The Plague Doctor

If you've been paying attention to how the Kickstarter has been going (shameless link here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade), you'd know that the King Prize, a prize which allowed the backer to make the 61st card in the Masquerade game, had been taken.

To sum up the story, I've been speaking in detail with the backer and he wishes to see a character he invented, a plague doctor, in the game.

This is more than reasonable, seeing a plague doctor in a fantasy game isn't an impossible thing as according to history they've been around since the 500's. The typical image of a plague doctor, however, is a creepy figure with a raven mask. It's very gothic and dark, perfect for Masquerade.

What a plague doctor looks like, art done by Torvald2000 on DeviantArt

It will be fun to play with the concept of plague in the Masquerade game, considering it is a close competitive party game. I was thinking as an effect, the plague doctor forces all players to discard a card they have in play so long as it is face up. The plague doctor, of course, will have to have high defense to make this effect useful.

What do you all think would be a good plague doctor effect? My own concept art of a plague doctor will be submitted in a few days once I get a scanner that works.

Also, please check out the Kickstarter for Masquerade and show some support!

Editors and Book Covers

The majority of my updates concerning the Masquerade projects these days have been on the Kickstarter website with the handy update feature they have. As a result, this blog has been neglected somewhat over the past few days, so here is an update just for you guys!

Remember though, you can find the Kickstarter here (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade).

The biggest news I have concerning the Masquerade book is the fact that I have two new copy-editors looking over the book for me. One is a full-time author for a variety of books and the other is a professional journalist for online gaming websites. For privacy, I won't mention their names. This is good news for me, considering I just finished applying my own edits to the entire book. I've already went through a first chapter edited by one of them and seen plenty of errors I'll need to go back and fix.

Another important thing I've been working on is the actual book cover for Masquerade if you recall in my last post. I had a simple design worked out, but I took it and modernized it.

I really like this new design a lot and want to take it to a graphic designer in school to have them polish it up. I feel the font needs a little work.

There's been no real news on the card game side for Masquerade, I need to begin work on the King prize's card, the Plague Doctor. I'll probably start sketches for that idea sometime after Christmas.

King Prize and Book Cover

As of writing, we are 16% into funding for the Masquerade Kickstarter! I honestly didn't expect to get that far in just two days. What's more impressive is that the King prize has already been claimed! That means someone has backed $300 or more for Masquerade and earned the right to create their own card which will appear in the final version of the game.

I won't say who is the victor without his express permission, but he's a friend of mine!

In other news, I realize I'm going to have to work really hard to get everything printable next semester once the Kickstarter is a success (That's right, claiming victory already). That includes the book and the cover, and trust me when I say I've been working hard on the editing all over break. As for the cover, well...

This is the first draft I had in mind, a sort of old fashion feeling. I don't know if this is what I want though, it doesn't feel modern enough. I'm going to have to be playing with styles on my own all over vacation unless I find a graphic designer interested in helping me with the book.

Perhaps I'll have to look around school when I return.

Remember, dear readers, to tell your friends about the kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade). Shameless advertising away!

We've Begun!

The Kickstarter for Masquerade has now officially launched! Check it out here (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/708854852/masquerade).

I thank everyone who has shown support to me so far, here's hoping that the project becomes a success!

Tomorrow, We Launch

Here I am, sitting in an apartment, waiting for my ride back home for Christmas break. There's still a lot I feel like I need to do for the Masquerade project, but it's either now or never. The actual project itself has been ready for some time. All it needs now is that push and some good marketing, maybe I'll have to go look into hiring one from the majors here at Champlain College.

That's another story though. For most part, the Masquerade Kickstarter is all set. There's only one detail missing and that's the credit card information, which should be here tomorrow. Unfortunately, I won't be arriving home until late, so that means I'll have a lot of work tomorrow.

You all can expect the Kickstarter to be launched sometime between 12-2 PM, by then all the problems should be worked out and I can finally begin. I'll probably do updates regularly explaining what Masquerade even is to some of the people who come from the Kickstarter. (For those of you who don't know, you can click the tab up top to find out).

I think another project I'll be doing in the future is a how-to-play video during my time off, so look forward to that.

I'm really excited and can't wait to begin.

The New Date

After weeks of waiting for the bank to finally get back to me, I've come to the conclusion that I can finally begin the Masquerade Kickstarter project! Hurrah!

The problem is I still need to wait for my new credit card number before that happens. Hurroo...

