SURVEY & PRE-ORDER LOCKING DATE
almost 5 years ago – Sat, Apr 24, 2021 at 02:36:03 PM

Hey Roomlanders!

I am looking to lock surveys and pre-orders on the 30th of April, so that I can begin production on the various elements. This means:

1. If you have already completed your survey but are considering maybe adding another add-on or two, now is the time to do it. You won't be able to add anything to your pledge once the surveys are locked.

2. If you HAVEN'T completed your survey yet, you need to before this date if you want to add any add-ons to your pledge. (If you complete your survey after the lock date I will still be able to send you your rewards from your base pledge.)

IF YOU DON'T COMPLETE YOUR SURVEY, I WON'T HAVE AN ADDRESS TO SEND YOUR REWARDS TO. PLEASE FILL IN YOUR SURVEY IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY SO I CAN SEND YOU YOUR REWARDS WHEN THEY ARE READY.

Rough timeline:

MAY - Production

END OF MAY - Addresses locked on surveys (you won't be able to edit your address after this point)

JUNE/JULY - Delivery

Please get in contact if you have lost your survey and need it resent and I will send it over to you.

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In the meantime, here is a cross-section illustration of a Rook that will be going into the Hardback edition. I believe it was someone in the comments who suggested this image and I was so taken with the idea I had to draw it! Hopefully it will give you some more ideas for your adventure!

Also, someone else in the comments mentioned they would like to see more gameplay videos. Once I have some demo copies through of the finished books I will definitely do more of these for you!

Ok, thats it for now,

thanks!

Nich x

SURVEYS PLEASE!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 08:10:02 PM

Hey Roomlanders,

Quick update from me just to let you know that work is progressing nicely. All the rules are now written, and laid out in the book layouts. This means that all that is left is all the illustrations to fill in all the various gaps in the book layouts and the cards! I have a master list for all remaining illustrations and there are only 16 left todo! 

(Although one of those is the world map, which is a pretty significant one! Might take a good few hours that one! I have started it though!)

I am taking a week off work next week to devote to completing the majority of the work left on the books and cards, so we are actually quite close to being ready to sending artwork off to production! Which means...

SURVEYS!

95% of you have completed your surveys which is amazing, so thank you if you have. If you haven't, if you could look to getting to that in the next week or so that would be a big help. I am hoping to go to production by the end of this month, so any unfinished surveys could potentially delay that.

If you can't find your survey link, just let me know in a message and I'll resend it for you, no worries!

Awesome, thanks team! In other news:

WE HAVE A COLOSTLE REDDIT!

I don't know if you all know but there is a Reddit page setup for Colostle over at r/Colostle if you are interested. I try to answer all questions that crop up there too and hope it can be something of a community once the game is in all your hands! So head over and join if you want to be ahead of the curve on that!

Right, thats all from me for now, will be back again for more updates soon!

thanks,

Nich x

Response to previous update - and more artwork!!
about 5 years ago – Wed, Mar 31, 2021 at 11:47:50 PM

Wow, what a response! Thanks so much for all your feedback guys! It really is awesome how I can chuck an idea out and hear back from so many of you on what you think, it really helps too so I super appreciate it.

There were a lot of different responses from everyone but quite a few common themes kept cropping up so I want to address those with some guarantees and promises from me.

Firstly, this was just an idea. I put it out to you all to see what you thought of it, and for you to give your feedback on. It is not something I am starting now, or intending to start anytime soon. I only brought it up this early so that I had plenty of time for various planning and feedback, if you liked the sound of it.

Secondly, I am 100% COMMITTED to this Kickstarter and completing these books. Heck, I’m 150% committed! My mind is not wandering onto new and other ideas. I am working nearly every day on these books and on making them the best they can be for you all, and nothing about that has changed or will change.

I might learn from this announcement to keep my creativity in check a little, as I think talking about future ideas worried some of you that I wasn’t fully committed to this project, so I’ll just focus on this project in these updates from now on.

Finally, if I do go ahead with a Patreon, here are a few promises/guarantees from me that should address some of the points people made in the comments:

1. I will not start planning or putting any more thought into future content until the books from this Kickstarter are in all of your hands.

2. I will not remove any content that was intended for these books and save it for the Patreon in the future. Everything I planned to be in these books will DEFINITELY be going into them, just as before.

3. Anything I did put out through a Patreon (if I did one) would indeed be collected as a physical printed book down the line and probably published via another Kickstarter.

4. Patrons would get a decent discount on these printed copies as they helped fund the creation of the content in them.

5. The Patreon would be affordable. Probably £2 a month maximum.

Those are my promises and I will stick to them. I still may not even do a Patreon, but if I did, those are guarantees.

