Jon unboxes his backer rewards from Bad Squiddo GamesGhouls Kickstarter. There’s some chat about how we’re heading back to Kickstarter on January 30th to raise funds for two new backdrops books, plus A3 versions of the original two books!
Backdrops 2 cliffs notes: At launch there will be 2 new A4 books: • Fantasy Ruins and Tunnels • Scifi Ruins and Interiors
Plus A3 versions of the books from the first campaign: • Backdrops Book One (fantasy) • Sci-fi Backdrops
The third slice of Cold City Hot War Report is out!
In this free PDF, author Malcolm Craig takes a look at upcoming changes to the mechanics of the game, as well as a look at the technology of the Cold War era in which these two RPGs are set.
Back in December 2022, in light of the shifting landscape around AI image generation, we made the decision to stop using it.
We didn’t feel the way that technology was headed reflected the spirit of artistic inquiry and plain old weirdness that attracted us to it in the first place. You can read the statement we made back in December 2022 about dropping so-called “AI” image generation here.
We have continued to sell the remaining stock of books made with that imagery, but considered those books to be “legacy titles” – still available for those who wanted them, but with no plan to reprint them in their current form. We are now reaching the last few copies of those print runs.
We want to accelerate that process and to clear the decks for the new books coming in 2024. All of our Silver Road titles that historically used AI imagery are now 50% off until the 15th of January. On the 15th of January those editions will go away forever.
If you already have these titles in your DrivethruRPG.com library they will remain accessible to you, while being removed from sale. You’ll also get the new versions in PDF free of charge, so that you can enjoy any future updates to those PDF files.
What does this mean for the future of The Silver Road Games?
We’ve already replaced The Silver Road core rules with a handmade art version. You can get that here. The Silver Road continues!
We’re working on a new edition of Maskwitches of Forgotten Doggerland with some really unique imagery involving models, photography and digital painting. We’ll be sharing more of that in the coming months. We will run a week long crowdfunding campaign to gather interest in a print run of the new book. We will also remake The Meat Spoiler adventure, and release the upcoming To The Ice Caves without any AI imagery.
Maskwitches 2, which sees the focus shift to the Neolithic era and the end of the Maskwitches as they battle the construction of Stone Henge (!!!) remains in early production, alongside an as yet unannounced prequel game. More information on that soon!
In Spoons In Knives will be retired for now, and we have no current plans to do a new edition. That is not to say it will never return, but for now our focus is elsewhere.
The topic of AI generated imagery is a complex one, and much of the online discussion is extremely simplified, and difficult to engage with. In short, as a team, we believe what was initially a curious and exploratory phenomenon has become something else entirely. Several forks in the road, which would have allowed a much more ethical development of image generators were passed by in favour of easy profits, to the detriment of artists everywhere.
While remain committed to open-minded exploration of media, and despite some early art-driven explorations, we have have no further interest in working with this technology, as we made clear in 2022. Again, you can read our full statement on the topic from 2022 here.
Get ’em while you can. They go away on Monday 15th January, when that chapter of the Silver Road story comes to an end.
We’re starting part two with our full dry plinth and the modelling is all done. It’s now finishing time, and we’ll see this unlikely potato transformed into a useful and naturalistic looking plinth! Keep the faith!
The second Cold City/Hot War report is out now! These regular free PDF reports will bring you behind-the-scenes info, extra historical inspiration, and ideas on things to read to learn more about the Cold War period in the run up to the release of Cold City/Hot War Second Edition.
In Report Two author Malcolm Craig talks answers the question “Will there be any changes?” in the new edition. And the answer is yes. And in History Report Two, Malcolm has further reading recommendations on the topic of all history being provisional…
In the Jon Hodgson Backdrops books we mention that there’s a guide to making a scenic plinth to use with your backdrops on our website. And here it is!
In all of our own shots we boost up the model on a small piece of scenery to more easily cut the bottom of the book out of shot. There’s a guide to setting up your shots here, which includes the use of just such a plinth.
In this article we’ll run through the initial steps of hand-making a plinth. We should say in advance there are many, many ways to make such a thing. This isn’t necessarily the very best, or quickest way – it’s just how we do it. And you are of course to alter any of these steps, replacing any you see fit, or doing things in a different order. We find this way works well for beginners and is quite inexpensive. It also makes a great project to try with younger gamers/modellers. It’s a very forgiving technique.
Following last month’s Episode Zero, we bring you Episode One of History in Games, Games in History. Following Malcolm and Jon’s successful talks at UK Games Expo and Liverpool John Moores University, we decided to bring the same themes to a more widely-accessible format, and make it a series.
