A roleplaying game about community, family, and hope on an aquatic world. Descent into Midnight is a Powered by the Apocalypse game where the players take on the role of psionic alien sea creatures who are defending their home from an otherworldly Corruption.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
And we're back! Thanks for your patience, everyone. It's been a bit longer than I'd anticipated between updates but we've got some really exciting artwork from Devon for two of the backer-inspired cityscapes. Check them out at the end of the post!
I've been doing substantial revisions of the playbooks. We're cutting down on the length of the text for many of the moves to help keep the playbook layout from being overcrowded. Balancing that with getting across the unique flavor of the game has been a challenge. During playtests, we had to get all of that across in just the space of the playbook, but with the book, we'll be able to discuss the moves and how they might be used in depth in the book text instead.
Additionally, looking at the Corruption moves across playbooks has revealed how our thoughts about them have changed through the development cycle, so I'm going through and balancing against the other playbooks. Some playbooks currently have a three double-edged swords, while others have three unequivocally horrifying moves. Right now, if you have any Corruption moves you have unlocked but haven't triggered, you have a permanently marked box of Corruption on your Corruption track. That's the mechanical incentive to use the move, aside from making the story more interesting. But several of the moves have other mechanical incentives built in, and we want to reinforce the theme that the power of the Corruption can be hard to resist.
We're at 90% completion on the BackerKit surveys, so there's only about 100 folks who haven't responded. That's pretty good for where we're at in the process. If you're having any trouble with it, feel free to contact us here, on Twitter, or via BackerKit.
Devon George has brought two of the cityscapes submitted by our backers to life in stunning detail here. We're excited to use these in the book but wanted to share them as soon as they were done with all of you.
Today my wife and I are having a Good Omens remote watch party with some friends. I'm grateful that we have the technology to be able to reach out and have these shared experiences. So my thought to everyone today is this: what are you grateful for? I've been finding it hard some days to find that thing, but it's been extremely helpful.
Lots of love and gratitude,
- Richard and the Descent into Midnight team
We've got a writing/personal update plus some new art!
On the personal and writing fronts, things continued to be tough this week. Thursday in particular was a hard day, but it's done now and I was able to take the weekend to recharge and I'm ready to jump back in. I'm setting a goal of at least one hour of writing/work on the game per day. I'm incredibly grateful to be able to work full time from home right now, and the time that would have gone into my commute I can now translate directly into work on the game.
On a lighter note, I got the pleasure of running Lobsters & F-eel-ings for the Dugongs and Seadragons crew and it got absolutely buck wild. Sea cucumber bazookas, an evil underwater restaurant run by Gordon Ramsay and Paul Hollywood, a sea urchin impersonating Jennifer Lopez doing a Cher song and dance number, and that's all before Cthulhu showed up! They'll be featuring the recording on their podcast feed at some point, but (as they say) if nautical nonsense be something ye wish, I'd highly recommend checking the game out for yourself.
We've also been slowly refining the Playbook layouts. We're taking all the things we've learned over three years of development of the game and getting everything just right.
Also, Devon has continued to wow us with the cityscape art. This piece is still in progress but we couldn't resist showing it off. Almost all of these cityscapes are coming directly from requirements submitted by our high level backers, and we're thrilled to see your ideas coming to life!
Finally, I want to thank all of you again. Every time I get an art update, or a message that something is ready to look over, or a new idea from the design team, I'm grateful all over again that this is becoming a reality.
Health and safety to all of you
- Richard and the Descent into Midnight team
This will be a short update. The update is coming a day late because I was exhausted last night when I would normally have written this. I'll be honest, it's been a rough week personally. I won't go into too many details, but it has made it difficult to write for the game. I needed a break, so I spent a little time doing something very silly just for fun:
Lobsters & F-eel-ings, a silly game about sea creatures that could fit on one page if we decide to hand it off to one of our layout folks. It's a light-hearted hack of John Harper's Lasers & Feelings that is as goofy as the puns are bad. So... very.
With regard to Descent into Midnight, we have, however, continued to make forward progress. We have continued to send regular payments for the work the team is doing, including completing two backer character illustrations by Taylor Livingston (shown below), and an update on one of the backer city scape illustrations (to be shown in a future update)!
This week, I'll be setting aside some structured time to write that should allow me to finish off the drafts of the playbooks.
This week's words of encouragement are simple: rest if you need to and you can. All the hard stuff is magnified right now, so those things that you enjoy are more precious than ever. I needed a laugh this week, so I made one of the silliest things I've ever made, and it helped.
Love and well wishes from all of us,
-Richard and the Descent into Midnight team
The big two pieces of news this week are that we got the money from Kickstarter and we've sent out surveys!
Last week we talked about productivity and how important it is to be kind to yourself. This was, personally, a tough week for the team. I (Richard) had to deal with a loss in the family, and while I'm thankfully employed full time and able to work from home, several of my wife's coworkers are in a very bad spot at the moment. I really had to dig deep to take my own advice this week and allow myself to be okay with not being okay.
We're continuing to move forward on the project, but I've got an ask for everyone this week. If you're reading this, go find a picture of a cute cat, a puppy, or something that brings you joy and share it with somebody you care about.
This is the "supervisor" for the project, deciding that it's probably time for lights-out and getting some rest, so that's what I'm going to do. Hope all of you are well, and taking care of each other,
-Richard and the Descent into Midnight Team