The Gardener's Guide to Gaming

GGG January Update - Dice shipping, pin/stick survey, new artwork
4 months ago – Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 08:21:03 PM

Hi all - 

Back again with another monthly update! First off, Kickstarter has changed the system for pushing updates so apologies if the formatting looks off at all. Second, we clearly did not reach our end of 2023 target, but are continuing to make good progress and have a pretty clear path to fulfillment at this point. So on to the update!

Dice

As you hopefully are aware, all of our dice orders shipped out this month! If you ordered any dice and haven't received them yet please let me know right away. All of the orders, including international, should be delivered by now, so if there are issues we will try to get them sorted right away! Personally I am loving my sets (despite my first d20 roll being a 3). Big thanks to Rin at Ordinary Dice for the hard work designing, crafting, and shipping these beauties!

Timeline and Surveys

As mentioned, we did not meet the goal of completing the PF2e PDF by the end of 2023. We are however getting close. I am hesitant to keep giving deadlines that we may not meet, but we few exceptions the writing and art are complete and we are primarily in the formatting stage. Primary delays include NPCs, Carver class, and finishing up some spells. I am growing more confident that it will be worth the wait, and hopefully you will agree!

Along those lines, when the "beta" PDF releases we will also send along a survey, which will serve two main purposes. First, it will be a pseudo-playtest of sorts, and the survey (along with Discord) will be the primary way to provide feedback before we submit for printing. Second, the survey will also be where we will vote on designs for Stickers, Pins, and Bookmarks!

New Art

As always, here is some of the latest artwork, and even some formatting full pages from the book!

That is all for now. Ideally my next update will be the PDF release, but barring that I will be back in a few weeks!

- Matt

GGG Update - Dice shipping, new timeline, new art
5 months ago – Fri, Dec 08, 2023 at 06:03:08 AM

Hi all - 

Its has been inexcusably long since I provided an update, and I am deeply sorry for that. Once we broke the August timeline a lot of things fell apart rather quickly. Without going into too much detail, I believe we are back on track and have righted the ship, so to speak. We have brought on new writers and artists and are currently churning through the final pieces of the project. My tentative timeline is for the PF2e PDF to release by the end of the year, giving us time to playtest and edit before the print run early 2024. It is not the timeline I had hoped for nor promised, so I am again incredibly sorry for the delays. I also want to thank the backers who have poked me for an update, it really does help keep me focused so please feel free to ask for updates or ask questions as often as you'd like! The best place to do that remains our Discord channel which has more frequent, smaller scale updates.

Dice Shipping

Some actual good news - The dice sets are all finished and ready to ship! Rin from Ordinary Dice will be sending them directly to backers shortly. I will plan to give another update when they actually start shipping, but I believe it should be sometime next week. Personally I ordered a ton of sets for myself and am super excited to get them. Also the packaging is adorable.

As always we also have some new art to share!

That is all for now. I hope to be back with another update before the holidays, and in the meantime I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you again for your support of this project and your incredible patience. 

- Matt

Gardener's Guide update: cover reveal, new content, and timeline!
8 months ago – Wed, Sep 13, 2023 at 08:48:27 AM

Hi all - 

First off, deeply sorry for the delayed communication on the project. A combination of post-GenCon slump, wanting to have more progress before making an update, and just life in general caused me to lose track of the updates and keep putting them off an unacceptable amount. I will be putting in more effort for frequent updates going forward.

On that note, we are clearly delayed in our release schedule and did not hit our August 4th goal. Unfortunately I do not have a clear timeline at the moment. Below I have a breakdown of the current book progress, so you can get a sense of what is left to complete. Now, it isn't all doom and gloom! The book is coming along great, and I think it is a really top-tier product. Just needs a bit more time to finalize and polish. 

Book Progress

Here is an overall view of book progress in terms of writing and illustration:

• Ancestries - 2/3 complete and illustrated
• Versatile Heritages - Done!
• Carver Class - Playtest nearly ready (more below)
• Spells - Final balancing review
• Items - Final balancing review
• NPCs - Seven complete and illustrated, 3 in progress. Finalizing plot hook portions and getting Design-tier backer approvals
• Archetypes - Done!
• Bestiary - Done!
• Familiars - Done!
• One-shot adventure - Done!
• Deities - Done!

So what remains to actually finish the book? First, the Carver Class, which is my primary focus at the moment. Next, we are awaiting several illustrations from a few different artists. Once those are received I will need to do some final formatting and editing passes to get everything fitting together nicely on the page. The front end/back end matter (appendices, introduction, list of terms, etc) still needs to be written, though that will likely come after we do an initial PDF release. My worst case scenario will be a release of a partially completed PDF with some assets omitted in order to get feedback and playtesting completed before we submit a final version for printing, but hopefully we can avoid that and get everything out at once.

New sections

You may have noticed there are some new sections in the list above that were not in previous updates. We have added a few items that I think everyone will really enjoy, including two new nature deities (Amanita, the Primal Spark and Destroying Angel; and Fasain, the Creeping Vine) and a bonus ancestry! These deities will play into the lore for several creatures and plot hooks within the book, and will hopefully make appearances in the future. 

Carver Playtest

The Carver Class has by far been the most challenging section of the book to create, but it is finally in a position I am happy with. I have started sharing small snippets in our Discord, and will be posting more feats and sample builds soon. While I do not have a set date for the playtest yet, my expectation is another week or two as I finalize the higher-level feats and balancing. The playtest will be accompanied by several small sections of the book as well (some items, spells, etc) so that they can also get some "review" prior to the final release. The playtest will be announced in an update, but our Discord remains the best place to follow along for more frequent updates.

