A Poll, a Portrait, and a Penguin
over 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 09, 2023 at 07:22:43 PM

Hey Dreamers, Reed, your eldritch court composer, here.

First of all, how the heck does time move this fast? We’re really only a handful of days away from a new year!?!

Just wanted to shoot everyone a quick message to let you know that we’re still humming along on the writing and it is really turning out some wicked stuff. Here’s a screenshot of a creature stat block from the work server that tickled me:

Moving on to Music:

I’d love to run a poll: when it comes time to release the Soundtrack to the world (streaming services like Spotify, et al.), what would be your preference:

A: Release everything, everywhere, all at once

B: Release a curated selection of everything

C: Only release the stuff that isn’t ambient

Leave a comment with your preference A, B, or C (or some other random option :D). I’m curious to know what you all think, because there will be quite a bit of music and ambience! Backers at and above $30 will get ALL THE MUSIC, so this poll is only with regards to streaming for the general public.

In case you're interested in weekly samples of the music, I drop a short sample from a new track every week on Tuesdays, so make sure you're on the Action Fiction Discord Server (specifically #cd-discussion).

Last bit, our friend Jamil Lawyer (@JamilLawyer2  on Twitter), who is an excellent pixel artist, made a little piece of art for our endeavour, and we think it’s pretty awesome!

And look, he’s even included the Cthulhu Dreamt bespoke die 😀 

Now, I have to let you all go, but not empty handed; if you’d like some pieces of art for your mobile wallpaper, then look no further!

So, until next time, we hope your year ends splendidly!

Cthulhu fhtagn, 

Reed

Backerkit Surveys will be on their way soon!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Nov 06, 2023 at 09:08:39 AM

Cthulhu is one step closer to his great awakening.

Hey, gang! It's ya boi, Jaron, comin' at you live from McMurdo station. Been trying to learn Norweigan to help me with the locals, but in the meantime, the team and I have also been hard at work writing, building, creating, and getting our Pledge Manager set up for all of you! (massive shout-out to Reed, who has also been cranking out SO MUCH MUSIC. Preview is down below.)

Our hard work is about to pay off, and we're about to start sending surveys out!

What happens next?

First, we'll send out something called a smoke test, which means sending our surveys to only 5% of our backers. They will serve as our delicious little experiments, making sure there aren't any glaring issues with our surveys. After they've completed their surveys and we've fixed any outstanding issues, we'll be able to send out surveys to everyone else as well!

This means you may see some people posting comments on our Kickstarter page asking questions about their survey, but you may not have the survey yet. That's perfectly normal. That just means you weren't part of the smoke test! Backers who are not part of the smoke test should expect to receive the survey no later than the end of this week.

What about the writing, how's that going?

Fantastically! We've already cranked out thousands and thousands of words on the main campaign, and I'm editing through the ruleset with Brad. We're conducting a live playtest of our main campaign in parallel with writing it, so that when it arrives in your hands, you can trust it's balanced and effective.

We've also reworked all of our specialties, including switching the name of one of them, from Tracker to Hunter. We feel like this communicates the intent of the specialty a little more clearly, as they're a combat-focused parallel to the Survivalist. We'll be sharing some of the specialties in future Kickstarter updates, but folks over on our Discord will always get to see them first. So, if you're feeling particularly giddy and hungry for knowledge, that's where you should go.

Reed posts a new snippet from the OST every Tuesday - here's last week's snippet. Join the discord to check out the next snippet when he posts it tomorrow!

Oh, and here's an art preview too, from one of our artists, Emiliano Caceres (Capuzz) to whet your appetite.

Anyway, I think I hear Brad and CJ fighting in the next room over, accusing each other of being imposter creatures. So, I had better get over there before somebody breaks out a flame thrower.

Until next time, Dreamers!

Jaron R. M. Johnson

And the Cthulhu Dreamt Design Team

R'lyehian March Playthrough Video, and Writing Status Update (Good News!)
over 2 years ago – Thu, Oct 26, 2023 at 04:56:44 PM

YEEEHAW, WHAT'S UP GANG!

It's me, ya boi, Jaron, coming at you from the darkest depths beneath an antarctic ice sheet, surrounded by sentient fungi. Doin' what I do, you know.

I wanted to swing by with a quick little update to share, first of all, that we recorded a playthrough of the R'lyehian March and Reed got it uploaded! 

You can find it here, or watch it in-line at the end of this update. At the end of the video, we did a bit of an impromptu Q&A, so you can check that out if you'd like!

But, you know what else?

