New City Hub and Playbook Updates
over 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 02:18:27 AM

Happy February, friends! It’s time for another update and we’ve been hard at work diving deep into Urban Shadows over at Magpie Games HQ. We hope you’ve been having a great start to the New Year!

New City Hub: Art District

We’ve finished out the city hub: The Art District!

In the Art District, colors swirl, pop, and blister; Wild thrives here, tip-toeing the line between artistic passion and corporate assimilation. Buskers stand on street corners with nothing but their aspirations and a beat up guitar case, while the wealthy rub shoulders with overworked gallery owners and preening artists. Dreams are the currency of the Art District... just be careful not to let yours fall into the wrong hands.

This new hub includes Residents, Relationships, Hub Moves, Locations, Rumors, Factions, and NPCs. It’s been added to the newest version of the Quickstart which you can download now from DriveThruRPG!

Playbook Updates

We’ve added some new updates to a couple of the playbooks and finalized their design. These playbooks have had some significant changes,  which are approved and added to the playbooks. The Hunter, Sworn, Tainted, and Vamp are the four we’ve been working hard on and are happy to say are complete.

The changes to the Tainted and Vamp are the most significant—both have new sections that help players describe their fictional position within the city. We’ve added a new pick list to flesh out the Tainted’s dark patron, and a brand new extra—a harbor—to give the Vamp a more stable home base beyond the immediate haven. We are excited to get feedback on both!

These final changes have all been added to the newest version of the Quickstart which you can grab on DriveThruRPG!

Progress Update

Unfortunately, Mark had surgery in early January and that has delayed finishing the writing as he needed time to recover. He’s doing well, and while he is still recovering, he has returned to the office full time. Work has kicked into high gear now that he’s returned. We’ve also brought Sarah Doom in as the project manager to help get things moving a bit faster! Sarah’s a great part of the Magpie Games team and we’re excited she’ll be managing the project from here on out so that Mark and Marissa can focus on finishing the writing!

One of the sections that’s next on their agenda is the faction turn rules. If you have any feedback, especially if you’ve gotten a chance to run Urban Shadows with the faction turn rules released in late 2021, please let us know by emailing us at [email protected] with the subject line: Faction Turn Feedback! Thank you!

Until Next Time…

Thank you for your support, play reports, and sending us feedback as you run one-shots and campaigns! We’ve loved all the suggestions and insights you’ve provided through emailed feedback and by talking to us in our Urban Shadows channel on the Magpie Games discord! You’re such an amazing group of backers and the game wouldn’t be what it is without you!

We’ll be back in March with more updates, information, and progress reports for you! We hope you enjoy the last bits of winter and have a great early spring as 2022 continues on! Stay safe, stay healthy, and keep being awesome!

Start of 2022
over 4 years ago – Fri, Jan 07, 2022 at 09:11:47 PM

Happy New Year, everyone! We apologize for missing the December update! An internal miscommunication meant we didn’t post it and we’re sorry that we dropped that ball! We hope you had a fantastic holiday season!

Team Magpie took some time off over the holidays to celebrate, get ahead on projects, and (safely) spend time with our loved ones!

Progress Update

Playtesting has ended which means… we’re moving into the final stage of writing! Our team has been hard at work going through the text of the first edition, updating it, editing it, and adding whole new writing to the text that matches the updated rules, new mechanics, and with more insights. The editing and revising process is going well!

The core playbooks are complete. New writing to incorporate them in your game and their sections in the book are underway now that we have finished playtesting them and are solid on their mechanics. Because most of the playbooks have gone through major revisions, this writing must be done from scratch and is currently underway.

The city guides for the book are almost complete and headed for editing. As are the city hubs which are going into the book. City hub work is moving well and we’re hoping to have new city hubs available for you soon!

Overall, we’re aiming to have the final draft done for February, and then to go to layout from there. Once we have the final text done and through editing, we’ll post a new update to tell you these final pieces are all done and headed towards layout.

Until Next Time…

Thank you for your support, as always, and for your excitement as we head into the final writing and editing. We know we’re behind and we apologize for the delays that have happened. We appreciate your patience and support as we work through these delays and continue to strive to send you the final product as soon as we’re able.

We hope you are staying safe, playing some great games, and having a great beginning to 2022! We’ll talk to you next month with where these parts of the book are, and keep you posted on the developments as we wrap up the text!

Writing Continues
over 4 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 4 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
almost 5 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!