Writing Continues
over 2 years ago – Thu, Dec 02, 2021 at 01:22:43 AM

Happy November, everyone! We hope you’ve had a great holiday season and are enjoying the Fall and early Winter weather! We’ve been busy at Magpie Games HQ, and here’s our November update for you!

Writing Updates

While we’ve been playtesting the revisions and doing the work of writing, we’ve also had some delays. The playtesting has been going well, with the revisions working nicely and we’re thrilled to hear the feedback you’ve been giving us, both via email and in our Discord! If you have feedback on the latest Quickstart from October, we’d love to hear from you!

The writing continues ever onward. As mentioned, we’ve had a couple of delays. Namely, we’ve had three COVID cases in our office in the last few weeks. Everyone at Magpie Games is vaccinated, but breakthrough cases have happened and have shut down our office twice now while we quarantine and get tested. This has caused delays across the board for us, and as we play catch up after each incident, impacts our writing and production schedule.

We are still working hard to get you a final PDF as soon as we can, but are realistically looking at late Winter, meaning early 2022. We apologize for these delays. We continue to take all the appropriate and necessary precautions around COVID, and are dismayed that it continues to impact our production schedules.

Thank you for understanding and for your continued excitement and support. We can’t wait to show you the final rules and book once it’s complete and will continue to keep you apprised of what’s been happening over at Magpie Games HQ.

Until Next Time…

As always, we continue to strive for excellence in crafting Urban Shadows 2nd Edition. We’re working through the writing and final design, finishing revisions, and steadily working towards the final game for you. Thanks for being awesome, for telling epic stories, and for being so excited as you play Urban Shadows

We’ll be back next month with a full update on progress, with more details about where we are in the process. Thanks for your patience and have a great end of Autumn!

Quickstart Update v5.0
over 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 22, 2021 at 01:47:03 AM

Happy October, friends! We hope you’re having a delightfully spooky month and we’re excited to share some updates to the game along with what we’ve been up to this past month. It’s been busy over here in Magpie Games HQ and Urban Shadows 2E has had some cool updates!

Quickstart Updates

We’ve been digging in and playtesting some of the major changes here in the office. Playtesting is a huge part of our process and lets us move a good game to a great game by way of ironing out the wrinkles collaboratively. These playtests have resulted in some changes to the playbooks we’ve been retooling and examining, mostly to ensure that the new and revised playbooks are as strong as they can be.

The newest update addresses these changes we've implemented. You’ll see some changes to the Aware, the Imp, the Oracle, and the Sworn specifically, as well as some minor changes throughout to other playbooks like the Tainted. While we said version 4.0 would be the last revision, we wanted to share all these revisions with you right away!

The newest Quickstart is available on Drivethrurpg. If you’ve grabbed it before, the new version will automatically be in your library. If not, you can find it here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/333500/Urban-Shadows-2nd-Ed-Quickstart

As always your feedback and comments mean a ton to us. You can reach out directly at [email protected] or join our Discord and talk with us there about your experiences running or playing the game!

Faction Turn Revision

One of the major updates in addition to the playbook changes is a large revision of the faction turn. While the core idea of the moves for the factions is working great, we were concerned that relaying all the information to the players after the faction turn interrupted the flow of the game. We want you all to jump back into scenes after a faction turn instead of “downloading” the faction turn for twenty minutes!

To that end, we’ve streamlined the city moves and faction turn one step further: players declare their city moves and roll, the MC then resolves the faction turn and reports back immediate information—including the results of those city moves—and then moves on to new scenes. All of the rest of the faction move outcomes are relayed through in-fiction scenes involving NPCs!

We feel like this revision keeps what’s great about the faction turn—declaiming responsibility for the conflicts in the city—while also keeping more of the action in the moment-by-moment drama that makes Urban Shadows great. Let us know what you think!

Until Next Time…

We’re continuing to work on the game to ensure it meets our high expectations! We’ll keep working on revisions and getting the final PDF ready for you; many sections are already in the writing stages, and we expect to have the PDF for you all this Winter. Revisions can sometimes result in delays, but we are dedicated to ensuring the best possible product while doing our best to meet our timelines.

We’ll be back next month with further updates on progress and what we’ve been working on in Magpie Games HQ! Stay safe and have a spooky month!

Writing Updates and Timelines
over 2 years ago – Sun, Aug 29, 2021 at 09:53:15 PM

Happy Friday, friends! We’re excited to talk about Urban Shadows 2E and what all has been going on behind the scenes. It’s been a while since we released the final version of the Quickstart, and we’ve been working on the final book ever since.

Here are a few quick updates to keep you all appraised of how the work has been going!

Writing Updates

With all the changes to the second edition, including new playbooks, faction turns, and heavy edits to some other playbooks and mechanics, one of the big ways we’ve been focusing on finishing the book is playtesting these changes to ensure they’re seamless, meaningful, and integrated. This process ensures we hand you an excellent book, not just a good one. Playtesting, for us, is an integral part of creating a beautiful finished product.

We’ve also been taking all the feedback you’ve sent us over the last few months and addressing any changes or insights you’ve given us on the game so far. Thank you for all your thoughts, ideas, and feedback on the Quickstart! It’s been incredibly helpful as we finalize the design and finish the writing of the book.

Finally, we’ve been working hard to get the final writing done for the core book itself, and getting chapters off to editing. This process takes time, and we’re doing our best to move through it quickly but with intention and being mindful that it’s better to have a great end product than a rushed one. We’re both adapting material from the original book and writing all new material, so we may have some chapters ready to preview far earlier than others.

