Dev Log #21: StoryGuider, Mystery Snacks, and Summer Events
Check out the latest on the TTRPGkids works in progress to stay up to date on upcoming releases! This Dev Log will cover some life event impacts to TTRPGkids along with status for the ongoing StoryGuider and Mystery Snacks projects by TTRPGkids AND announcements for some summer events (like conventions and a summer camp)!
Find my previous update (Dev Log #20) here!
Jump to:
- Life balance chat
- StoryGuider: proofs + new cover reveals
- Mystery Snacks: title reveals + first drafts
- Summer events update: summer camp + conventions
Life balance chat
Last update, I mentioned going in for surgery, and…. I’m OK! I am very much still recovering and will be for the next few weeks, but I’m feeling better each day and past what everyone calls the hardest part. Right now, it’s a lot of hurry up and wait, don’t lift above the shoulders, and no carrying more than 4 lbs for another few weeks, but…. I’m back in office, working on projects, and rolling along until kiddo starts summer break in about three weeks!
Which is a whole other life event!
Based on previous years, I know how summers mean fewer hours since I am home with kiddo, who has some particular needs that require a lot of support time, so I have planned adjusted work time for the summer a LONG time ago, but I will admit, I am susceptible to scope creep, so I made sure I did an hours assessment before summer break starts.
During the school year, I’m usually at about 30 hours per week on TTRPGkids (if there’s no other big life events), but during the summer, that goes down to about 12 hours average per week factoring in kiddo duty, convention travel, and health and home related needs for both myself and the family.
For all the things I WANT to do with TTRPGkids this summer, my tally ended up at:
Weekly recurring: 18 hours (examples: article writing, answering emails, self-pub project work)
Monthly recurring: 10 hours (examples: site maintenance, scheduling social media, consultation)
One-time quarterly: 28 hours (examples: running a summer camp, freelance writing job)
Total combined: 18 + (10/4) + (28/12) = 22.8hrs/week on TTRPGkids
Which is WAY more than 12 hours per week.
Based on that, I shifted a couple bits of work (new projects, so, not StoryGuider and Mystery Snacks) to fall and winter to make sure the hours would be manageable with the kiddo schedule, adjusted the intervals for completing recurring tasks, and pulled ahead a couple things to close them out before summer break starts, bringing it down to only things I NEED to do for certain baseline TTRPGkids goals:
Weekly recurring: 13 hours
Monthly recurring: 4.5 hours
One-time quarterly: 28 hours
Total combined: 13 + (4.5/4) + (28/12) = 16.5 hrs/week on TTRPGkids
Which is much better, but still needs some work for that 12 hours availability and 16.5 hours weekly to line up. So, I’m going to see if I can work on it from the other side and arrange a 1/week kiddo swap with a friend (i.e. I watch their kids Tuesday, they watch my kid Thursday) so I can get the hours to line up by having one full-ish work day once per week… and kiddo will probably honestly really like regularly seeing their friends a couple times per week too.
I wanted to mention this since quite a few TTRPG creator folks hop on here, and it can help to layout plans for freelance work and self-pub projects this way so that it’s not taking over life and you aren’t burning out trying to do everything. AND… it helps with parenting too because there’s a lot of extra kid activities and events and needs to balance, so I have a similar “family hours” check I run in parallel to this so we aren’t signing ourselves up for too much.
Doing this every 3-4 months helps me not fall victim to my own scope creep in the work-family-life balance… it’s like… I’m keeping myself as a boss and parent and person accountable to myself as my own employee and family and human being who has needs (like rest) outside work and family life.
However you are coming at it, I hope something like this maybe helps with planning and have a strategy to cut back sometimes when things feel overwhelming (or hopefully before things feel overwheleming.
StoryGuider updates: proof copies + Sandy the Dragon cover reveals!
StoryGuider has been my main release focus, and all stories from the Friends and Heroes series have been digitally distributed to backers as of the last update! That said, if you backed and can’t find your download key, please email hello@TTRPGkids.com with “StoryGuider on Backerkit” in the title so I can support.
AND… proofs for the physical copies came in!
I’ve gone through all the proof copies and found a few issues in various books:
- Layout in relation to book seam (image or text too close to inner seam)
- Print quality (resolution unclear on an image or section of text)
- Page # placement error (image layer was partially overtop of the page number on one page)
So far, there’s a few pages in the back of The Big Book of Heroes that have a resolution issue on the text (not the image), which is a bit odd since I used the same text throughout the book, but I was able to fix it by re-uploading those particular pages and exporting again. It does mean that, I will need to update The Big Book of Heroes and order a new proof copy before I can send out print keys to everyone. While I’m doing that, there was ONE image that might have been with folks, but, since I need to work out the text resolution issue anyway, I figured I would also update this one too. There was a character image that did not scale super well from the small book version to the larger book version (some thinner lines came out a bit light), so I contacted the artist to get that image in a higher resolution and different format, so it scaled better, and that’s all included in the update now.
