Clock in to work and protect the world in this game of paranormal abilities, corporate horror, and dangerous Anomalies. This new Tabletop Role-playing game from Haunted Table is shipping in Summer 2024. If you'd like to learn more, you can check out our website at www.hauntedtable.games. Shipping fees will be collected close to our estimated shipping date in 2024!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hey, everybody! It's been another month, and I wanted to update you all on where our progress is, and what's coming up in November. The big headline is: barring any emergencies, we will have a playtest version sent out to backers this month!
We've been working hard on it since the campaign. Here's some general information:
I'd like to stress: this is an early version of the final rules. There will be edits, mechanical changes, proofreading, layout, additional writing, and way more art in the final book. We're making this version available early because we want a chance to hear feedback from your play sessions. There may be typos, inconsistencies, mistakes, and other imperfections. We'll give you a place to report those.
If you do not want to play an incomplete or in-progress version of the game, that's perfectly fine. If you want your first experience of the game to be after it's cleaned up, we'll see you next year!
For the curious, here's what we're still working on (meaning, why we can't drop it today):
Thanks for your patience with us, and we're looking forward to getting your feedback. As always, I recommend joining our Discord! I'm almost always in there to answer questions and chat about weird Anomalies we found online. GMs are often sharing game stories and building sessions together, too! It's a great place to be.
See you soon,
Caleb
Whew! It's been a busy couple of months! I know y'all are probably curious what's happening, so I'm taking a short break today to catch you up on all the work. This email doesn't hold any essential information, but if you're curious about the process I'll go step-by-step through each major part of the project.
The high-level mechanics design is done! Now Sean & I are working on the text and perfecting an expanded version of the storytelling style you're already familiar with in the Delta Test. The writing for the entire book is about 75% complete, and we expect the book to be close to 250 pages broken down in these estimates:
These are expected to be high estimates - at the Layout stage we'll be working to condense as much as possible while preserving readability.
Our goal is to finish drafting the rulebook by the end of October. This rough version of the final rules will be made available shortly afterwards to everyone who is interested in playtesting! The book will undergo edits over the following two months while we receive community feedback, meaning there will likely be plenty of changes between this version and the final version next year. This version will also be missing some of the signature TA style stuff - a lot of the fun of our book comes in the layout stage.
We've already posted a few major changes from the Delta Test's rules in our Discord that have been met with tons of excitement and positive feedback from players!
The bulk of the work, the ARC piece illustrations, are almost done! The rest of the work is at varying states of completion, but with the exception of the Requisitions I believe every piece in the book has an approved sketch at this point. Here's a WIP sent to me this morning of an amazing interpretation from G.C. Houle and Ryan Kingdom on the Newborn Reality:
All 12 missions are entering editing this week! As they arrive, I (Caleb) check to make sure they fit into Triangle Agency's general story world, and then Will Jobst begins detailed edits to make sure the book is as fun to play as it is to read. These missions are amazing - they're all VERY different, but all carry through the emotions & themes of TA you've come to expect if you've been following our publications and streams.
This book will have 12 missions and over 60,000 words!!! We expect this book to end up close to 150 pages. The missions can be completed in any order, and there's truly something for every group in here.
The header of this email is a teaser of one half of the Vault Mission covers! Each one is a gorgeous, full-page illustration by one of our 12 artists. These are almost all done, and the variety of styles is making this one of the coolest books I've ever seen. Just for fun, here's what artist is paired with what writer:
Not much to report right now! We're a ways out from final shipping costs, and most of the manufacturing process at this point is just going back and forth and making tons of tiny decisions. What kind of paper, what style of dice, what exactly should the shape of the box be . . . that kind of stuff. Long conversations over a long period of time. Positives: we're working with lots of very smart people, and this process has led me to learn so much more about production than I ever expected to. Negatives: Handling this much money and pressure is pretty intense! And with this many orders, it's truly wild how much a $1 manufacturing cost difference could make on the longevity of the product and company.
All that to say, I'm moving at a deliberate pace to try to ensure we don't mess up. I'm sure there will be some road bumps, I'm told there always are, but I'm doing my best. We're on track for everything to happen on time creatively - if there are manufacturing and shipping delays, we won't know that until 2024.
Thank you so much for your interest in Triangle Agency, and for all your patience! I couldn't have asked for a better experience with my first Kickstarter, and I think this game is going to be unlike anything you've seen before. (For better or worse?)
If you get a chance, tell a friend about the game! Invite them to pre-order on our Backerkit page. Join the Discord, playtest using the Delta Test, or get your group hyped to play along with the text version of the rules in November. Every little bit helps.
Talk to you soon,
Caleb - Creative Director and Lead Designer
wait uh
who is that
Hi, all!
First: Apologies for some Backerkit mistakes that popped up yesterday! The main one (extra core sets and dice add-ons being listed as an incorrect price) should be fixed. If your survey still suggests the dice are charging you an extra dollar, or you're having any other problems with your survey, please let me know here or in an email to [email protected]. I think I caught them all today.
The second is something I've seen come up a lot! If you're trying to upgrade your pledge on Backerkit, they have a helpful tutorial page for doing that here: https://help.backerkit.com/article/596-how-to-switch-into-another-pledge-level
I know a few people have upgraded and made previous campaign add-ons (like the Vault PDF) no longer necessary. I tried to catch those ahead of time and put the credit toward your upgrade instead, but if you would like to upgrade your pledge and need me to remove something, just let me know here or in that email address above and I'll get on it. (It's better to contact me directly rather than Backerkit Support, as they won't necessarily know exactly what's going on.)
Thank you so much to the folks who pointed out the errors so we could catch them immediately. It's a huge help.
We've also been getting a lot of questions about shipping & international shipping costs, which is totally understandable! (I am, to be honest, pretty surprised at how complex and constantly changing the world of shipping is.) We've settled on partners for most of the regions we're covering directly and are moving forward with getting things organized with them, but final shipping costs are highly unlikely to appear until late this year or early 2024.
Oh, and Backerkit changes & preorders should be open until very late 2023 or early 2024. I'll let you know when there's a specific date, but you have plenty of time.
Thanks again everyone! As a bonus for this apology update, here's the in-progress lineart for the Overbooked Reality by GC Houle, featuring one of my favorite drawings of a dog to exist:
I also want that backpack.
Talk to you soon, and let me know if there are any more problems!
- Caleb
Hello again!
You can use this Survey to confirm your Kickstarter rewards, add to your order, and provide us with additional information to help us fulfill things such as the private games included in the Triscendent tier.
And tell your friends who missed the campaign to go to our Pre-Order store on Backerkit as well!
We've been hard at work on the final rules text, releasing later this year. As we develop it, we're starting to share early playtesting material with our community on Discord - yesterday we revealed two small changes to the Delta Test rules for people to try out and share feedback.
Players are sharing stories from their tables, and GMs are sharing new Anomalies and tips for game prep. If you want to get involved (and maybe find a group of your own to playtest with) visit us at discord.hauntedtable.games!
Our artists are also hard at work bringing Triangle Agency to life. Last time we shared Whisper by Kanesha Bryant; today we're excited to share a look at a work in progress from Kodasea!
That's all for now! Talk to you soon,
Caleb and Sean
Haunted Table