Goals updated and May Routemap (Patreon)

Hi all, it's May and at least once every couple of months I like to do just a 'this is what's planned' kind of thing to keep you abreast of things.

First of all, I've updated the goals for the community, we've got a new monster that I'm close to releasing and it's the next goal (575 patrons) - when that's hit it'll be there for people at the $5 mark, a link will get mailed out for you to access rather than a post released. It'll be separately posted at the $15 mark - I want to limit access to the monster when it's first put out there.

Also as you can see there's a second goal, currently at 650 patrons, when that's hit it'll become time to start posting about 'Project Condiment' which is an absolutely MASSIVE piece of custom work (honestly it's close to the size of the core game in scope).

As for May's plans:

• We're going to get more of the $5 portion of the Designer's Diary out - we're going through AI stuff at the moment, next up is likely going to be moods, traits and minions. But that is only a provisional thing, AI design is a massive, massive project where you're basically programming a tiny plastic robot to do things - and it has to do them where you can't watch what it's doing, and it is prone to being abused by the people who are near it.  It's a very, very difficult thing to do and if you screw it up...  Well lets just be diplomatic and say there are homebrews out there that have less than ideal programming.

• We are close to completing the Assessing Armor series and the weapon one is starting to roll out. The goals of these series is to allow you to understand this weapons and armor pieces as critics, players and designers - so you can make better use of the tools the game has available. This should allow you to then make use of even the more situational pieces of gear (except the Musk Bomb, fuck the design on that thing) and even design your own gear for your custom stuff.

• As you may have noticed on the discord #picturegallery I have been exploring with magnetising and I've come up with an alternative philosophy behind doing it that's made the process a bit easier. I'm going to write a piece on magnetising in May and walk through my own take on the pros and cons and why I've done it the way I have.

• There are a few more areas I'd like to dig through when it comes to the lore, I'm recombing what we have actually written down from Poots in the official areas on the Abyssal Woods. Naturally it's going to have to be highly speculative because there are a lot of gaps. But between the store lore, the kickstarter info, the Flower Knight expansion, Spidicules, People of the Bloom and the in game content - there's enough to get some ideas of what's going on before we get another retcon of Lore when the Abyssal Woods expansion lands.

• The Mixed Sets series will continue and it is going to climax with a post or two on some builds, so you can take the information I've given and see it applied. Hopefully we can enter a brave new world where armor sets are not automatically the meta (though nothing is going to dislodge Rawhide/Leather/Cycloid Scale/Rolling/Dancer/Lantern/Warlord from the top of the pile without new content).  

• I have space for article requests, I always enjoy doing them, so if you're at the $5 or higher level, please do shoot me a message or leave a comment here with what you'd like to see. Sometimes you get an article, sometimes you get a whole series, it depends on how much detail is required. 

• With thanks to patron dlthorpe I now have the text for the remaining 50 hunt events and I'm going to get the hunt cards finished in May. Also thank you to those of you who proofed the first 50, that helped a great deal.

In other news:

I am currently open for Photoshop/custom expansion commissions, painting commissions have limited slots as a couple of clients have ghosted on me.

The Meugeceros will NOT be Kingdom Death monster, it is now a part of my own personal IP project which I am working on securing backing for so I can get it to kickstarter/indiegogo. I am not willing to go into full details at this stage except to say that the game is also inspired by monster hunter (people killing big creatures for parts) and it's got some very different mechanics for a lot of things. It's in the same genre as Kingdom Death, but there is a special reward for my loyal patrons if it ever does get to market. (That is the only limited thing I have planned as I generally don't like exclusivity). As such when it comes to custom monsters, I will be sticking with using official materials already released and doing 're-colours' of models you already have.

In addition to the current goal monster - there are a total of 4 custom monsters in various stages of development at the moment. Yes, this includes the Scissor Knights, but what I'm doing with them is complicated and needs a LOT more testing and work and time. 

I teased this elsewhere (Reddit) but to confirm - The Black Lion is being revamped and will get a new release in the back half of this year. It's going to be tightened up considerably, have its lore more closely pulled into the other custom monsters I've made, the cards will all get a redo and I'm going to fix the crest to something that matches the style of the monster.  

Thank you for your continued support!