Tag: beer

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Update 28: Print Proof Ordered

Now we’re really steaming.  I completed all the corrections earlier this week and I’ve uploaded the first digital files to Ingram so that I could order a print proof.  It should arrive in the next couple of weeks and you’ll be treated to a photo of me holding it in the next update, if all goes well.

Here’s a screenshot of the print order.  You can see that the print cost of the book implies a large volume…  We’re looking at 438 pages and 2250ish passages.

The book isn’t quite finalised – there are a few gameplay edits still pending, but I want to have a think about these while turning the real pages, and I’ll take the time to have a playthrough as well.  You can always catch a few more errors in print too.

However, having digital files ready is a crucial catalyst for the project: it allows me to get a final print cost and book size and weight, which I need to proceed with the shipping preparations.  I’ll explain more soon, but rather than use the Kickstarter pledge manager, I’m going to be collecting shipping costs directly through Stripe.  It means I can tailor the costs a lot more finely, hopefully keeping shipping to a minimum for all of us!  I’ve begun looking at the costs and overall it seems my estimates were fairly good, despite the time that has passed.

But there is one particular shipping option I want to draw your attention to: collection.  The final costing of the book and extras has shown that the project is within budget and therefore then there is nothing more to pay if you collect your rewards.  When and where?  Howabout at Fighting Fantasy Fest 6, on Saturday 5th September, in London, UK?

If you haven’t been, the Fest is the premier convention devoted exclusively to gamebooks – including, of course, the Fighting Fantasy series.  However, it has also become a haven for the independent authors of the gamebook renaissance and a great place to meet heros of the medium both past and present.  It’s organised by the stalwart Jon Green whose work bridges both the original Fighting Fantasy books and modern independent gamebooks.  What a legend.

COLLECTION FORM

If you mean to be there, then use this form to register to collect your rewards in person.  Please try and use the same email that you used for your pledge so that I don’t lose your response!  

If you can’t make it to the convention but would like to arrange collection in London, UK on a date following 5th September, just put a note in the form.

Otherwise, I’ll be sending out links to collect shipping payments and arrange final addresses in about a month for everyone who wants their rewards delivered to their door.  I’ve put a lot of work into shipping costs but they aren’t quite finalised yet.

It was late last year when I first wondered if this was all going to come together in time for FFF6 and I’m pleased to say that I’m on schedule for a complete set of physical rewards by then.  The extra adventures may take a little longer or may also be ready in time – I’m not sure.

So what else needs doing?  Here’s a longer list of the remaining jobs of the project.

– Acknowledgements

– Complete 2 maps (Plymouth and the siege of Tintagel)

– Write short adventures (Dark, Satanic Mills and Harvest of Death) 

– Complete shipping estimates and plan

– Digital decorations for boxes, frames etc

– Look over / improve character sheets

– Codeword check (partly done!)

– Create companion (partly done)

– Order maps

– Complete Touring Guide 2 (about 20 pages to do)

– Draw pubs (at least 3 to draw)

– Order guide folders

– Order guidebooks

– Assemble folders

– Order packaging

– Assemble TG2s

– Order TG1s

– Assemble TG1s

– Chase Wanted Posters

– Create remaining wanted posters

– Set up stripe links for shipping payments

– Update SH1-3 companion

– Update SH1

– Update SH2

– Update SH3

– Update errata

In the next fortnight I’ll be keenly awaiting that print proof, doing the taxes for my wife’s small company (an home education hub) and trying to survive in the heat.  I may get to the drawing of the maps or work on the guide – pretty much all of the remaining jobs are pleasant ones and I’m not pressurising myself now.

What’s in the Steam Highwayman’s tankard?  A pint of Marston’s Pedigree.

Next update due: 2.7.26

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A Local Good Pub Guide

Something I’ve always wanted to do is to explicitly celebrate the pubs of Steam Highwayman. Every one featured in the series is based on – and usually, named directly after – a real, visitable pub in our very own timeline. And now that the Kickstarter for Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis has raised an incredible £10,000 in pledges, I’ll be producing a trio of special maps and a printed guide to the regions, which will feature reviews of every single pub.

The page above is my first attempt at a mockup, and it has its own story to tell. The image is my own pen and ink, but heavily inspired by a certain poster I once saw in an Oxford bookshop…

When I was still in the process of writing Steam Highwayman I: Smog and Ambuscade, before had any experience of publishing or working with an illustrator, I was looking for someone to draw my world and the pictures for my gamebook. I knew a few illustrators and I had received some help refining exactly what I was looking for and writing a brief, but I had no strong leads. The people I knew weren’t about to jump into a new project, or to draw what I was looking for: monochrome, classic, pen and ink, with an exciting sense of movement and a realistic take on steampunk. Where to find such an illustrator.

