Hello! 

We're officially in the slow, oozy middle bit of the crowdfunder, but you're all still here and that's pretty amazing. And, despite the apparent quiet, quite a lot's happening behind the scenes.

We've been talking to a possible US fulfilment partner, and it's good news: we now have a way to fulfil US and Canada orders from the US. This is, for obvious reasons, a hell of a lot cheaper than shipping every individual book from the UK.

The important bit: shipping The Mimic pledge (just the hardback book) is going to cost £7 (about $US10) and The Colossus (the whole bundle) will be £11 (about $US14-15 ). That's a reduction of 40-50% on what I thought we'd have to charge.

Seems like getting GPSR registered would be a benefit, eh? I've started talking to some possible services, so before the end of the campaign we might be able to take European orders. Fingers crossed... 

We've got quotes in for some absolutely wild luxury touches for the book, but I have to sit with them for a while so I don't just add everything with no regard for sound financial strategy or good taste. Anyway, more on that over the weekend, I think.

"Can you draw The Beast?" I asked.
"What's the Beast?" Lore replied, with the tone of weary resignation my art 'briefs' sometimes provoke.
"Big monster. Grrrrr. Very scare."
"...Sure."



And that's how we came to have this humongous rodent the width of a city street, dragging itself towards you by the strength of its gnarled claws. Is it too big to reach you? Definitely. Will that stop it? Absolutely not.

The point, here, is that while the Monsters in Meatbags are archetypical - we have concepts like The Beast, which has a buffet of powers you can swap in and out for werecreatures, prehistoric things, or a gorilla big enough to swat a helicopter from the sky - but they're not stereotypical. You can create classic movie monsters very easily, but you can also pick and (re)mix to make this urban wildlife nightmare.

Thank you for making it to the end of quite a long update. I hope the shipping's good news, and I hope you like Lore's two-headed possum (see the babies on her back? Cute!). 

Talk soon,
Chant

We made it to £3,500! That means LUXURY FINISHES!

Still haven't fully decided what, but this opens up a lot of options. Some of them are sensible, expected even - bit of metallic foil on the cover, or some unpleasant glistening on the cover monster's tentaces.

But what if I had blood dripping down the spine?

What if the cover glowed in the dark?

Anything's possible. I'll start investigating and see just how silly fancy this can get... 

We're officially making (at least) two microsettings! The first one's going to be a Twin Peaks-y small town. It's a good, default setting that you can place a lot of games in pretty easily.

But the second? Tricky.

There's an almost infinite number of possibilities, and I'd have fun with most of them. So what do you want? Abandoned space station? Gothic catacombs? Fog-blanketed Victorian city? Mini apocalypse?

If you've got a favourite setting for horror, or ideas of what you might like to see, or just strong feelings about favourite horror tropes or sets (I can mine them for inspiration), let me know in the comments! Hopefully we'll get enough that I can run a poll to make the final decision...

(It's going to be incredibly embarrassing if there are no comments on this update, isn't it?)

(Please comment. I need this.)

DICE! DICE! DICE!

We've just got the samples back from the dice manufacturer (we're working with Tabletop Dominion to create them), and they are looking pretty damn sweet, if I do say so myself.


We've got teal metallic inclusions, we've got copper inking, and we've got a swirl of red ink that, from certain angles, looks a lot like blood in water. Lovely stuff. Whether they look more red or more teal varies depending on the angle, too, so I've included a few shots for the full effect.

Those of you getting the Colossus pledge are getting these automatically. You can also pick them up as an add-on, if you're at a different pledge level. It's possible we'll have a few sets left at the end of the campaign, but it'll be just a handful, so if you want these, now is the time. 

- Chant

We're on the third day of crowdfunding and already nosing towards our fifth stretch goal. 

That you're getting two microsettings, proper rules for character advancement, and four pieces of chapter header art, primarily. Or, to put it another way, you're getting a more developed, sophisticated Meatbags experience. (This is the only time I will ever say "sophisticated" in the same sentence as Meatbags).

The core funding goal for Meatbags was to put this good game into a good book, that would allow you to play action horror one shot games. The stretch goals so far are all about giving you more book and more ways to play - giving you some settings to play around in to save on GM prep time, and giving you a more robust option to keep playing Meatbags, with the same characters, should you so desire. 

Hard to say, honestly. This has all happened so fast! When we planned out this campaign, we thought "eh, we might get £3k. That'd be nice." And, umm... we've nearly done that already. So now Lore and I have to sit in a delightful little coffee shop somewhere and think about how we can thank you, collectively, for your support without absolutely breaking the bank.

I'm told we should be seeing photos and video of the dice this weekend. Assuming they look good, I'll share them with you straight away. I've seen a sample that tested the custom face design (but was the wrong colour; I'm not showing it because it would only cause confusion) and I think those of you who made the brave decision to pledge for some dice, sight unseen, will be pretty pleased with your choices.

Our cross-collab partners, Eerie Games, are streaming their own Pocketopia game, Survivor Sorority, today at 12pm EST. Join them on https://www.twitch.tv/eeriegamesdev if you fancy a bit of afternoon slasher horror. Lore or I will probably be there cheering them on.

That's all! Have yourselves the BEST of weekends, and I'll catch you on Monday!

- Chant

Now, I have personally followed and backed a bunch of Pocketopia projects and I'm pretty sure a lot of you have, too. That means you've got a slew of launched/funded/streaming/doing a little dance emails in your inbox. So if you don't read this one, I won't be upset. But if you do...

THANK YOU!

This is Ex Stasis's first time on Backerkit, and it's like setting up for a party and wondering whether anyone's gonna show up - and you did! You're here! You want the book! Huge relief, honestly.

We're already halfway to our first stretch goal, which requires me, Chant, to actually put some setting in this book (shocking business). I'm thinking a creepy little Twin Peaks style town, but if we get to 50 backers (when. Hopefully when.) I might open it up to a poll so I can write what you actually want.

Also, Lore is getting really excited about making illustrations for this project, so hopefully we'll have more of those to show off soon.

I think that's enough update; see you at the first stretch goal!

THANKS AGAIN!!!
- Chant