For the Big Book of Friends, I found a few minor concerns where an image seemed a little off on the page with regards to positioing, and, since I need to update some the other big book and the small books too, I figured I might as well update this one even if it’s maybe OK with people – I’d rather have it done right than try to pass it to get this one book out before the others. Other than those image positionings, this seemed alright, I’ve updated the files, and it’s going through the second (and hopefully final) round of proofs now! I’m getting expedited shipping, so this one should come in before the Heroes book while I’m waiting on that art piece, allowing me to start distribution, hopefully in about a month.
For the little books, I went through these as well, and… the biggest issue I found was that the variation in the amount of glue applied on the spine really impacted if some of the words/images got a bit too close to the inner seam.
I will be updating the formatting on ALL of the little books to make sure they can handle print variation. There is some print variaion expected with all printers, so I want to make sure I’m adding a safety factor to cover that, and it’s also why I didn’t catch it on that first round I ordered in Jan/Feb – those ones had less glue. This also means that, because I ordered so many (24), I’m probably seeing way range on the potential variation than most folks doing POD with this printer, so it’s good data for me on this and future projects.
To show what I mean, here are two of the small books. The very top of page three is the same in ALL small books (same words, same layout). You can see that from the seam to the words on book one, the space is quite small and required me to pull the spine open to read it properly. It was definitely still usable and matched the gutter allowance once I cracked the spine a bit, but I don’t want folks to wonder if they need to do that for their books. For book two, there’s enough space… and this seemed to match the gutter allowance in digital layout a bit better. The margin on the outter edges is the same for both still, so I believe the variation is almost entirely in the spine (there was more glue on book one), while the rest of the process (position, print on the page, and cutting) seem very consistent between all 24 small books. I want to take time with the extra proof round to make sure this variation in the seam won’t be an issue later, and it’s also good to know that the outter edge is pretty robust.
ALL books have been reviewed, updated, and submitted for the (hopefully) final proof round, and I am using expedited shipping to try to get them here as soon as possible.
So, the plan right now is to:
This week: Order proofs once they clear the printer check (should be done within the next 1-2 days)
June – Sept: Release OK’d books as proofs come in and clear the check. Likely, this will look something like the Big Book of Heroes releasing late June and then a trio of Heroes small books releasing each week, followed by the Big Book of Friends.
And in parallel to all that, I’m working on Sandy the Dragon!
There’s 12 more stories and The Big Book of Dragons yet to come, and it’s moving along. Right now, I have all covers colored and laid out (shown below), and all the prepatory pages for the whole series are written and proofread (this includes the credits/ISBN page, skills practice page, recommended supplemental activities page, story summary page, and internal title page). Additionally, all content drafts are completed.
What’s left here is taking all the content drafts and getting them to final draft stage, which does involve a lot of clean up and fine tuning along with matching to art and confirming layout. I’ll be starting on that this week, and I am hoping to have that completed before summer break starts during the 2nd week of June.
Beyond that, there’s still lots to do, but I’ll leave our big running schedule to cover those items!
COMPLETED:
- Oct – campaign funds released from Backerkit
- Oct – send contracts for funded art to artists
- Oct – draft the Tome Traveller Trilogy (part of the Heroes series)
- Oct → Nov – collect first round of art from early artist kick-offs (from itchio and ko-fi prefunds)
- Nov – artists working on Heroes series
- Nov/Dec – finish writing the new Dragon series adventures
- Nov → Jan – reformat the Heroes series
- Jan – Heroes series art due
- Jan – order Heroes series proofs (round 1)
- Jan – artists working on Friends series
- Feb – Friends series art due
- Feb – Heroes series proofs arrive, review, update (round 1)
- Jan – Mar – reformat the Friends series
- Jan – Apr – artists working on Dragon series
- Mar – Dragon series art due
- Mar – send backer surveys
- Apr – update + order Friends series proofs (round 1)
- Apr – update + order Heroes series proofs (round 1.5)
- Apr – set up digial pages for Friends and Heroes series
- Apr – fulfill digital print-and-play for Friends and Heroes series
- May – Heroes series proofs arrive
- May – Friends series proofs arrive
- May – Friends series proofs review, update, reorder (round 2)
NEXT STEPS:
- May/June – Heroes series proofs review, update, reorder (round 2)
- May/June – reformat the Dragon series and make coloring book
- June – order Dragons series and coloring book proofs (round 1)
- June – set up digial pages for Dragons series
- June/July – fulfill digital print-and-play for Dragon series
- June/July – Friends series proofs arrive, review, update (round 2)
- June/July – if no issues with Friends series, start to distribute POD keys
- July – Heroes series proofs arrive, review, update (round 2)
- July – Dragon series proofs arrive, review, update (round 1)
- July – if no issues with Heroes, Dragons, or coloring book, start to distribute POD keys
- July – Sept – continue release of OK’d proofs as possible
Mystery Snacks updates: title reveals + first drafts
For Mystery Snacks, all writers got their first drafts in on time, I’ve had a chance to check them over and give feedback, and final draft phase is kicked off with two writers already submitting their final drafts! There’s still a couple weeks before final drafts are due and we kick off final layout, but, in the meantime, I think I can share the working titles for all the mysteries so far as a sneak peek!