So basically, what this update is boiling down to is me announcing when the new date is going to be for the Masquerade Kickstarter. It's going to be December 17th. Yes. A Monday. December 17th. December. Seven. Teenth. Remember it.

This is going to be for real this time. I can't wait to see what happens. The new date will also allow my general audience, people at Champlain College, a chance to look at what I'm offering without being stressed over finals, considering that's what's going on this week.

That's all I have to say. I'm also working on designing the new book cover for the Masquerade novel, pictures will happen when I'm happy with a design.

Actually, you know what? I'd like to hear what you guys think. What is YOUR favorite book cover? Post it here in a comment and let me know.

Today Might be the Day

That's probably a pretty self explanatory post. The bank in my hometown is opening today, so here's hoping that they will finally approve my account and I can get back to work on starting the Masquerade Kickstarter. It really is just a waiting game this point.

In other news though, I've recently been playing with the ideas of where I'd like to go next with the Masquerade project or any side projects in general.

The first thing that came to mind was continuing the Masquerade story.

Lately I've been trying to come up with a new plot with some interesting characters to advance the story behind Masquerade. I didn't originally intend to have a sequel to Masquerade, but now that I've finished the story I can see that there's a lot more places I can take the plot. There's more I'd like to say and more adventures that will follow Mary and Newgate.

While I don't want to say anything about the plot idea I have in mind just yet (It's likely to change in an instant knowing me), I will definitely confirm that a sequel will be more than likely depending on the success of Masquerade.

I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that I'd like to eventually publish Masquerade (the book) full time with a company. That means I'll have to start looking around for an agent once I do a little editing. I would also like to wait for the Kickstarter to see how popular the idea is. If it proves really success, it will make finding someone to publish my book that much more easier.

I was also thinking about working on another tabletop game idea, only this time it would be a stealth game tabletop game. I don't think anyone's ever attempted doing something like that and I have a few ideas on how to make it stealthy while including all the elements of a sneaking game like one you would play on a console or computer.

Again, we'll just have to see where the Kickstarter goes. Here's hoping it starts this week!

Still Waiting...

I'm still waiting on word from the bank. As a reminder, I need to open up a new account at a local bank and get a credit card, which is the only thing Amazon is willing to accept if you open an account for selling stuff on their website.

Until now, I didn't even know Amazon was involved with Kickstarter but it's been an important lesson on preparation ahead of time. I'm starting to think I needed a little more time than month to prepare for Masquerade's Kickstarter, but there's nothing that can be done about that right now.

I guess the important thing to do is to study for my finals (which are next week) and continuing providing you guys updates. Once it's Christmas break, I plan on advertising the hell out of Masquerade's Kickstarter page. I've already worked on the press release and everything. I'll even be contacting various blogs and websites in hopes that I get an article up about the project, that would really be something. Of course, there's always the support of the school too and various connections I have within Champlain.

Am I worried that Masquerade is going to flop? Absolutely. But I think that enough people like the idea and it will interest people on Kickstarter. Even if I don't get the money, I have the experience of being only one person in my year to pursue a goal like this. No one in Champlain College has had the guts to try and publish a card game/ book on their own.

At the very least, it's going to make a nice portfolio piece.

Where We Are

As I mentioned last Saturday in the blog post, Masquerade is currently going through some account difficulties in terms of banking. I'd like to inform you all that the problem is currently being solved. I'm working right now to open up a separate bank account to use for Amazon (the primary distributor of money for Kickstarter).

It's going slow as does most things to do with the bank. My hope is that by the end of the week I will sort this mess out.

Apologizes to having everyone wait like this. I should have looked into this matter sooner, if this were a real job I probably would have been fired. I'd like to promise that a solution will come soon, but considering its bank involved and out of my hands I have no idea how long this will take.

I can promise that as soon as the banking gets sorted out, I'll post that the Kickstarter is up. So stay tuned until then!

Check out the map in the meanwhile! A full hand drawn version of it is going to be one of the prizes for the Kickstarter, it will even be signed.

Banking Issues

So, if you might have realized it's December 1st and the Kickstarter for Masquerade still isn't up yet. That would be where you're wrong!

I completely made the Masquerade page but there's a catch. I hadn't counted on all the banking information I was going to need for my Amazon account for Kickstarter. That means that I'm going to have to wait until Monday before I can finally get the project off the ground.

I could sit here and complain about the situation but that wouldn't be fun. That's what the update is anyway and why there isn't a Kickstarter yet. Stay tuned for more updates, with any luck there the Masquerade Kickstarter will launch on Monday.

Wish me luck.