One evening as I was praying on the balcony of our flat, I distinctly heard the word ‘Oxford’ in my mind’s ear. It popped into my head accompanied by a sudden sense of peace and a release from the worry I’d been accumulating about how I would ever find myself a collaborator. So the very next day, I drove to Oxford.

I didn’t have a particular plan or destination, but reached Oxford around lunchtime. I walked around for a short time and entered Blackwell’s art shop. There, just inside the door, was a fine poster of the pubs of Oxford, drawn in pen and ink, in a fine, confident style.

http://www.benmayart.com/

It took me a little while to work out what I should do, but I eventually plucked up the courage to speak to the person behind the desk and to ask if the illustrator of the poster was local, and if they knew how I could contact them.

“This poster?” asked the young man behind the counter.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I’m the artist,” he said.

And that’s how I met Ben May, who designed the Ferguson velosteam and illustrated the first two volumes of my adventure: the power of prayer and a good pub drawing.

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MarcoOmnigamer reviews Steam Highwayman

American game and gamebook enthusiast Marco Omnigamer recently posted his review of Steam Highwayman I and II. He had lots to say about the scale of the books and seems to have enjoyed the open world, as well as appreciating the realism of the ‘low-fantasy’ setting. My favourite line? “If you like Fabled Lands, you’re going to love this so hard.” However, he also had his criticisms.

What do you think? Have a listen and see whether you agree! While I think some of his response depends a bit on personal playing style, I know there were things I wanted to improve about Volumes I and II… which is why the third is on its way. Have any improvements of your own to recommend? Now’s the time to make them, while The Reeking Metropolis is on the workbench…

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The Beers of Steam Highwayman

So I really quite like beer.  I never drank beer at all until I went to university and there, rather than being exposed to a binge-drinking culture, I found myself among people with a broad taste and an appreciation for all types of alcoholic drinks in moderation.  Before our matriculation dinner (joining the college) we were served a champagne – my first taste – and afterwards, dessert wine, which made something of an impression on me.

But beer was drunk in the college bar.  And I’ll admit that I drank relatively little beer in college.  But there were times and places when it was clearly the best thing to drink – or so my reading told me.  After a long summer’s walk up the Cam to Grantchester, a pint of beer was appropriate, and so I found that I began to enjoy a pint or two in the context of visits to country pubs, outdoor exercise and good company.  Our student expeditions to the Norfolk Coast – simply to get out of the Cambridge Bubble – would each be completed with a drink in the pub too.  Adnams brewery became my benchmark: if Adnams brewed it, I was almost guaranteed to enjoy it, and I used to particularly enjoy any excuse to the Castle, near Magdalene Bridge, when back in Cambridge, because they served Adnams beers too.

On moving to Marlow I was spoilt for excellent beer and excellent pubs.  Of course that’s where much of Steam Highwayman: Smog and Ambuscade was dreamt up.  I also gave brewing my own beers a go, using canned kits from Wilkos in High Wycombe, and had some satisfying results.  The Marlow Waitrose had an excellent selection of bottled beers and I found another Suffolk brewery I could rely on: St Peter’s in Bungay.

Now I could write at real length about my beer experiences and preferences – of course, there are magazines of people doing just that all over the world.  But essentially I’m reflecting on the fact that just like my exploration of Steam Highwayman country is based on my real experience of the hills and woods around Marlow, so my inclusion of the pubs and the beers is based in fact.  A few of the drinking experiences are modelled on specific beers I’ve drunk, some of which remain clearly in my memory and the flavour of which I can recall to my mind’s nose at will.  Others are inventions or based on beers I’d like to exist, but don’t yet.

There’s plenty more space for beer in books 3-6 and I’ll unfortunately have to do some research in the coming months to do justice to them.  Sitting on my dresser at the moment, still undrunk, is an intriguing bottle of St Peter’s Plum Porter.  I have found fruit-flavoured beers over-sweet for my palate in the past, but I’ve got high hopes for this one.  Maybe it’s the Suffolk water they have underneath St Peter’s hall that keeps me coming back to try these amusingly old-fashioned bottles of treasure.  Well, look out for a Plum Porter featured in The Reeking Metropolis and you’ll know whether I liked it or not.