Tag: kickstarter

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Steam Highwayman IV progress

Does that sound as if it is written from personal experience? Ha! Sleepless nights and runny noses are a bigger part of my life as a father than ever before.

Three years ago, when snow lay on the ground and my daughter went outside with the cry ‘Dig, dig!’, my last Kickstarter for Steam Highwayman III was still in progress. It feels like far too long since I rode that particular pony… But then two years or so developing a Viking-themed adventure will do that for you.

Steam Highwayman IV: The Princes of the West has just reached 40,000 words in draft. That’s about 4/15 complete – call it a bit more than 25% written. That’s taken me 30 writing days, spread over a complete project length of 122 days, although I began planning looong ago. Even back when there was snow on the ground and my daughter spoke in mere monosyllables.

What are the standouts for SH4? Well – the interplay of several key characters, their rivalries and power-play is one. I committed to that with the plural ‘Princes’ back when I drafted the titles of my six book series in 2016… But Cornwall is proving excellent fun to write. I’m also seriously considering adding submarines.

The map for SH4 is wonderful. I’ll draw up a giant one, like I published for SH1, 2 and 3, and probably some smaller, regional ones too.

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How the Wheels Turn…

My next update for the Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis has gone live on Kickstarter, and it looks like it will be almost the last.  Over the last eighteen months, I’ve been regularly updating my backers on the progress of the project.  Now, I’ll only need to update individuals, as a large proportion of backers already have their rewards in their hands and the vast majority are shipped and on their way.  What a lot has changed in those eighteen months!

There’s also been a great deal of change for gamebooks in that time.  Brian Hazzard’s excellent Instadeath Survivor’s Support Group podcast has appeared, providing the gamebook community with interviews and playthroughs, Alba and Legendary Kingdoms have been the two most successful gamebook Kickstarters ever (I can give them that, even if some of their other statistics are up for debate!) and countless individual titles have been released by independent authors.  There are entirely new gamebook authoring careers blossoming, like Kurosh Shadmand’s – who you can find featured as Lord Hadrian Beaufort in a duel atop the Monument in The Reeking Metropolis, courtesy of Russ Nicholson.

But as for me, I’m keen to get Steam Highwayman III fully fulfilled.  I’ll then spend a little more time working on this website – so watch out for some changes – and do some preparation of marketing materials.  Then I’ll be releasing The Reeking Metropolis for general sale.  I’m currently helping my wife prepare a book of her own for publication – I’ll certainly write more about that here – and I have a couple of stories I would like to write without the pressure of delivering them to an audience.

Oh, and there’s the app coming.

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Reader’s Companion for I-III Ready

I’ve just posted my 38th Kickstarter update for Steam Highwayman: The Reeking Metropolis.  More than half of the rewards are on their way and it’s been very exciting to see pictures of my books being unwrapped and appearing on bookshelves all over the world.

As part of the project, I promised to produce an updated Reader’s Companion to accompany the first three volumes.  It’s ready for download here.  Did you use the previous one for books I and II?  Fancy sharing the possession you really couldn’t put down?  Fancy showing how much you stashed away in Coulter’s?  I haven’t seen any of these filled in, except for my own.

 

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Steam Highwayman Coming to Mobile this Summer!

My latest update (number 37) is now live on Kickstarter.  It gives some tasty stats about how far along the fulfillment track I am (with some much-appreciated help…)

But then it veers off, like an over-powered iron-framed velosteam on a narrow country lane, into announcing this.

Steam Highwayman will be available as a mobile gamebook app this Summer 2021.

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Steam Highwayman III Kickstarter Update 36: The Book is Ready

You can read the update here.  But the update doesn’t tell you what it feels like to see a little green tick next to the mini image of the book that has been waiting for release on my IngramSpark account for over a year…  It feels great.

I’m also excited and emotional because of another little Steam Highwayman treat that was sent my way today.  Not the two backers who already let me know that they received their maps and that they loved them – that was nice.  Something even better…

Something I’m going to post about on Saturday.

In the next few weeks I’m looking forward to re-jigging this website so that Steam Highwayman is front and centre, uploading some new images and generally having a spruce-up, and also to writing about the process of making SH3.  I guess this is a spring in my step.

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Steam Highwayman III: Update 35

My thirty-fifth update for the Steam Highwayman III Kickstarter project is now live – you’re welcome to have a read, even if you’re not a backer.

Broadly speaking, the project is now squarely in the fulfilment phase, even though I haven’t sent any actual rewards yet.  But anyone who’s ever run their own Kickstarter project knows how this point, with the cardboard boxes stacking up in their living room, feels like a watershed.  Some of that cardboard is being re-purposed to make roads for Teodora to drive her cars on as I write this…

Folding and packaging maps.

Once this is over, I’m really looking forward to posting other writing on here again – and giving myself the time to work on other writing projects.  I’m certainly not short of ideas!

The maps, they are a-folding.

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Steam Highwayman III: Update 32 live

Over on Kickstarter you can read the most recent update for my Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis project.  It’s a while since I’ve linked them up on here, but why not?  You’ll find out which map took me longest to draw, and how soon I hope for the book to be on its way to backers!

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Kickstarter Update: Draft Complete

Over on Kickstarter I’ve just posted an update about the current project progress. It’s a full one, including some details about plans up until November as well as lots of remarks about work complete. Head over there and enjoy the details!

Over here is a fresh image from Russ, full of action and violence – great! You might spot the eponymous hero himself somewhere in the background (sensibly masked against infectious diseases) as well as a backer in the brawl…

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Refuelling and getting back to work.

I took a week (and a couple of extra days) off from working on Steam Highwayman III: The Reeking Metropolis to visit the Lake District with my wife and daughter.  The project hasn’t stopped, though – faithful Russ has been churning out the good old black-and-white, as you will be able to see over on the new Kickstarter update.  I’m very pleased to be able to reveal the first full-page feature for The Reeking Metropolis – so take a look at Update 19!

You can also discover where I went in the Lake District to encounter some live steam…  mmm!