too far, though the art portion of the equation must be to a certain point first.  In addition the author must hire a lawyer to help with art contracts so that progress on artwork can happen, and needs to start working on simple Layout design in order to assist with draft #2's structuring process.

Even so, its good news for anyone who is interested in the project.