Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go - Update the Fourth!

I know we had a big splash when we posted the cover art, done by our wonderful artist Avery Liell-Kok. However, we've had this contribution level at the bottom where you can get a ring from the Queen Samantha's Collection.

Well, I've got a picture of the ring to show you.

It is a 10k Gold Ring with 4 Diamonds and 3 Emeralds in a very tasteful arrangement. It was once a ring worn by the Eternal Empress of the East, but the Queen accidentally put it in her pocket while making a rare state visit.

What do you get with this Perk?

* Well, the ring.
* A letter of Authenticity from The Curator of the Queen Samantha's Collection
* An Adventure called "You All Meet in a Tavern" by Geoff Bottone
* The Two Maps (One Human and one Dwarven)
* The GSSC Alumni Shirt
* A Printed Copy of the Game
* The PDF

I think that's rather awesome, don't you?

Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go - Update the Fourth!

Hey Folks,

We've got the final cover art, without the text, for you to take a gander at.

I love it. This book is going to be so much fun.

Remember that you can contribute to the campaign at our Indie Go Go page. Contributors get cool things like maps, alumni t-shirts, their own character in the back of the book. There's even a diamond ring available, a real one which we'll probably be posting later today.

EDIT: The image doesn't show up well on this thing, so I'm going to just give you the link to the cover art.

Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go - Blog Update the Third

There is something awesome happening. We've got the logo for the GSSC alumni shirts ready thanks to Joe from Monkeyden Productions and the blog Underwear on the Outside. Joe is a great friend and he's been very supportive of the whole project from the get go, and he really was psyched to come up with the crest.

So here it is, in all it's glory.

I can't wait to get these on some shirts. Right now there are three people who are getting Almunist shirts. If you hurry you can join the ranks of the GSSC alumni over at the Indie Go Go page.

Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go - Update the Second

Hey Folks!

I hear some people might be a little hesitant to get in on the Indie Go Go page for Critical!: Go Westerly without seeing anything. Well, I'm here to give you an 8 page sample with one of my favourite sections available for anyone to just pick up and check out.

You can grab the sample here.

Once you've checked it out, if you are intrigued you can go to the Indie Go Go Page and get in on this campaign!

What a Year Makes - Geasa

Well, we've got 1 year of Geasa as a PDF at least under our belts. So I figured I would check out what that meant for us as a whole, I mean I'm just an itty bitty publisher and if you can get about 200-300 sales of your book out that's pretty damned good.

So, what are the numbers like? Remember, we do have two types of things to look at. The numbers for the purchase product and the numbers for the free product.

Geasa - FI10001

December 2010 - 30
January 2011 - 10
February - 7
March - 4
April - 0
May - 1
June - 1
July - 1
August - 2
September - 0
October - 2
November (unfinished)

Clearly I did this in November before it finished. Drivethru RPG is down so I can't get this data

Total: 58

Not a bad number. Now that we have the physical books out, I'd be interested in seeing what we get, but 58 copies of a game is fairly respectable. Especially when it's in PDF Format.


Geasa: Just the Rules - FI20001

December 2010 - 380
January 2011 - 106
February - 21
March - 16
April - 11
May - 13
June - 19
July - 8
August - 10
September - 6
October - 12
November (unfinished) - 1

Total: 602

Looking at these numbers


Geasa in book form - FI30001
IPR info is still a little on the sketchy side as they redo the website. However, when I go check to see the main page for Geasa I find that there are only 9 copies available. That means that there were 21 copies sold as well as the four preorder copies that I sent.

Sold to Retailers by me - 5
Sold to Individuals - 21
Preorders - 4
Sold to Individuals by me - 4

This puts the grand total of physical copies sold at 34, which is pretty cool when I think about the genesis of this game which was me being unhappy and writing down the rules on a streetcar ride on my way to work.

Ultimate totals?
Copies of the Game purchased = 92
Copies of the Game downloaded = 602

That works for me, and it makes me excited for what's going to happen when we get Critical!: Go Westerly out. You can help with that by going to our Indie Go Go Page and supporting the project. You can get cool things if you just sign up!

Traditions and Rituals - Card Games

I was listening to @JeffMarek on the Marek vs. Wyshynski podcast, which if you're a hockey fan you need to listen to, and Jeff Marek made a Euchre reference. I love it, because Euchre is one of those games that I've played for so long that I can pick it up and get back into the game without missing a beat. The rules aren't really something I know as much as they are ingrained into my very being.

