December Update! [Pugmire]

Realms of Pugmire

As the year winds down, it’s time for the last Pugmire update of 2016!

PUGMIRE MANUSCRIPT

All of the relevant playtest comments were reviewed and incorporated into the final edit of the manuscript. I tweaked a few last-minute things that bugged me, and now it’s all in the hands of the art director, Mike Chaney. He’s reached out to some artists, and I believe sketches are coming in (at least, files are appearing in my Dropbox folder). There’s a lot of art to hire out, and I can’t wait to see it all!

MONARCHIES OF MAU

A lot of my focus has been thinking through some elements of designing Mau, as well as doing research on cats and how people relate to cats beyond my own experiences. From there I used the backer-offered cat characters as a springboard to make what I call the “iconic” characters of the setting, which represent the various ideas and concepts I want to explore. Now I’ve got a few chapters done, and I’m in the weeds of making new tricks (which I’m considering renaming into “secrets” to feel more cat-like). The tricky part right now is finding what areas I can change to offer a new experience, while also making sure that Mau and Pugmire characters can easily play together in the same chronicle.

FICTION ANTHOLOGY

Jim and I are at the “trading regular emails” stage of things. He’s getting pitches from interested writers, and I’m compiling a master world document based on Pugmire, Mau, and some other things stuck in my head (like the secrets of the world that I don’t want to print but I need writers to know so they don’t inadvertantly reveal them). I’m expecting to see first drafts in a few months!

PAN’S GUIDE

The outlining phase is taking a bit longer than expected, mainly because Matt and I have some ideas on how we can push the envelope, but we need to do some tests to make sure those ideas actually work in practice. Right now Mike Chaney is doing a quick test layout of some example text to see if we can structure the manuscript the right way.

EARPLAY

Dave and I are trading notes on the chapter outlines, and things are shaping up nicely. His experience has been immensely helpful in making sure the story strikes the right balance of fun and compelling from an interactive standpoint. The working title for it is “Friends and Enemies,” and I’m hoping to spend this month nailing down the script.

MIDWINTER GAMING CONVENTION

As a reminder, a good chunk of the Onyx Path crew will be heading out to Milwaukee January 12th – 15th for Midwinter Gaming Convention. You can find more information at http://www.midwintergamingconvention.com/.

There will be a ton of Pugmire things there. The Wrecking Crew will be running games of Pugmire, and I’ll host the first-ever session of Monarchies of Mau. I’ll also be testing out some (yes, more than one) prototypes of Pugmire-themed card games I’ve been working on. On top of that, my friends at Earplay are also coming out, and we’ll have some cool stuff to show you. Midwinter is certainly turning into a great place to try out the very latest Pugmire projects!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

And with that, I’m heading back to work — there’s a lot to do, and December’s always rough to coordinate with people with the holidays around the corner.