24 hours to go!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 02, 2022 at 12:31:39 PM

Hey Mercs,

We're over the threshold and fast approaching the target - locked and loaded! It is the final 24 hours of this campaign!

I can't believe how fast these last four weeks have flown by. Thank you all for being here and supporting the game, and a huge hello to our new backers from the last day or two.

When we posted yesterday, to announce the final 48 hours, we had just three stretch goals still to go. I'm excited to see that we have since unlocked the £12k and £12.5k goals already (these are discussed here), meaning that we only have one final stretch goal to go - our £13k goal for a Data Seed written by the awesome Jason Durall. I guess that makes Jason our 'end of level boss'.

Unlocking all the goals on this campaign would result in a total final page count of 128 pages, plus a load of new art. We're super excited to produce this book!

One last push folks - please share the campaign with your fellow gamers. let's make this a big finish! If you have not done so already, please check us out on Twitter or Facebook, or join the Facebook Community Group for extra TGC-related chat!

Big love,

Shep - Hansor Publlishing

Fully Stretched!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Mar 02, 2022 at 12:30:20 PM

Wow!

Just a quick message to say, THANK YOU!

Thanks to all our awesome backers we are now fully stretched, having passed that final stretch goal over night. Our final boss, Jason Durall, have been unlocked and set loose on a Data Seed.

Thanks to unlocking that final goal, we now have an additional 16 pages of content to go in the book, as well as more art from Jesús Blones and JJ Ariosa, including some glorious full page and 2-page spread art. Hardware 2119 is now a 128 page beauty - it's going to look stunning.

We're now into the final 12 hours. I'm really excited to see where this campaign ends.

Thanks all,

Shep - Hansor Publishing

Final 48 hours!
almost 3 years ago – Mon, Feb 28, 2022 at 05:06:54 PM

Hi everyone,

We are now into the final 48-hours of the campaign! Thank you all for being here and supporting the game. It's a huge privilege to be able to create this book and have you all pledge your hard earned pennies to get your hands on a copy. You all rock!

As well as closing in on the finish line, we're also closing in on the campaign's final stretch goals. We discussed these in this update (click here), and as you can see, we've already unlocked the £10.5k, £11k AND £11.5k goals! With just a few more to go, it would be amazing to unlock them all. Please share the campaign with your gamer friends and let's get this done!

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share a few extras with you.

First up is a stunningly detailed rules overview to the 12.3 system from Runeslinger. This video breaks down the rules and how they support the system as a whole:

Next up is an interview I did yesterday with the lovely folk at the Alexandira RPG library, discussing the game, this campaign and all manner of game industry stuff. Grab a coffee and take a listen (click here). This was a really fun interview and I'm excited to get a couple of copies of the game into their library!

If you have not done so already, please check us out on Twitter or Facebook, or join the Facebook Community Group for extra TGC-related chat!

I can't wait to see what these last 48 hours bring.

UPDATE: We just hit 300 backers! Thank you all so much!

Big love,

Shep - Hansor Publishing

Final stretch goals revealed!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 22, 2022 at 08:20:50 PM

Hi all,

Time for an update on our stretch goal progress.

Since our last update, we have unlocked two more stretch goals. Firstly, we unlocked a Data Seed from Benn Graybeaton. We spoke about Benn in a previous update (click here). We have also just unlocked an additional page of vehicles to be added into our Gear & Tech chapter.

With these unlocks also comes the reveal of our final batch of stretch goals. Let's take a look:

 £10.5k - More Corps

Here we add a whooping three additional pages to our Corp chapter. This gives us a couple of additional corp insights, as well as the chance to further flesh out one of our deeper corporate analysis profiles. This was an area where cutting content to meet the page count had to happen, so being able to reintroduce this stuff would be amazing.

 £11k - New Data Seed by Mark Whittington

At £11k we get our next guest writer to bring us a Data Seed. This time it is the talented Mark Whittington:

“Born next to the sea, Mark Whittington (aka Whitt) has always hated the outdoors. In his dark cyber dungeon (dicemachine.com), he makes his foul works: the indie RPGs PROJECT and Black Code. By day he is also an ennie-nominated graphic designer, working for companies such as Modiphius and Black Cat Games.”

I originally know Mark through the SLA Industries community, before getting my hands on his own RPG, Black Code. Mark is a talented writer, game designer and graphics expert. I was really keen to get a little of his Black Code flavour into a Data Seed for The Gaia Complex and was really excited when he agreed to be involved.

 £11.5k - New Data Seed by Jared Earle

Here we have another Data Seed, this time from Jared Earle:

“Jared Earle has worked for Nightfall Games, Wizards of the coast and even did a stint as a Games Workshop mail order troll in the ‘80s. As well as working as a writer on SLA Industries, he puts books together, reports on world championship motorcycle racing and manages big servers for companies you’ve heard of.”

I know Jared through my time with Nightfall Games. As one of the co-creators of SLA Industries, Jared’s love of the darker side of sci-fi gaming should be clear to see. Jared’s writing style has always been a favourite of mine and it is a big honour to have him contribute to this book.

£12k - Even More Art!

We'll be expanding on our art count by adding in a full page advert for GHOST-TAC Industrial!

£12.5k  - New Data Seed by Mark Rapson

“Mark Rapson joined the gaming world with Devil’s Run the fast-paced board game of vehicular carnage. Since then, he has successfully run and completed over a dozen Kickstarters. The most recent of those campaigns were for SLA Industries and The Terminator RPG, on which he also works as a content writer, rules developer and producer. Last year, Mark and the rest of the Nightfall Games team won an ENnie for the work on SLA Industries 2nd Edition. In his spare time Mark likes to spend his time with his family and friends.”

