The outbreak is over. Now the real struggle for survival begins - will you try to rebuild society, or tear it down?
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Look What I Just Got!
over 7 years ago
– Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 05:11:22 PM
Hey everyone!
Well, it's official - the printer has finished printing!! Woot!
I just got an advance copy of the book, the screen and the cards, and you can see them all here:
I'm rather impressed with the quality. The art really does come across beautifully, and apart from that it's also quite clear and easy to read. So a big thumbs up!
Shipping
I am now finalising the shipping, and organising everything to go from Hong Kong, to Australia, the UK and the USA as shipping hubs. That should hopefully cut down on the time it takes, as well as on cost (which has been painfully high).
The dice will be ready by the end of August, so should be right in time to get the shipments all together after all!
Spanish Character Sheets
A backer has just sent me a translation of the character sheets into Spanish! This is pretty cool. If Spanish is your native language, click here to get your own copies.
That's all for now. Next up - PDFs of the Narrator Screen and another scenario!
~Oliver
Colour Proofs Are Here!
almost 8 years ago
– Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 11:40:58 PM
Exciting news! After a lot of back-and-forth with the printer, I have finally got the colour proofs of the book.
Here's the vid of what they sent me, with a cool sneak-peek of the hardcopies that will soon be in your hands!
Shipping Schedule
Almost everything was perfect in the colour proofs, so it shouldn't take much work to get it all sorted. The printer has told me it will take about 2-3 weeks for the printing to be done (because of their schedules, and because it's an offset print run). After that it should take about 2 weeks for the books to go to the fulfillment company, and then be shipped to you.
Additional Content
As part of the Kickstarter, we hit a stretch goal for several mini-adventures and short stories. I've been chugging through this content, and am about 30% done on it at present. I've learnt a few tricks that save time on the formatting, so am looking forward to getting this out to you all in a couple of week.
Dice
The dice are still being manufactured, and are a few weeks away still. I know a few people have said they’d be willing to wait for the dice and other materials to come as one package, which would save me quite a bit of $$ in the postage. If you’re happy to wait a few more weeks, let me know and I’ll make a note on your order. Otherwise, I’ll send them in two shipments.
GenCon
I have been approached by a very cool chap who wants to showcase non-US games at GenCon - and Infected! is on his list! Unfortunately, the USA is a loooong way from Down Under, so I'm putting out the call to my backers - are you going to GenCon? Would you like to talk to people about Infected, and maybe even run sample games? If so, shoot me a message, or email me at [email protected]
This sort of exposure would be totally priceless for our fledgling game, and I would massively appreciate any such support.
GameStore Ambassadors
This brings me to my next port of call - do you have a local game store you would like to let know about our epic game? If so, I would be very interested to talk to you - I'm creating physical sampler copies, fliers and other cool bits and pieces. Also, if you know of any bloggers, reviewers, podcasters, youtubers… I would greatly appreciate any ambassador work you might be interested to do! Every bit of media we get spreads the word just that much further!
Heck, if you want to do youtube videos of your games, your ideas, your thoughts, I’d love to see them too :)
So that’s my request to you! If you’re interested, let me know. I’m kind of terming it “Immersion Ambassador” as a name, though I’m not really sure if there could be something cool I could give back… I already show a lot of the behind-the-scenes activity, but if there is some other cool reward I could offer, let me know! Because honestly, this sort of promotion is stuff that I could never get otherwise.
Cheers everyone. Looking forward to getting this book, screen, cards and dice out to you!
PDF Link
There are still a few backers who don't seem to have gotten the PDF link. If so, please message me straight away, and I will send it to you!
I also did a mass email about a week ago, but I think spam filters might have picked a few of those up.
Any questions? Shoot me a message or leave it as a comment!
Once again, thank you all so much for your support, patience and general awesomeness!!
~Oliver
Digital Copies READY Print Soon to Follow
almost 8 years ago
– Fri, Jun 10, 2016 at 05:16:24 PM
Well I'm finally back from my epic holiday in Japan and Taiwan... and I must first of all thank everyone for their incredible patience over the past few weeks. I did in fact get quite a bit done even while away, including the final run through of the edits and the last images (one of which you can see above).
And the good news is that the PDF of the book is now READY!!
I feel like fainting from sheer joy at this point. DONE. DONE!!!
The rest of the files are with the printer now, and are being prepped (still) for a hard copy proof. The reason this has taken so long is because I was editing it at the same time, so now I've had to re-send a bunch of the files. One of the problems of squishing everything into the same time period eh?
This is also the time where my book account seems to magically disappear. It's a good thing I religiously set aside all of the funds I received, and never spent a bean unless I absolutely had to. Because when the big bills roll in (a few thousand, ten thousand there) all of a sudden you really need it! But as I said, I set that aside, so no need to worry there! Phew.
So, I will be sending out the PDFs now, to everyone of the Survivor level and above, via Backerkit. I'm going to attach a link to a Dropbox file (I think that's easiest really).