I would hate anyone to think that I was asking for more money from you already awesomely generous people. That was not the intention here at all, and another reason I will keep these updates focused purely on this campaign now, until it is done.

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SO, with that in mind, here is some artwork for one of the main classes, The Followed:

Text from the base rulebook: The Followed have a small Rook companion, like a pet or familiar that follows them and their commands. These ‘Rooklings’ are found in the cores of larger Rooks when beaten, as yet it is not known why they are there. They display a base level of sentience akin to that of a dog or a cat and can form deep and personal bonds with their human companions. The Followed, by their nature and thanks to their Rookling companions, are excellent rangers, pathfinders and navigators.

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More from me soon!

Nich x

I've had a big idea...
about 5 years ago – Sun, Mar 28, 2021 at 01:03:42 AM

Hey Roomlanders, I’ve had something of a big idea.

This last week has been huge for work on the expansion modules, Oceans, Battlements and Cities and they are nearly complete from a rules and writing perspective. But as I was writing the rules, and finalising the mechanics I kept coming up with more and more ideas for this world and this system.

Colostle is so much bigger now, thanks to all of your support. And because of that support, we had all the stretch goals which allowed me to expand the game, something I never planned to do originally. With each expansion, I want it to be more than just the new class and new prompts in your exploration table, I have added new mechanics in these regions. Playing on the Oceans is different to playing on land, and the Battlements are different again. The Cities expansion is easily the biggest and adds loads of new functionality to the game, including a Quest Generator for the Rook Hunter’s Guild!

The thing is, the more I wrote, the more I came up with. I came up with new settings, new rules and mechanics, new story and world and lore and mythos elements. Colostle is a huge part of my head now, I am having BIG ideas! But there isn’t enough room in the books as they stand. And I can’t just make the books bigger because there isn’t any room in the budget to pay for it!

So, here’s the idea: I’m considering a Patreon. For those of you that don’t know, Patreon is a monthly subscription platform, primarily for supporting creatives and their projects. As a Patron, you sign up and pay a small amount every month, and every month you receive something in return, but most of all it allows creatives to actually realistically build an income out of what they do and make, and get it into the hands of the people who really want it.

Here’s my thinking: £2 a month subscription gets you a digital document that adds more to Colostle, EVERY MONTH! It could be new rules, new lore and mythos, new illustrations, an ongoing monthly story campaign that your character can play along with, or even, a fully illustrated story set in the world of Colostle (I’ve already been having ideas for this).

I know you haven’t even received the base books yet, so I’m definitely not asking anyone to commit to this idea yet, but I thought I’d put the word out to see what people think.

Does this sound interesting?

If so, what would you prefer? New expansions, an ongoing campaign, or an illustrated story? Or all of the above?

A patreon would be a huge support to me as an artist and a creator. It would allow me to make more, not just for Colostle, but for other games and artwork that I have planned too. I know its early days and I’m sure most of you want to play some Colostle before you commit to anything like this. But let me know your thoughts in the comments, that’s all at the moment. And then, if it sounds good, we can all start to get excited about it, together!

Right, that was a pretty long one, so I’ll leave it there. Thanks again team, more from me soon!

Nich x

Gargoyles
about 5 years ago – Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 10:41:20 PM

Hey Roomlanders,

Thanks to all of you who have filled in your surveys and opted for some add-ons! A good amount of you have done it which means the whole process will be able to move without any delays when its ready to go, so thats great!

I've been working away behind the scenes on the book and all the artwork. There's still a lot to do but I'm getting through it, and once it is all complete I will make the digital pack available to you all and then start with the physical production side of things.

In the meantime, I want to share with you one of my recent illustrations and tell you a little about it... introducing, the Gargoyles.

The Gargoyles are strange, stone creatures that are rarely seen. All that is known about them is that they come from above, it is assumed from a place called the Rafters, high in the ceiling of Colostle rooms. Although they are made of stone like the Rooks, they are different with much more organic forms, like statues carved from stone, rather than robot-like creatures assembled from stone parts.

As so little is known about them, the people of Colostle have no idea what they are or what they want, but they are feared. If a Gargoyle swoops down on someone they are never seen again, carried off up into the clouds. Maybe they're taken to the rafters, or maybe they're taken to a nest to be fed to a family of Gargoyles. Who knows?

As such, there are no combat rules for fighting Gargoyles in the game. They are a prompt that might happen to your character on an adventure. It is up to you where they take you and what they want, or who they are. An opportunity for some mystery in your adventure, and maybe a chance to discover the mysterious rafters...

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So there you go, hope the Gargoyles fill you with inspiration for your adventures!

More to come,

Nich x