Well, now, it has been a while since I last did one of these.\u00a0 I\u2019d hoped to do one earlier, but the needs of simply getting Dark Harvest finished, and the desire to give a single news announcement that covered the conclusion of the project, meant that it all got pushed around and expanded.<\/p>\n
A bit like giving birth.<\/p>\n
(I\u2019m told.)<\/p>\n
Anyway\u2026<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the 15th<\/sup> of February, was a HUGE landmark date in the project.\u00a0 On that day the final approval of the print and e-book pdfs came through from Dominic at Cubicle 7.\u00a0 At the same time, I was given the as-near-as-damn-it release date for the book \u2013 the 13th<\/sup> of April, 2011.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m just waiting to see print proofs from, well, the printer Cubicle 7 use and that\u2019ll be that.\u00a0 The book has been available to pre-order internationally for a number of months now.\u00a0 This was very exciting, particularly as we hadn\u2019t entirely finished the thing when pre-orders became possible\u2026<\/p>\n Let me fill you in on everything that\u2019s been happening since we last spoke.<\/p>\n Just before Christmas, the very brilliant Andrew Peregrine and Walt Ciechanowski handed in their work on the RPG chapter.\u00a0 They battled through colds and flu to do so, might I add.\u00a0 Such heroes!!\u00a0 It was then turned over to Steve Ironside and Neil Wiseman, with a few contributions from me.\u00a0 Steve did the majority of the writing from this point, with additions from myself and Neil.\u00a0 Neil was our expert spotter, pointing out things that were missing, unclear or generally messy.\u00a0 This was invaluable.\u00a0 When you\u2019re close to a project, what seems obvious to you is occasionally less than obvious to a fresh pair of eyes.<\/p>\n The finished RPG chapter was handed in with two weeks to go before the final submission date \u2013 the 31st<\/sup> of January.\u00a0 James King had already laid out the majority of the book, complete with amazing new work from Rowena Aitken.\u00a0 While James sorted out the RPG chapter and the rest, I got on with indexing.\u00a0 I was determined the book would have a decent index.\u00a0 As a gamer, I hate not knowing where things are, so I was determined readers of Dark Harvest would not have that issue.\u00a0 However, I had no idea of the task I was taking on.\u00a0 I can understand why there are companies that publisher friends of mine use who do nothing but indexing.\u00a0 It took a full week and a bit to do, and nearly drove me mental, but it got done.\u00a0 I was and am stupidly proud of that index.<\/p>\n So, James and I had a weekend to check the book.\u00a0 At this point InDesign decided it would make our lives more interesting and would randomly take offence at where James and I wanted things.\u00a0 Text would mysteriously move.\u00a0 Administrative county maps would wander hither and thither.\u00a0 On the Saturday before submission, I scan read the book half a dozen times checking for errors.\u00a0 On Sunday the 30th<\/sup>, the pdfs were done and sent, based on the last compiled version done by James at 4am.<\/p>\n Since then, things have continued to move on with the project.<\/p>\n I had the pleasure of sending a pdf copy of Dark Harvest to Ian Livingstone, OBE, to whom the book is in part dedicated.\u00a0 That made me very happy.<\/p>\n Conpulsion 2011 in Edinburgh (http:\/\/www.geas.org.uk\/conpulsion\/<\/a>) is looking like it\u2019ll be the semi-formal unveiling of the game, as the fabness that is Simon Proctor has said he\u2019ll demo the thing.\u00a0 This will be, barring incident, the first time anywhere the gaming public will get a chance to have a glimpse into Promethea.\u00a0 More details will be announced later.\u00a0 Simon and I are going to work on the demo game, and I\u2019m hoping to get Rowena to create art specifically for it.\u00a0 The demo game will eventually, I hope find its way to the website.<\/p>\n Also on the website as of today is the Promethean map, as created by the wonderful Robert Coles.\u00a0 I wanted to make the pdf available to you all so that you could fully appreciate the frankly incredible detail Robert has put into the map during the many, many months he worked on it.\u00a0 Even now he\u2019s not sure it\u2019s finished, so it may well get updated further.<\/p>\n So, that\u2019s it for this update.\u00a0 More details of various things will be announced as time goes on but, in the meantime, I\u2019m looking forward to hearing what folks make of Dark Harvest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Well, now, it has been a while since I last did one of these.\u00a0 I\u2019d hoped to do one earlier, but the needs of simply getting Dark Harvest finished, and the desire to give a single news announcement that covered … Continue reading