Campaign Writing is well underway!

Brad, CJ, Snails, and I have been working tirelessly on the main campaign. This week (really, an hour ago or so) we finalized the complete outline for the Campaign Story's manuscript, which totals 9 chapters! The book-ending chapters are a Session 0 and an Epilogue, but the inner seven chapter titles are as follows:

1. Shock & Awe
2. Plausible Deniability
3. Faustian Bargain
4. Cold & Righteous Fury
5. We Were Fools
6. Picking Up The Pieces
7. Hope

I think y'all are going to LOVE what we're going to put together. We'll be running a rapid-fire work-in-progress playtest over in our Discord, so if you wanna get your tentacles on some early game content, that's the best way to do it!

Anyway, here's the R'lyehian March playtest and Q&A.

Cheers, and thank you all for supporting us! We're on track for our release date next year, and we're in a great spot. I can't wait to share more with you soon! Probably an art dump is on the way.

Thank you all.

Jaron R. M. Johnson

And the Cthulhu Dreamt Design Team

BACK TO WORK!
over 2 years ago – Mon, Oct 02, 2023 at 08:53:42 AM

The stars have begun moving to alignment!

Hey everyone, Reed here (that one guy who hacks away on 8-strings), bringing you our very first Post-Kickstarter Update!

The creative team went into hypersleep after the Kickstarter ended to get a few days’ respite. Now the bodies have been thawed, and the mind-awakening cocktails have been administered and we’re back in our respective studios moving forward to create all the truly awesome stuff you’re all a part of!

Creation and forward momentum

Writers have been hired to work on a half dozen encounters, and the main Action Fiction writing team have stocked up on all the snacks and sodas necessary to hole up for some indeterminate amount of time to rock out the main campaign. Artists continue to ink some amazing illustrations for the game, and as for the music, the base OST is complete for the existing outline, and I’ve been gathering quotes for vinyl records. As the writers (on both the main campaign and encounters) proceed, I’ll be working on new music and expanded ambience to accompany all that good stuff.

From funding to pre-order

Now that the initial funding has been successful, and we proceed to create and produce the game and associated artifacts, the material is all available for PRE-ORDER at our Backerkit site for anyone who missed the Kickstarter campaign. You can share it with friends and enemies up until we close late pledge/pre-orders (don’t worry, we’ll let you know when that’ll be).

See you on the other side, Dreamers.

Thanks again for all your support. We’re excited to not only move into creation mode but also asynchronously begin ordering some of those longer lead item pieces (vinyl). Plus, we’ll be running more playtests as we write more scenarios, so if you’re in our Discord, you’ll be able to hang out with us and participate in those!

We’ll be updating you as we move along with at least one email a month (more if some big things happen), and you can expect initial surveys to go out late this month or early November.

Until the next update…

Peace, Love, and 🦑 Metal - Reed

ONLY TWELVE HOURS REMAIN!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Sep 07, 2023 at 05:52:15 PM

The end is nigh!

Our Kickstarter is nearly at a close! Only twelve hours left! This has been such an incredible experience for the last month. There are only a few hours left in the Kickstarter, and then it will TRULY be the end!

Well, the end of the beginning, anyway. Because once the Kickstarter is over, we’ll be hard at work bringing Cthulhu’s nightmares to life. But, for now, our time on this platform is coming to an end, and we have a few announcements to make!

Reminder: Playtest Tomorrow!

We’ll be playtesting our second Cthulhu Dreamt scenario, R’lyehian March, tomorrow at 7 PM ET over on our Community Discord Server. Come hang out and watch Cthulhu Dreamt be played LIVE with the creators and several members of our discord, and then hang out afterwards for a post-Kickstarter Q&A to celebrate the success of Cthulhu Dreamt!

Our final ARG winners!

The final slot in the arg contest has been claimed! All five winners have been notified of their victory, and we are super stoked for them to receive their prizes! The ARG ends with the Kickstarter, so if you want to test your skills for bragging rights, feel free! But, once the Kickstarter ends, that’s it for the ARG too!

See you on the other side, Dreamers.

Thanks again for all your support. We’re about to dive into production mode (after a short and well-earned break from the Kickstarter), and we’re excited to show you everything we do along the way! You’ll get a court-side seat for our design process, and we’ll be sharing snippets with you every chance we get. Plus, we’ll be running more playtests as we write more scenarios, so if you’re in our Discord, you’ll be able to hang out with us and participate in those!

See you when you wake up.

Jaron, and the Cthulhu Dreamt design team