Mark is one of my oldest friends in the game industry (I mean, we’ve known each other for a long time, not that he’s actually old. Well…). We met by chance at Essen Spiel some years ago and hit it off. I’ve worked both for and with Mark on a number of projects for Word Forge Games and Nightfall Games and also have to credit him with providing a huge amount of guidance and motivation to get out there and publish my own works. Not only is he a trusted friend and colleague, but he’s also a lovely chap and a talented writer.

£13k - New Data Seed by Jason Durall

“Jason has been playing RPGs for 40 years, and writing, designing, and editing them for almost 30. After many years contributing to fanzines and RPG magazines and freelancing for tabletop games, he joined the computer game industry as lead worldbuilder for the groundbreaking MMO Shadowbane, and later was creative content lead for Wizard101 and lead designer on Drakensang Online. He has led creative content development for several other unannounced online titles. In tabletop games he has written and developed for game lines as diverse as Basic Roleplaying, Elric!, Dragon Lords of Melnibone, Amber Diceless Roleplaying, Conan the Roleplaying Game, The Lord of the Rings, Silver Age Sentinels, Supernatural, A Game of Thrones, Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, Magic World, The Laundry, World War Cthulhu, Achtung! Cthulhu, John Carter of Mars, and Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of. He is the creator of Lords of Gossamer & Shadow and has written for many other titles and lines. His current slate includes editing and writing for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, Lords of the Middle Sea, and Dune. He lives in Berlin, Germany.”

I worked with Jason on the Conan and Dune RPG lines at Modiphius and it quickly became easy to see where he got the title of “the nicest guy in the RPG industry” (though honestly, I’m not sure if he knows people give him that name – ooops). Jason is a phenomenal writer, talented editor and all-round lovely guy. It is a true honour to have him to contribute to The Gaia Complex.

With those goals unlocked, this project will be officially 'fully stretched'. As a small team, we're not into endless lists of new content that drastically draw out the scope of a project and dramatically increase production costs or our development time. Delivering great content on time is our focus. As a fully stretched project, this book will have an additional 16 pages of content added (for a new total of 128 pages) and be jammed full of gorgeous artwork. Please continue to share this project with friends and fellow gamers - every backer brings us one step closer to that final goal.

Thanks for reading. We'll be back soon with more insight to the content of the book. If you have not done so already, please check us out on Twitter or Facebook, or join the Facebook Community Group for extra TGC-related chat!

Big love,

Shep - Hansor Publishing

Approaching the half way mark!
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 15, 2022 at 11:27:44 AM

Hi Mercs,

We're on the cusp of the half way mark for this project, funded and still unlocking stretch goals for more content - THANK YOU ALL!

We thought this was a good chance to touch base on a few other bits and give you a progress update.

In the last couple of updates we showed progress on the 2-page spread that Jesús was working on. This is still progressing nicely, in between other smaller pieces of art that he's been producing. As such, we're excited to show you the finished right side of the image...

We're putting a short pause on finishing the left side of the image, so that Jesús can work on a few other graphical elements needed for me to polish up the layout on the completed chapters - more of this scene soon!

I also thought this would be a good time to share something very new with you: our initial sketches of the GHOST-TAC suits, mentioned in on the campaign page.

These designs are still WIP, so expect cahnged as we move forward with them. These modern 'construction vehicles', from industry newcomer GHOST-TAC Industrial, are designed purely for the construction and industrial sector and are absolutely not in anyway able to be retrofitted for combat duties. Honest.

We'll be sharing more info about these in a future update.

With the exception of a few of our guest written Data Seeds, and any other content that may be unlocked via stretch goals, I am happy to announce that the writing on this project is complete! Not only that, but all content has been edited, undergone the initial layout pass and been forwarded to our proof reader. We've already had a couple of chapters back from proofing and I will be working through any required edits over the coming days.

This is a great place for us to be. Having the written content largely complete before the end of the campaign gives us the possibility of escalating our original timeline (artwork pending). After the campaign ends, we'll share a detailed progress plan that shows exactly what is left to be completed.

Since our last update, we've unlocked another stretch goal, this time to commission JJ Arisoa for another art piece. This will not only help us knock down our art numbers, but it's also going to be great to have more of JJ's style in the book. We spoke a little about JJ and their work in this update (click here).

We still have a couple of stretch goals on the board still to unlock, after which we have just one more batch to announce. Please keep sharing the project with your gamer friends and on social media etc. We'd love to see this book fully stretched and jam all those extra pages and art in for you!

For those of you that have delved into our quick start (click here) or already own the core book, you'll be well aware of how we address the concept of 'adventures' in The Gaia Complex - though the use of Data Seeds. Data Seeds are effectively one page scenarios, designed to be fleshed out by the GM in order to make a series of one shot game sessions, or to be stitched together as the frame work for a long running campaign.

Our quick start and core book each contain a few Data Seeds, but in order to expand the available content, we also produced a number of smaller PDF releases over the last year. Each of these releases contain a few additional data seeds, plus any resources (NPCs, equipment stats etc.) required to run them. Note that volume 2 also contains two additional pre-generated characters, designed to increase the player count of the quick start to seven.

Data Seeds Volume 1, 2 and 3 are all available via DriveThruRPG for just $1 each!

Links:

• Data Seeds Volume 1
• Data Seeds Volume 2
• Data Seeds Volume 3

So, as we enter the second half of this campaign, we want to once again thank you all for the support so far - it means the world to us to be able to keep producing content for this game.

We'll be back soon with another deep dive into one of the book's chapters. If you have not done so already, please check us out on Twitter or Facebook, or join the Facebook Community Group for extra TGC-related chat!

Big love,

Shep - Hansor Publishing