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:
BackerKit is Now Live!
over 8 years ago
– Thu, Oct 08, 2015 at 03:59:25 PM
Exciting times! BackerKit is now live and sending out the surveys to all backers as I type these words.
This means that you can use this to enter all your details into the system, so that when the book (and the mini-scenario, add-ons, etc.) is ready to be sent out to you, we have everything ready to go.
Also, if you wanted to upgrade your order, you can now do so!
Last but not least, those whose orders didn't go through, or people new to the project, can also make Pre-Orders! This is pretty cool. So if you know someone who was bummed about missing out on the KS, this is your chance to let them know they can still get involved! Point them in the direction of this link: https://infected-zombie-rpg-by-oliver-r-shead.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Cheers! Any questions, please shoot me an email and let me know ([email protected]).
Oh, and last but not least...
We have announced a winner for our external competition! It was really tough to work out who it should go to, but finally the winner was named - and it is... CALEB HARRIS!
Congratulations Caleb! We'll be looking forward to working with you to create a final for the book! :)
~Oliver
Making Progress!
over 8 years ago
– Sun, Oct 04, 2015 at 02:07:50 PM
We've been making progress on the project! Today the funds came through, after a 14-day wait, which is awesome. My BackerKit is currently being reviewed, and should be available for the pledge surveys in a couple of days. This will also mean that it can take pre-orders - and a limited number of pre-orderers will even be able to pick up our beautiful Narrator's screen (while it lasts).
Having the funds come through also means I can actually start to pay artists and set aside for printing, production, shipping and tax.
I've already started commissioning the first new pieces of artwork - in particular, Creative Backers will be getting themselves/their groups illustrated, and the weapons and armour are getting worked on too.
I'm really excited to show some great cultural pieces. Things that show the uniqueness of this setting - like people growing crops on top of an aircraft carrier, Infected eating crops (while the survivors watch on with a different sense of horror), washing lines hanging from the barrels of tanks, and all that sort of thing - interesting stuff!
I'm also continuing to work on playtesting and tweaking the rules, and the way they are presented in the book. In fact, I just finished a game yesterday with several backers, which was awesome fun, and another opportunity to show people the rules, and also take them and the setting for a joyride!
Our forum is going great guns, with a lot of great feedback, game play posts, ideas for setting regions, and more. It's fantastic to have such a large amount of really creative people on board!
The external competition is also in its final stages. This wasn't a Kickstarter thing, but I thought it would be good to let you know here, seeing as a number of Kickstarter backers also entered. It's been pretty tough to work out the winner! I've been going through them with a fine-toothed comb, and we're down to the final few. I hope to have the results by tomorrow.
I'll also be at SydCon tomorrow, Monday the 5th of October, to run a sample game from 1pm to 4pm. If you're in the area, please feel free to pop in and say hi, or even book a place in the game (looking for between 1-4 players).
And finally, I'm also finalising the Creative Backers' content, and writing the rest of the content for the book to get done. My plan is to write this in draft form over the next few weeks, then tidy it up, send it out to backers for a review, and then send it to a professional editor before printing. I think our timetable is very doable, with so much of the content already having been written over the last three drafts - this one will be the final iteration (it's a well-worn track, so it will be easier to do!).
So that's the state of our project in a nutshell! Any questions - let me know :)
~Oliver
The Next Steps
over 8 years ago
– Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 03:12:11 AM
Some highlights of the Kickstarter!
Hi everyone!
I'm currently finalising the survey process with BackerKit. I've found out that you're supposed to wait 14 days after the Kickstarter is finished to send out those surveys, so I'll be sending them in about a week from now.
I think the reason for that is so that everyone can ensure their payments go through. On that front, I think we've done remarkably well, and only had a few payments bounce. It can happen that funds aren't in the account on that day, or a myriad of other things can cause glitches to happen - if there's an issue with your payment I'll send you a message to see if we can sort it out. Of course, please feel free to message me first! :)
The Art ProcessNow the next major step is art production! I'm currently approaching some of my artists for further works, and will continue to do so over the coming days. I will also be looking to bring on some new talent as well - which is a bit of a process, involving me checking out their portfolios to see that their style matches the book, approaching them to see if they're interested, and of course to see if I can afford them! Art is a big part of creating an RPG book, as I'm sure you know well.
Creative Backer Levels For all you awesome backers who pledged at creative levels, where their ideas will get into the book (as opposed to a portrait), now is the time to start working on those ideas. I will give a backer-only update shortly with the details of a shared document that you can use to potentially coordinate your ideas with other creative-level backers, and come up with either new ideas that dovetail and fit together. I will also be sending you messages over the coming days, but it will help if you write to me with your ideas (or even write to me and tell me that you don't have an idea, and want one!).
Portraits For all those backers who have backed at a level where they will get a portrait, please write to me at [email protected] with several high-res images of yourself. For Warband backers, get your group all together, look as hard and tough, or creepy and weird, as possible, get a bunch of cool photos of this, and send them over to the same email address :) Everyone should be prepared to take more photos as needed though! This is a matter of collaboration with our artists, and so giving them flexibility is really important.
