Your Best Game Ever Is Underway
over 5 years ago – Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 01:28:36 AM

Monte is hard at work on Your Best Game Ever. His initial focus is on advice for being a great player. This is a critical aspect of Your Best Game Ever—there are many great sources out there for advice on GMing, but the GM isn’t the only one who contributes to a great game. Your Best Game Ever is a book for everyone around the game table, and will be filled with great tips for all players. Here’s a tiny excerpt from Monte’s work this week:

New writers are told “show, don’t tell,” all the time. Basically, it means don’t tell the reader that the mountains in the distance are beautiful, describe them and let the readers see it for themselves. This isn’t a bad approach to playing your character. It’s much more important to show the other people at the table that your character is crafty and stealthy than to tell them. There’s nothing wrong with telling them, too, but actions speak a lot louder than words. So right out of the gate, do something crafty and stealthy that everyone will remember. Sneak ahead and scout out the dangers and return with good information and a clever insight.

Our internal and external contributors are also starting work on their contributions. Over this past weekend Monte and Shanna were at Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin, where they were able to chat with contributors Matt Mercer, Monica Valentinelli, Tom Lommel, John, Kovalic, and Tanya DePass. We’re going to see a lot of diverse and interesting perspectives about quality gaming in this book!

Last Call to Join Us in the Actuality!

The Invisible Sun reprint Kickstarter comes to an end tomorrow. The original print run sold out before its street date, and we don’t anticipate any additional reprints of this game—so this may be your last chance to reserve this piece of gaming history.

Invisible Sun is Monte’s radical, visionary game of surreal fantasy and magic that is truly magical. Invisible Sun is an incredible production, a game unlike anything that has come before. This is the RPG Game Informer said, “sets a new bar for originality,” the LA Review of Books called “brilliant and revolutionary,” and Encounter Roleplay said, “isn’t just a tabletop roleplaying game—it is an event.” Step into the Actuality with us, walk the Path of Suns, and unlock the true secrets of reality. But hurry—the Kickstarter ends tomorrow!

We Invite You to Return to the Actuality (plus an update on Your Best Game Ever)
over 5 years ago – Fri, Oct 26, 2018 at 09:15:28 PM

On Tuesday we launched a Kickstarter campaign to reprint Invisible Sun, Monte’s radical, visionary game of surreal fantasy and magic that is truly magical. Invisible Sun is an incredible production, a game unlike anything that has come before—and it sold out even before its street date. We are now looking to reprint Invisible Sun, and we invite you to join us, reserve your copy, and get a bunch of extras and a great deal on a ground-breaking game.

The Invisible Sun reprint Kickstarter is underway now. Even if you backed the original Kickstarter and have your Black Cube, you’ll find some interesting deals on supplements and add-ons. And if you didn’t, we invite you to take a look at the RPG Game Informer said, “sets a new bar for originality.” Step into the Actuality with us, walk the Path of Suns, and unlock the true secrets of reality.

Your Best Game Ever Update

In other news, Monte is laying the groundwork for Your Best Game Ever even now, developing a working outline and planning the contents. He's going to dive in deep in November. Meanwhile, the whole design team has been working out a plan for incorporating Your Best Game Ever material into the new Cypher System Rulebook. We've even already had some further concept discussions for the various setting books.

On Halloween, Monte's running a horror Cypher game for some of the MCG team, and plans on testing out some of the Cypher Shorts ideas discussed in the Kickstarter campaign. 

Much more to come as we move into the end of this year, including new artwork, more details on books, some early comics, and intriguing conversations with our team of consulting experts! 

BackerKit is about to close. What’s next?
over 5 years ago – Sat, Oct 13, 2018 at 02:16:55 AM

Thank you from the bottoms of our hearts for supporting our Your Best Game Ever Kickstarter. You guys are—well—the best!

BackerKit for Your Best Game Ever closes tonight, and we’d like you to know the following:

• If you’ve completed BackerKit, thank you!
• If you haven’t completed BackerKit, there’s still a bit of time. Here is the link to access your account: Your Best Game Ever BackerKit.
• If you’ve upgraded your pledge level and/or made any additional purchases or upgrades, your credit card will be charged tonight. If your credit card is declined, don’t panic…it happens. We’ll contact you to see if you want to use a different payment method.
• The first rewards that will be fulfilled for this campaign are the original Cypher System Rulebook in print and the original Cypher System Rulebook PDF. The fulfillment message for these two rewards will be sent to you in the middle of next week.
• For those of you with playtest access, you get to look forward to hearing from us in spring 2019 for access to the first files!
• After delivery of the original Cypher System Rulebook in print and PDF, the next physical rewards for this campaign will be delivered in late summer 2019, so we’ll be heads down and hard at work on producing your rewards. If you need us, please use our Contact Us form.
• And last, but certainly far from least, don’t forget to tune in every Friday at 4 PM PT to cheer on the heroes of Callisto 6, a Geek & Sundry live-play production using the Cypher System!