Cover reveal!

After some teasers on Twitter/Discord, we are finally ready to reveal the book cover! Illustrated by Sita, get a glimpse of the Gardener in her abode, working on the very guide you are about to read (with more than a few easter eggs as well!)

Some more art samples and a bestiary spread:

Apologies again for the terrible lack of communication. That will be improved going forward, and I really appreciate the patience and support for the project. We are going to deliver an amazing book, that I think you will find well worth the wait! As always, you can follow along with our discord or twitter for informal but more frequent updates and conversation. 

- Matt

Long-awaited GGG update!
11 months ago – Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 09:10:27 AM

Hi all - 

Apologies for the delay in updates over April-May.  Back to back travels and illnesses slowed everything down in terms of updates and social media, but luckily not in terms of book progress! You've waited enough for an update, so let us dive into everything over the past couple months.

BackerKit Charges

First, BackerKit charges will be processed in one week (July 3rd). If you need to change your order or payment information now is the time! Shipping info can still be adjusted after payments have been charged, there will be a separate lockdown for shipping addresses. The pre-order store will also remain open, so more orders can be placed and additional add-ons can be included in your order, they will just be charged the same day the order is placed. If you have any issues adjusting payment or other BackerKit related issues, just let me know!

 Book Progress

Here is an overall view of book progress in terms of writing and illustration:

• Ancestries - 1/2 complete and illustrated
• Versatile Heritages - 2/3 complete and illustrated
• Familiars - Finalized!
• Carver Class - Playtest delayed (more below)
• Archetypes - Finalized!
• Spells - 25/50 complete, illustrations in progress
• Items - 30/50 complete, illustrations mostly complete (1-2 in progress, may add more). As a quick preview, we are looking at something like 5 wands, 5-10 tattoos, 5-10 bombs and elixirs, 10-15 armor and worn equipment, 10 weapons, and 5-10 other assorted items. The exact count varies as some items have multiple versions (the Arboreal Crown, for example, comes in 8 variants different version).
• NPCs - Five complete and illustrated, 5-6 in progress. We are expanding this section a bit to allow for some NPC to interconnect, including plot hooks, backstories, new items and feats found throughout the book, etc.
• Bestiary - 20/20 stat blocks complete, 12 illustrated, 8 in progress
• One-shot adventure - In progress, no firm timeline at the moment

Bad news first

First off, we are likely to be delayed in hitting our original GenCon release date (8/4/23), though I am still pushing to have the PF2e PDFs done by then, and our worst case scenario is still a Summer release. The largest roadblock at the moment is the Carver Class and its playtest. The playtest was original scheduled for April, but it wasn't yet in a state I was happy with and then I fell behind on that front. My goal is to have a compete, formatted, and illustrated version ready mid-July, but I don't want to set a hard deadline and miss it. So that will remain an open goal at the moment, but one that is my primary focus. 

Neutral news

You may have seen the recent announcements regarding ORC progress and the Pathfinder 2e Remaster. Neither of these will impact development or release of the Gardener's Guide. Partially because they are coming out too late for us to account for them, and partially because we simply do not need to. The Remaster, while exciting, doesn't change our compatibility with PF2e going forward. We will still be publishing under the OGL as well, though for any future work I intend to utilize ORC in place of the OGL. 

Now for good news!

The good news is that despite the delays we have made a lot of headway and the book is shaping up nicely! A plethora of previews I've been holding on to are below:

That is all for now. Our next update will be next week when the BackerKit charges process. As usual you can follow along with our discord or twitter for more updates and conversation! My intention is to have more frequent Kickstarter updates leading to our PDF release, particularly for the Carver playtest, previewing the Hijinks One-shot, and some teasers of the cover! So stay tuned, and thank you as always for your support - and patience!

- Matt

New art, new progress, dice orders closing!
about 1 year ago – Sun, Mar 26, 2023 at 10:26:07 AM

Hi Everyone - 

A quick update this month. Things are churning along without too much to report, but making steady progress. A breakdown of the book progress is below. Some other things in the works not included there: 

• sketching out some Hazards/Traps to include as a new section, depending on page space
• Adding plot hooks to NPC blocks (some may even intertwine...)
• Some new spells have a pretty unique "evolution" ability (thanks to James Beck) and I think they are super fun

Book Progress

• Ancestries - One out of two done!
• Versatile Heritages - Two out of three done! Sporeling will be started once the Mushroom Ancestry is complete.
• Familiars - Done!
• Carver Class - Playtest April 12th
• Archetypes - Petal Dancer and Phytomancer complete and illustrated!
• Spells - In progress
• Items - In progress
• NPCs - Two done and fully illustrated, several more in progress
• Bestiary - 11/20 stat blocks complete, 3 illustrated, 6 in sketching
• One-shot adventure - Pushing to end of April for completion

Overall, March was a little slow writing-wise, but we remain on track for our planned release schedule. The major lift at the moment is the Carver Class, with everything else starting to wrap up. The Carver playtest will be coming in roughly two weeks, and I eagerly look forward to some feedback! As a reminder, you can also see a decent amount of finalized content through the Third Party Kon preview currently available on DriveThruRPG, including the Arboreal Ancestry, the Rebloomed Versatile Heritage, and the Petal Dancer Archetype. 

Art Progress

Finally, our BackerKit pre-order store is going to remain open for a bit longer, but the dice options will be removed at the end of this week! This will let us get the final order counts over to Rin and give her time to actually make them all. So if you'd like to add or adjust your dice order, please do so before Friday, March 31st! 

That is all for now. As a reminder, you can follow along for more frequent updates on our twitter or discord. 

- Matt