Cycles-RPG

Two years, that's what I told you when I decided to "re open" this blog. It is not like we have done nothing in those years ; the situation has changed for us. Let's take a look at it.

Oh, but, by the way, I was supposed to show you the work we have done with Greg on the Tarm story ; and show you our new layout. Well, we got a bit late on that and I need to present this from a publishing point of view. But, yes, it's coming. And, if you read wisely what I'm proposing you (including following thread), you might be able to spot our new layout.

- Greg Taylor came to work with us as an illustrator. I won't hide it, he's not cheap, but he is doing a great, great job. He is on his third contract for us. That means he will have done around 150 illustrations for us. Quite a difference. Well, in the past, I had shown illustrations from artists as soon as we hired them ; not this time.
- Also, Greg worked with us to design a new layout. And Simon did get some awesome "Photoshop" skills.
- A lot of "hard job" over the time : preparing the production of the final pdf. As you know Avalanche is all "divided into segments" ; so, we have to move from a text file, to a spreadsheet file (including illustrations), to a design page, to an assembly tool. For english and french version. Do I have to mention that this not a particularly exciting job to do. But, hey, if you need to change something and apply it on many pages, sure this is the way to do it.
- We have seen an attorney who acts as a specialist of intellectual property. Many things came out of there :
1. We had to make a presentation (if you know how much those guys cost, you might like to be prepared) for someone who would have never heard of this project, and eventually, not even of rpg. A hard work, but we succeeded. It was a 40 slides presentation, that we still use.
2. The lawyer really challenged us. He didn't answer our questions, but asked others. And then again, we succeeded in answering those. We really felt that there was 8 years behind us.
3. We definitely learned a lot stuff about the "open source" model. We want to have an open product. It is one thing to address this in the comfort of your parents' basement, with your friends. It is another to know exactly how you do it.
4. And yes, we have something here. We thought so ; now we are much more sure. And we need to take this very seriously.
5. We had to came up with a new name and logo. That's exciting stuff !!!
- My ability to present and describe what we are doing is definitely better. I can much more easily use a level of abstraction in my presentations. To separate the "ideas" from the implementation.
- I also think that the market has changed over those years. Indie as traditional. Two years ago, I came up with my ideas at "story-games" and I was almost thrown out (yeah, I know, I'm exaggerating) of there, since "fluff" wasn't really rpg. Well, take a look at this conversation in which I also took part. For the traditional, I might recommend taking a look at SAS from white wolf. Does the structure reminds you of something ?

I do feel I like forgot something. Anyway, I think you get the general idea.