The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Click the following for some background music while you read (you'll have to open it in a new window): The Good the Bad The Ugly.

I've had a good chance to talk to Davis about projects and where we are. We have five large projects upon the horizon, all of them late, some more so than others, and all incomplete. These are Castle Zagyg Upper Works, King of England, King of France, The Castle Keepers Guide, C&C Basic and Lejendary Pantheons.

CZ is being worked on every day by Gary Gygax and Jeffrey Talanian and is progressing at a nice, solid and sound pace.

Pantheons is largely done, in need only of art. So its moving along at pace.

KoE/KoF is in the hands of the designer and should be formally play tested at Winter's Dark.

That leaves us the other two. The CKG, our nemesis, and the Basic, our jewel in the rough. Of the two, the CKG is extraordinarily late, the Basic, only a few months. To date my plan had been to finish C2, Crusader 8 and then work on the Basic, giving Davis only marginal help with the CKG. For his part, Davis was going to wrap up D1 Chimera's Roost, A5 and then hit the CKG hard. A multitude of objects have cast themselves beneath the wheels of progress, none of which I have the desire or patience to go into. That said much has been accomplished . . .

But, these two problems need addressing, and this is what Davis and I mapped out this afternoon. I am to finish up C2 tomorrow and get it to the editor. That should not be too much of a problem. I will then take Friday to wrap up my article for Crusader 8 and get that to editing. For his part he's finished Chimera's Roost and it is in Peter's hands for layout (waiting I believe only the OGL from me before it is print ready).

I am going to take the Basic set and pull it from the line for the time being. Davis is going to set A5 aside. Both of us are going to hit the CKG hard starting on Monday. Though it will not make a Christmas release as we had hoped, we are going to adjust the schedule to have it released at Troll Con.

The Good: The Castle Keeper Guide will become the primary focus of almost the entire TLG crew, from myself, Davis and Peter to the Casey Christofferson, Mike Stewart and Casey Cannfield. With such work on it should progress at a much faster pace. For a long time this book has remained off our radar, primarily because it is not essential to the C&C game. But it can be and should be an asset that C&C players have at their finger tips to use. So, with that said, in short order, the CKG will be at the front of the line.

The Bad: The Basic set shall suffer the most for this as I am the primary developer of it. But in the end this will not be a bad thing. With the detractions caused by the CKG removed it will be a better game in the end. I know alot of people are looking forward to this, to include me, but I also know that we all want the game to get the full attention it deserves and not be rushed through the process. So the Basic is being moved back in line.

The Ugly: There's a whole heck of alot of work to be done!

So there you have it, the direction for the next quarter laid out for us and you to see. I know you've heard various updates before and promises for release, but this is the first time I will be giving the CKG a serious look to the detriment of other projects.

Thanks for Playing.
Steve