If you don't receive your Backerkit email, please let me know (email me at [email protected]) and I can send it to you another way. In fact, I may just make a backer-only update with a link to it... but first I'd like to know if that's really required.
Thank you all once again for your incredible support. This project has been massive, and it's not quite over yet. I truly hope you enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed making it!
Oh... and here's a snap I took while away, of Himeji Castle. What a place!
~Oliver
Tidying Up Dem Rules
over 8 years ago
– Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 10:42:29 PM
Well there have been a lot of changes and work done recently, and I thought I'd post an update to make sure you all know where things are at! I also just wrote an article on the website which goes over some aspects of it. Feel free to check it out :)
So the ultimate question is - where are we up to?
Essentially, we are halfway through the manuscript. That's about 120 pages out of 250. Though really we're more than halfway, as with the images added it's more like 230 pages of text to be written.
There have also been some exciting changes to the rules, tidying them up, making them smoother and faster, and trimming down on needless stats. We're turning it into a fighter jet rather than a tanker!
Still, despite that progress going fairly well, it needs to go faster for us to be ready for a February finish. Not only with the manuscript, but with the images. We've had a large amount of weapons illustrated, and those should end up being no problem for the finish date, but there is still the matter of getting all the illustrations of the backers finished.
Unfortunately our principal artist broke his fingers playing basketball a few weeks ago, which held him up. He's only just now coming back up to speed. So to offset that I've started looking for another artist to come on board and pick up the slack. The thing is, our budget is quite limited due to the amount of images we need done, so it's a tough match between the skill of the artist and the amount we have to pay them.
What I will be looking for in the new year is proofreaders and test readers. These are backers who are interested in getting a first-peek at the book, and looking through it for typos, inconsistencies, and lack of clarity. If you're interested, please do let me know now!
Oh, a last thing for you - I mentioned it in the article linked above, but here it is now too. We have new Quick Start Rules, free to download and with a wealth of information in them. These have the newest, slickest set of rules in them, and are really all you need to get started playing. We've even get Experience and character advancement in there, along with sample characters, and a one-shot adventure!
You can check it out here. And the new character sheets for them here.
I would certainly welcome your feedback! Any inconsistencies, typos, problems or things that lack clarity will need to be fixed, so if you see them, please let me know!
That's all for now. Enjoy your gaming guys and gals! :)
~Oliver R. Shead
P.S. What do you think of our latest image, at the top? I'm pretty stoked with it myself. This is an image of a Government Enforcer for NORAD who has arrived at Las Vegas with the mission to gain control of a faction there known as The Skulls. They are ruled by a man called The Immortal, who is rumoured to have died seven times, and so has defied death altogether and now cannot be killed. His followers are all intent on doing the same, and so they're quite fanatical and unafraid of death. This presents quite a problem to any government trying to control such people. But Las Vegas has resources, and is a key strategic area. NORAD wants it at any cost.
Progress!
over 8 years ago
– Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 02:31:53 PM
Hey everyone!
Well, we've been busy. To start with, the first of a series of awesome images have started coming in. Most of them are of Creative Level Backers, which is really cool to see.
Here are the first three that we've got. I think you'll agree they're pretty incredible. Each of the principal characters is a backer! Yep. Even the Infected.
I'm very keen on this new run of illustrations to communicate mood and emotion, as well as to capture the day-to-day life of people in this post-apocalyptic world. That's why we have the Infected eating a cabbage. Hey, that's what they do! They're hungry, and they'll eat everything you've got. Then they'll eat you too.
There's a lot more to come, so stay tuned.
Also, there are a few Creative Level Backers who haven't yet responded to me with their pictures, ideas or other assets for their backing. I really really need these things from them, so I can deliver their backer levels!
If you haven't yet written to me about your Creative Backer Level, or you're not sure what's happening with it, please write to me at [email protected] or message me here on Kickstarter.
The Manuscript
The other exciting thing is the progress on the manuscript!
In fact, I just finished a draft version of Chapter 3: Basics, and I want your opinion on it! Bear in mind this is a draft, so the typesetting is not perfect, there's no pictures and so on. What I want to know, however, is how well it communicates the rules.
If you read through them now, and then answer the following questions (message them to me on Kickstarter), I would be very grateful!
Does the chapter communicate the rules in a clear, concise way?
Are the examples clear?
If not, are there are any particular ones that aren't clear?
Are you left with any questions, or anything that this chapter did not answer for you?
Is the chapter interesting to read?
Thank you very much in advance for your feedback!
BackerKit
Well, we've done pretty well with BackerKit so far. But, as of yet some 30 backers still haven't filled out their surveys! There's still time (we're shipping in February), but I would like to start locking down orders soon, and I really want all the information right now so that there are no last-minute hang-ups.
Did you know we have our very own Immersion RPG Forum? In there we discuss many cool and wondrous things, like new settings, random crazy ideas, new rule tweaks, adventures we're playing or plan to play, characters we're creating, stories we're writing... really, it's very fun and very creative!
So please come along. We'd love to have your voice!