Part of that is ritual. The Rituals in games are always interesting to me, because what I learned aren't the same as what you've learned. However, no matter where I've gone and played the game the rituals are never such that you're left scratching your head wondering where they came from. They may not be my rituals, but they are all part of the larger tapestry of playing cards.

The Pick-up
My favourite ritual in cards is that you don't pick up the cards until everyone has been dealt their hand. I remember being a child and wanting to pick up every single card as they came to me, so the anticipation could build with each card. It didn't take too long before this behaviour was corrected in my eight year old self.

I was told a variety of reasons why this was important. It was polite to make sure everyone had the same chance to look at their cards. It was a luck thing, and looking at the cards early was bad luck. Some people would organize their cards in a neat little pile, I will admit I'm one of those. Other people refuse to touch the cards at all until they've all been dealt.

No matter the reason, this little card ritual is something I find pretty fascinating. I'm going to go over a bunch of them as I think of them. If you've got any rituals that you do when playing cards, let me know and let's talk about them.

Also, please check out the Critical!: Go Westerly Indie Go Go page for some nifty options that you can get by ordering your copy of Critical!: Go Westerly now!

Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go - Update!

A friend of mine asked about the The Adventurer level, and he said something that made me realize wasn’t totally clear. Originally, it was supposed to be that you got listed as an Adventurer in the book, but that’s not nearly awesome enough. For those who have the Adventurer level, you will get listed as an adventurer in the book. You won’t have any stats, but you’ll get about 150 words describing your Adventurer and your most notable exploits. No plain lists for us!

So to recap what do you get as an Adventurer?
The Adventurer: $70
One Copy of the PDF
One Signed and Numbered copy of the Book
One Gwendolyn School of Swordplay and Cookery Alumni shirt
Two Prints of the Map of Westerly, one is the Human version, and the other is the Dwarven version. (The Kobolds like the Dwarven version of the map.)
You will be listed in the book as a Adventurer, the kind people should look up to with 150 words in the book about your Adventurer!

What kind of adventurer will you be?

As always you can find the Indie Go Go page here.

Why we are using Indie Go Go

I had a couple of people ask me why we are using Indie Go Go rather than Kickstarter for the Critical!: Go Westerly opening extravaganza.

There are a couple of reasons. The first is that Amazon Payments don't like non USians. When I was looking into it, I tried to get something started there but it didn't like the fact that I didn't have a zip code.

Oh, they will be more than happy to take my money to pay for things, but they don't like the fact that I am not American when it comes time to give me money. This, of course sucks, because there are a lot more projects that create a lot more traffic over at kickstarter.

Now, the second reason that I am happy to go with Indie Go Go is that it offers flexible funding options. Kickstarter is an all or nothing proposition. When Dregg (aka James Carpio) put up the Spookybeans RPG and didn't meet his goals, he had to set up a whole new pre-order for the game. I bet he got about half of what he got in numbered from the kickstarter. I'll have to ask him.

At Indie Go Go, you can choose the flexible option when it comes to payment. This is acting a lot more like a preorder, because I offer people stuff I think is cool and in return I get to keep what is pledged no matter what the funding level is at the end.

The book is done, this is us getting you on the ground floor with awesome perks for being the first folk in on the game. In fact we are going to make an announcement about some upgrades to what we are offering.

Critical!: Go Westerly - Critical! A Go Go

Okay folks,

We've gone live with our fundraiser for Critical!: Go Westerly!

It's over at Indie Go Go!

However, I should point out that it isn't really a fundraiser. We can do this the normal way and pay for our artist out of pocket, as well as shell out for the printing. However, I want to give people cool stuff too. This is where you can get cool stuff. We'll post more details on the cool things as they come up.

Let's make this thing happen folks!

Critical!: Go Westerly - Why You Should Want It! Part 5

There are many reasons why you need to pick up Critical!: Go Westerly. I've listed them here, here, and here.

Want one more?

5. The game really is yours.

When we talk about the game being yours, we really mean it. The Critical! rule set is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Not just any CC license, but the BY-SA license which means you can take the rules, modify them how you want and then publish your own game with them. You can even sell it and try to be a hundredaire too.

For real. Go for it.

The world is also licensed under a Creative Commons license. It's slightly different, but it's a BY-SA-NC license. Which means you can go ahead and write what you want about the place. Hell, we want to hear your stories. Your table top adventures, your tales, your ideas, your stories, all of it. This is what makes the game yours, even more than just the fact that you can do with it what you want at home. Here we want you to do things with it in public.

So go have fun with the game. Just let us know all the cool things that you've done with it.