Timelines

Despite our best efforts to get everything ready, a PDF release in September will be difficult to meet. We still have some final writing to do, and we’re still waiting on art for the final book. This means we’re looking at a more realistic timeline of early Winter for the PDF and printing in early next year. We may still have the book to print in 2021, but we’ll keep you posted as we move forward.

One quick note: COVID has had a dramatic effect on paper supplies and global shipping. We are working to make sure we have everything in order to avoid production delays, and we’ll let you know as soon as we know about any problems. We just want to make sure everyone is aware that this is an unprecedented time for game production, but we’re on top of it!

Thanks again for all your excitement and support of Urban Shadows 2E. We’re so excited to keep working to bring you an amazing new version of the game. We’ll continue to update you as we progress through the work so you’ll know what’s happening with the project every step of the way!

Pledge Manager Launching Soon!
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Jul 14, 2021 at 10:43:10 PM

Hello all! 

The work continues on the US2E core book and other rewards, but we have some exciting news: we’re ready to launch our pledge manager for the campaign. Read on to hear more about completing your pledge through Backerkit (and about another urban fantasy Kickstarter campaign we don’t want you to miss)!

Backerkit Launch Imminent

Now that we’ve finished with the design of US2E, we’re moving into getting all of the amazing rewards to print. In order to finalize our counts, we’re launching the US2E Backerkit this week. Keep an eye out for your survey, which will allow you to enter your address, pay your shipping fees, and add on any new items you want from the campaign.

Don’t panic if you don’t get the link rights away. We’ve  submitted it to review with Backerkit yesterday, and we’ll do a smoke test with a small number of backers before it goes out to everyone. You should see it by the start of next week!

On that note, we are keeping a close eye on the rising difficulty (and cost) of shipping from China. Our current plan is to print most of US2E in the United States! For those items we had planned on printing internationally, we have put aside funds to cover the cost incurred by the shipping crisis so your shipping costs won’t be impacted.

Defiant RPG Kickstarter Closes Tomorrow!

While we’re digging into making Urban Shadows 2E awesome, our good friends over at Game Machinery are funding another urban fantasy game on Kickstarter: the Defiant RPG.

Defiant is an urban fantasy game about mighty, modern-day supernaturals who rebelled against their destiny and decided to protect the world instead of destroying it. As Defiant—blue-blooded rulers—your characters empower protective seals, staving off the forces of the Apocalypse while ensuring that the mortals remain oblivious to the chaos that lies outside the city. Can you retain your grip on power while angels attempt to sunder your defenses and your rivals strive to steal your crown?

Defiant Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dfnt/defiant-rpg?ref=1kshz2

We're really thrilled to see Defiant do so well—they've already unlocked a ton of mini-supplements and online tools!—and it's rare that we see an urban fantasy RPG with such a great setup for political drama. Everyone at Magpie Games is excited to try our hand at balancing the complex politics of the Defiant when the book comes out next year! Check it out before it closes tomorrow (Thursday at 8 am Eastern)!

Thank you!

While we’re hard at work on making the book (and other rewards), we still appreciate any and all feedback you all have about the mechanics of the game. Please drop us a line at [email protected] if you have any comments (or questions) and come join us in the Magpie Games’ Discord if you want to talk about Urban Shadows!

Quickstart Update v4.0 (Final)
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Jun 19, 2021 at 12:13:40 AM

We’re finally here—today we're releasing the fourth version of the quickstart with some final updates before our design team dives into creating the final product!

Thank you for all the feedback, insight, and thoughts you’ve shared on this edition of Urban Shadows. Without your contributions, the game wouldn’t be as amazing as it is. Because of all your feedback, we’ve made many adjustments to the Quickstart. We’re so excited about the newest version.

US2E Quickstart v4.0

Today, we’re releasing some final changes to the US2E Quickstart—check out the changelog for a detailed list of the smaller changes—but here are the major changes we wanted to tell you about!

• New Playbook: The Spectre—We’ve got a new version of this first edition playbook! The Spectre has been completely revamped to focus on anchors—people, items, and places that bind the Spectre to this world—and trauma. We can’t wait to see what you all think!
• Playbook Updates: The Sworn + Wizard—We’ve made some changes to a few playbooks, including the Sworn and the Wizard playbooks! The Sworn now has a new intimacy move, and the Wizard has a new relationship, a new spell, and an updated corruption move!
• Playbook Updates: All Playbooks—We’ve also made minor updates to a few other playbooks to help address issues that popped up in playtesting. For example, we’ve expanded the Fae’s court quite a bit and revised the Imp’s start of session move.

Although this is the last major revision to the Quickstart, you can still send feedback to us by emailing us at [email protected]. We love getting feedback from you all, and we’ll continue to update materials as we complete the book. We’ll keep you all posted on the next steps, but it’s likely we won’t release any updates to the Quickstart from this point forward!

The Storm Awaits

From here out, our team will be focusing on completing the book and fine-tuning the mechanics so they sing. We’ll continue with monthly updates to talk about what’s happening, where we’re at, and what’s next. For example, we expect to open the Backerkit in late July!

We hope you have a blast with the updated playbooks and continue to send us your feedback! Until next time, stay amazing and enjoy summer in your supernatural city. (And drop by our Discord to say hello and talk more about Urban Shadows if you've got time!)