Our Community Forum I've mentioned this before, but in case you missed it, we have a community forum! It's buzzing with quite a lot of creativity and interest, but I would love as many of you to be a part of it as possible. Not only does it make for really cool ideas and creativity, but it really creates the game as a whole. :) You can find it here: http://immersionrpg.freeforums.net/
Cheers!
~Oliver
*Important Update* WELL DONE EVERYONE!
over 8 years ago
– Sun, Sep 20, 2015 at 12:31:50 PM
I would like to thank you, as the backers of our Kickstarter for your incredible support, enthusiasm and interest all throughout this campaign. We quite literally could not have done this without you!
At $26,523 AUD, we reached 221% of our funding goal, and smashed through 5 Stretch Goals!
We unlocked: Reference Card, a GM Screen and a Custom Dice add-ons Full colour illustrations for all our weapons and armour, 4 high-quality portraits for new archetypes, an adventure set in amongst backer-created NPCs, groups and areas, and 4 high-quality (blood stained) survivor's maps!
Wow!
Through some dedicated work we've also smashed through 3 Social Media Achievements! Which means that all backers will also be receiving a free PDF of 2 mini adventures tied in with a short story (though secretly we're hoping to be able to create some more mini adventures and short stories to properly flesh that mini-book out!).
We've also now created an incredible community for Immersion RPG, that just simply wasn't there in such a solid way before. I've met more awesome people than I can count in running this - and the word has firmly gotten out there. Infected! and Immersion RPG are here!
For handy reference, you can find our forum here Our G+ Community here And our FB Group here.
Backerkit
We've also signed up with Backerkit to help manage pledges. I'll be organising that as soon as I'm back, in about three days. I'm tempted to try to set the rest of it up tonight, but I think it would be better to look at it with fresh eyes soon, as it's as important as the Kickstarter in many ways!
BackerKit will organise our surveys to you, enabling you to select what you ordered and give us all your details so we can ship and/or email the book and extra content to you when it's all ready in February. If you also want to add some last-minute add-ons to your pledge, you can also do that (or even order another book).
Creative Pledge Levels
For backers who pledged at Creative levels (i.e. Hero, Saviour, Rebel, Warband, Legend, etc.), I will be getting in touch with you all very soon to start fleshing out your ideas.
In the meantime, I've set up a forum thread that you can all collaborate in! It's worth checking out - here you'll be able to discuss different nefarious schemes and plans with fellow backers! There are a lot of very cunning and creative people out there, and it can only help to tap into that creativity!
The Competition Is Now Over Too!
Our competition on the book is now over! There have been a lot of entries, and I'm really looking forward to reading them all over the next few days. We should have an adjudication on the winner by the end of the week - I expect it will be a tight race!
Blooper Reel
We had a lot of fun creating this Kickstarter, and this video is just a tiny portion of it! This is a blooper reel of some of the hilarious stuff we got up to when filming the Kickstarter video (it seems like a lifetime ago - and yes, I was growing a beard then... sadly all gone now!).
Playtesting
We will be doing extensive playtesting over the next couple of months, to finalise all the rules in the book and ensure that they are written and explained as clearly as possible.
If you would like to get involved, your help would be greatly appreciated!
You can sign up as a playtester on our main website here. It will send you a copy of the Infected Sampler, and a few other bits and bobs, which you may already have! There is also a download page here on our forum. Included in there is an excel spreadsheet which will automatically calculate your character's Experience costs, for lightning-fast character creation. It's a little out of date, so I'll be contacting my Excel Wizard to see what tweaks he can do for me to make it pop for you (and we're still working on a fully interactive PDF character sheet... we're actually nearly there!).
Our G+ Community is probably the best place to post up feedback on your playtesting results! I am on there very regularly, and love getting feedback from gamers - of all sorts! If you think something's great - awesome. If you think it's broken - tell me! :)
This will go a long way to helping us get the book as perfect as it can be when it arrives in your hands!
A Little R&R
It's been a crazy 35 days for me. Sleep is a forgotten word! I'll be taking off the next three days to go to the country with my incredibly supportive fiancee, and unwind a little as I read through story submissions (and possibly write frantically on my laptop... just saying).
When I'm back, then work will start again, at a frantic pace!
Thank you all once again so much for your incredible support. I am just blown away, as are all my designers and chief playtesters. It's been incredible, and I'm looking forward to getting this book into your hands!!
Oh... and if any of you would like to contact me about anything at all, please shoot me an email at [email protected]
Cheers!
~Oliver
Hangout With Me!
over 8 years ago
– Sat, Sep 19, 2015 at 11:28:23 PM
Let's watch the clock tick down together!
I've organised with Dan Davenport (The Hardboiled GM), to use his chat forum with backers over the last hour or so of the Kickstarter.
That'll be in about an hour or so (sorry for the late notice!).
Thank you to everyone for your INCREDIBLE support of this game. It's been an amazing journey so far, you have made it possible - and who knows what miracles we can perform in the last couple of hours? We're at $26K today, when we were at $21K just a couple of days ago.
Remember also that we have several communities that you can join and be a part of the conversation of Infected! and Immersion RPG!