Already announced in the campaign, written by Steph:
- Per Diem at the Museum, an investigation into missing museum items (and a snack stand raid)
- Dude, Where’s My Broom?, a magical college campus and coffee shop conundrum
- Ostriches on the Loose, an exploration of farm abductions and cryptid sightings
Working titles and some keyword hints (may change since we’re still in draft) from stretch goal guest writers:
- A Soup-er Suspicious Situation, soup, mice, and magic
- Green Zines & Ham, library, cat, and supernatural
- One Byte Too Many, sci-fi, androids, and ice cream
- A Sharp Mind Needs a Light, bakery, tinkering, and tech
- Wild Goose Chez,geese, breadcrumbs, and chaos
Everything so far is on track, and I’ll keep you updated at our next check in for June!
COMPLETED:
- Feb – fund project
- Mar – kick off guest writers (send guidelines, formatting + style guide)
- Mar – set up pre-order store
- Apr – guest writer check in
- May – guest writer 1st drafts due
- May – review 1st drafts
- May – kick off guest writer 2nd drafts
NEXT STEPS:
- June – guest writer 2nd draft due
- June – kick off layout artist
- July – final layout due
- July – order proof (round 1)
- Aug – proofs arrive, check, review update (round 1)
- Aug – order proof (round 2)
- Sep – proofs arrive, check, review update (round 2)
- Sep – order bulk
- Oct – bulk order arrives
- Oct – ship to fulfill project
Summer events update: summer camp + conventions
I mentioned finding balance in the summer schedule at the start of the post, and one of my quarterly examples was running a summer camp because… I’m running a TTRPG summer camp!
We’ll be playing the Star Trek Adventures TTRPG, doing additional summer camp activities related to the game, and hopefully havnig a couple guest apparances calling in to say hi to the kids for a few minutes (so far, one is on board)!
I also wrote a very reference heavy blurb that I’m quite proud of and gives a smidge more detail:
ENGAGE! in a week long, Star Trek themed, special edition tabletop RPG summer camp at Young Dragon Slayers!
Create your own crew person, design your ship, and boldly go explore strange new worlds with your fellow virtual campers.
Your GM, Steph, will be bringing their love of Trek and experience from NASA, crash test engineering, teaching college freshman, and publishing games as TTRPGkids to create a camp that blends both game time and fun space-focused activities.
This camp will use the Star Trek Adventures Quickstart Guide by Modiphius (available free online) for the tabletop RPG portion of the camp.
This system is a rules-lite and easy-to-learn d20 system with mechanics and character builds made to align with Star Trek vibes.
New players are welcome, and the system will be taught as part of the camp.
See you on the other side!
If you want to sign up, check out the link on Young Dragon Slayers here!
AND I’ll be going to conventions too!
If you’re going to Origins, check out my schedule here to see if any of the events I’m part of seem interesting and you want to say hi!
Then, keep an eye out for my GenCon schedule, which I’ll be announcing in late June. So far, I have a few talks planned and will be running probably three game sessions, but the schedule is still getting confirmed, so I don’t want to announce all the times yet.
All that said, I have rambled for a while here now and want to leave you will well wishes as we enter summer and kiddos are going on summer vacation. I hope you are staying safe and have the opportunity to spend some time with you and yours!
Thank you for checking out this update and just kind of being interested in what TTRPGkids is doing! I hope it helps with seeing some of the self-pub, crowdfunding, and blog writing process for anyone who is thinking of getting into that themselves, and…
Until next time, happy gaming!
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