Saturday, June 24, 2017

Anthrocon Explanation

From January onward, this year has slammed us with one thing after another, imposing the necessity for a move.

Everything seemed to culminate metaphorically this weekend, with our electricity and internet dead.

But now we're back, the smoke has cleared, we're settled in, and steaming back to 100% capacity.

Previously, it was stretching our limits to manage Life Surprises alongside weekly Prelude, Plush delivery, and SKIRMISH prep.

I'm actually relieved that we missed signups for Anthrocon this year- because now I can dig in and score some major Volume 5 progress.

Yesterday I finished the blueline sketch for V5 pages 30 and 31, with more slated for today.  Patrons should keep an eye out for sneak peeks in the coming days.  

And more-

Despite everything, Dreamkeepers has grown by leaps and bounds recently.  There's a lot to share- and more to look forward to:


The first novel of the universe, Wayward Astronomer, debuted at Book Expo America to great acclaim this past month- first edition hardcovers are now available on Amazon.   https://www.amazon.com/Wayward-Astronomer-Geoffrey-Thomas/dp/099782350X

Thanks to our stellar backers, we've manufactured our first line of Plush toys, and Whip is available for general sale.    https://promcolco.com/products/whip-from-dreamkeepers-plush-toy

Of course, the SKIRMISH campaign just concluded with a bang- so expansion decks and more are in the works.   Pre-Orders of the game may become available through Backerkit in the coming month.

Vivid has a very offbeat Christmas book in the works- 'Firebrat' by Mike Rosen.  We're finalizing color swatches, and should have enough production to launch a printing Kickstarter around November.

Speaking of more books- the draft has been nearly done for a year, and soon I plan to put the finishing touches on our Old-West meets Far-East novella- QuickXyk and the Ring of Vengeance.  We'll begin posting chapters for free once it's ready to share, and if people enjoy it enough, will consider it for print.

And speaking of free- we're in the early stages of organizing a Dreamkeepers online roleplay game.  I'm designing a system that allows potentially hundreds of players- but keeps interactions to small, close-knit teams of players, with simple character stats and possibly public voting to move the needle on story events.  Think of Faction Contest meets OC Tournament- only instead of one winner, the focus is on story events and the development of your own personal character.

Also you can die in it.

My partner in the video game has also made drastic progress in coding an elegant game engine from scratch, the result of years of focus- but I don't think we'll have much to show visually on that front for the time being.

As Vivid expands, I'll strive to improve my effectiveness at delegating and management, so we can let the right opportunities flourish and entertain, while still focusing the lion's share of my time on the next page.

At least that's the plan.  E )

I intend to catch up on e-mails after getting some more Volume 5 pages under my belt.   Keep an eye out for updates, thank you for enjoying our work, and we're excited to be throttling back up to speed!

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