~ Tammie and the MCG crew

PS: For those of you intrigued by Invisible Sun, but who are unable to purchase it because it is sold out, we thought you might like to know we’re thinking about a reprint. If you’d like to be notified about any reprint news, leave us your email, and we’ll keep you informed.

The Campaign Has Come to an Amazing End. What’s Next?
over 5 years ago – Sat, Aug 25, 2018 at 01:01:34 AM

Thank you for your amazing levels of support in making Your Best Game Ever, the revised Cypher System Rulebook, and all of the other books we unlocked a reality. This has been a really exciting Kickstarter campaign, and we could not be more excited to make these heavily-upgraded books a reality. I’d like to thank everyone on the MCG team who helped make this happen:

The design team, obviously, for their awesome vision: Bruce, Sean, Shanna. Bear and Zoa for the great imagery and beautiful products that help define that vision, and for their tireless work on the graphics for this campaign. Tammie and Charles, for keeping the wheels on the company while this was all going on. Darcy for interfacing with you, our wonderful community, here and everywhere gamers congregate online.

And of course to the many backers who embraced the vision of Your Best Game Ever and the new Cypher System Rulebook. These books are going to be so much bigger and better because of you. So thank you, really and sincerely. Here’s what to expect as we move forward from here.

This Evening and the Next Few Days

Running Kickstarter campaigns is rewarding on many levels, and we have greatly enjoyed interacting with you through these updates, the comments, social media, and so on. But it’s also a brutally hectic challenge to administer it all. And most of the MCG staff has been keeping up with our regular duties throughout—plus going to Gen Con, fulfilling Invisible Sun and Numenera Discovery and Destiny, and so on. So I don’t think you’ll be surprised when I say that we’re taking a short break.

Don’t expect to hear much from us this weekend. If you have questions, feel free to send a Kickstarter message, but don’t be concerned if you don’t get a response right away. Work on these rewards will be going on for the next year and beyond, and there isn’t anything that can’t wait for a few days. But don’t worry—we WILL get back to you.

The Next Few Weeks

Kickstarter began collecting pledges the moment the campaign closed. But it takes Kickstarter a full two weeks to release those funds, along with the data on our backers.

In the meantime, we will get BackerKit fully set up so we can open it when we have that data. BackerKit is a third-party platform that lets you confirm all the information we need to fulfil your pledge. If there are add-ons you’ve missed, or if you decide to increase your reward level, you can do that through BackerKit as well. You’ll be notified when we open BackerKit.

NOTE: Signing into BackerKit is vital to getting your rewards. Kickstarter does NOT provide us with the information we need to fulfil your rewards; we HAVE to gather it from you after the campaign. If you don’t respond to your BackerKit survey, we can’t send you any rewards!

Once BackerKit is open, we’re closing the shop for a little while. We’ve had a very busy summer, and we’re all going to take a week off in September. So if we’re quiet, that’s why—but don’t worry; by that time BackerKit will be up and running and there shouldn’t be any fires to put out. And we’ll be back in the office after our week off.

The Next Few Months

Once you’ve done your BackerKit survey, we won’t need anything else from you until it’s time to start fulfilling rewards. We’ll be busy crafting the products and rewards that you will be receiving next year and beyond.

At times during this period, you won't hear from us, maybe for a couple of months. Please, do not panic—we've delivered hundreds of rewards on time in the past, and we'll be working diligently on yours.

But at the same time, please pay attention when you do get communications from us. Our emails and Kickstarter updates include critical information about your rewards.

When Your Rewards Ship

Every time a reward is ready for you, we’ll contact you again by email to begin the fulfilment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free with a coupon, because you’ve already paid for it through Kickstarter), and check out. This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With more than 5,500 backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfilment period.) If you're an overseas backer or want to upgrade shipping, you'll pay for it at that time. Make sure you're paying attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards. 

 This was a grand endeavor, and we are very happy you chose to be a part of it. Thank you all for your support, and for letting us continue to make the sort of products we really love.

~Monte and the whole MCG crew

All the Books Upgrade Unlocked!
over 5 years ago – Fri, Aug 24, 2018 at 11:20:54 PM

Whew! Made It. It was close, there, but you did it. Utterly amazing. And now all the books get bigger and better. All of them!

Your Best Game Ever — 240 pages
Cypher System Rulebook — 432 pages
Stars Are Fire — 224 pages
Stay Alive! — 224 pages
Godforsaken — 224 pages
We Are All Mad Here — 224 pages

Thank you so much for all your support, your kind words, your enthusiasm, and your help in spreading the word. We’re very grateful for all of you.

Personally, I also grateful for the fantastic team here at MCG that we have assembled that make campaigns like this possible:

Shanna Germain, Project Manager and Managing Editor
Charles Ryan, COO and Marketing Director
Tammie Ryan, Administration Manager and Customer Service Queen
Bear Weiter, Art Director
Bruce R. Cordell, Senior Designer
Sean K Reynolds, Developer and Designer
Zoa Smalley, Layout Artist
Darcy Ross, Community Relations Coordinator
Kelsey Kennedy, Fulfillment Maven

—Monte and The Whole MCG Team