Things were going really well at the start of the month. The new Ironclads of Ferrosia pirate supplement was almost finished—the rules were complete, and I just needed to finish designing the ships ready for 3D printing. I was expecting it to be released fairly soon.
Unfortunately, I then hit an unexpected obstacle.
As many of you will know, Microsoft is ending support for Publisher in September. That wasn’t a major concern at first, as I was happy to carry on using it. I’ve used Publisher for years, I know my way around it, and it has always done exactly what I needed.
The real problem came when Publisher suddenly stopped exporting my files as PDFs. Since all of my rulebooks and supplements are released as PDFs, that effectively brought everything to a halt.
That means I’m now in the process of moving everything over to Affinity Publisher. It’s undoubtedly a powerful piece of software, but it’s very different from Publisher and has quite a steep learning curve. At the moment I’m spending more time learning the software than actually writing games!
To make matters worse, I now have to rebuild not only the Ironclads of Ferrosia supplement, but also the almost-finished Stars & Lasers supplement, and eventually I’ll need to transfer all of my fantasy rules across as well.
It’s frustrating, but it’s one of those setbacks that just has to be worked through.
What I’m Working On
Although progress has slowed, development certainly hasn’t stopped.
The Ironclads of Ferrosia pirate supplement is still moving forward, as is the new Stars & Lasers supplement. They’re just taking a little longer than I originally planned while I get everything transferred to the new software.
I’ve also been working on the new pirate ships for the supplement. So far I’ve designed twelve new vessels, and several have already been 3D printed. I’m hoping to get some paint on them soon so I can share them here on the site.
I’ve also been making some changes to the fantasy rules.
As the project grew, the main rulebook was pushing well past 100 pages once the army lists, spells and upgrade cards were included. After giving it some thought, I’ve decided to split everything into separate books.
The main rulebook will now contain just the core rules, while each faction will receive its own army book containing:
- Background and lore
- Army lists
- Upgrade cards
- Spells and faction-specific rules
I think this will make the game much easier to use. Players will only need the main rules and the army book for the faction they’re playing, rather than one enormous PDF covering everything.
It does mean a little more work for me, so it may take slightly longer to complete, but I think the finished product will be much better because of it.
Little Wargaming Worlds
The Discord community continues to grow, and we’ve now passed the 100-member mark.
The server has dedicated sections for all of my games where I regularly post previews, design discussions, and development updates. It’s also a great place to suggest ideas, discuss mechanics, or tell me what you’d like to see in future supplements and games.
If you’d like to follow the progress of my projects—or simply chat about tabletop gaming—you’ll find the invite link under the Community tab on this site.
Thanks for your patience while I work through the software change. It has been a frustrating detour, but progress is definitely continuing, and I’m looking forward to getting these projects into your hands.
