The Mecha Roadmap

(Click here for the roadmap)

We sit on the cusp of hitting our first stretch goal on the Mecha Combiners Kickstarter which means everyone will get (at least) a copy of Mecha Mercenaries!!  Mercs gives you rules for maintaining a mercenary company, negotiating a contract, and living the rough and tumble life of a pilot for hire while offering more choices for building mecha, rules for salvage, and everything you need for a mercenary adventure.

With that said, once we hit that $3,000 goal, it will be time to announce our $4,000 stretch goal.  That prize will be… well, I have no idea because backers are going to get vote on it!

And for backers to vote on it, they need to know what they’re voting on.  That’s what this post and the next are all about.

Before I get to the roadmap, I need to explain something

Tomorrow night, whether we’ve hit $3,000 or not, I am going to post the roadmap.  I figure there’s no reason to be quiet about it.  I might as well just tell the world, so that’s what I am going to do.

Still, before I list what we’re going to be working on, I want to talk about a piece of info that will be listed with each entry in the road map: status.  Each project is at some point in its development lifecycle and I wanted to let you know where that was.

So this post is all about listing the stages and tomorrow’s post will be the actual list.  Enjoy!  (Oh, and I publish this list only for clarity’s sake.  I by no mans think this list of statuses is what every company should use, merely what works for Mecha.)

Statuses

Idea- At this stage, a book is just an idea.  It’s still very much in the what-if stage and may consist of nothing more than a “Wouldn’t it be cool if we did…”  Mecha Kingdoms is a good example.  This game started with the idea of doing  Mecha meets Birthright.  Beyond that, it’s still very much in the concept phase.

Outlined- The HJP team has thought about the idea and now it exists written down (or probably typed as a Google Doc.)  There is still active thinking about the game, but it’s more concrete.  This is really the first step to making the game happen since it’s real instead of just an idea.  Mecha Gladiators is as close to this as we have since there’s a pretty good idea what the setting and rules changes are to support the game.

Playtest Draft Complete- This means that I, or one of the other writers, has put together a bare bones playtest doc.  I believe strongly that games should be playtested early and often and will playtest long before I have any real text.  I don’t really have a book that’s in this stage.  The closest is Mecha Living Robots, but even that had one horrendously mediocre playtest.

In Playtest-  We have playtested the game at least once.  As much as Ed and Jeff probably don’t think this is true, MechaWest falls here.  (They have the book basically done, we’re just tweaking the rules, but since it’s still in playtest, I don’t want to move it on to the next stage.)  The same is also true of the setting Dirge of a Dying Earth and Mecha Mercenaries.

Written-  The final draft is done and is awaiting editing.  The Sentai supplement for Combiners and a historical Japanese setting (both by Jacob Ross) fall in this category.

Submitted to the Editor- The manuscript is waiting in the editor’s inbox.  Right now there is nothing awaiting editing, but Reign of the Descended is close.

Edited- The book is back from the editor.  Mecha Combiners falls under this category.

Art Ordered- The book is edited and the art has been ordered.  We are now waiting on the artist.  Starting June 1, Combiners will be in this status.

Art Purchased- The art has been bought and paid for.  Now, all that is left is layout and printing.  No books are currently in this status, though Mekayana is close.  Technically, it’s done though.

Sent to Layout- The layout person has the draft in the inbox.   No books are currently in this status.

Laid Out- The layout person is done and we just have to print the book.  No books are in this status.

At the Printers- The book has been submitted to the printers.  Now begins the long wait until we can hold the book in our hands.  Sadly, no books here are.

Done- The book is ready to be sold.  Mecha and Mekayana both fall here.

So, that’s kind of a lot, but it does describe all the phases of book production.  I hope that helps for tomorrow.

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Greetings all, this is Wayne, your friendly neighborhood social media coordinator for Heroic Journey Publishing. I’m an editor, writer, and idea guy. This is really my first blog post for the Heroic Journey Publishing Website, mostly you’ll see me around Facebook, Google+, and Twitter getting the word out about our products, and trying to stay in touch with you, our customers.

I’ve known Chris and Mark for going on 4+ years now. They are a couple of the best friends a guy could have. They’ve embraced me with open arms, and then put me to work. The first major thing I worked on with them was Mecha.

Mecha is Chris’s baby, I heard him talking about this game since he was on the Canon Puncture show.  Mecha is his love letter to all those Mecha Anime shows he grew up on as a kid. I admit I got into Mecha some too; Robotech and Voltron come to mind. Mecha was designed to emulate those cartoons right down to the timing and it really does it well.

The release of Mecha at GenCon 2 years ago was a proud moment for all of us, but a friend of Chris’s, Daniel Perez asked him if it would do Voltron. Voltron for those that don’t know is a show about 5 Mecha Pilots and their Lion Mecha, which during times of crisis join together to form Voltron with his blazing sword, able to cut through any foe. Chris of course promptly told him no. But it set the ball in motion.

Chris and Mark Reed, the founder of Heroic Journey sat down and hammered out some rules while at GenCon for allowing you to use the Mecha RPG to play a game similar to Voltron, we call it Combiners and they kick ass. The rules are now written and edited and all they need is some art, and printing and we can bring this baby home. This ties into what we’re doing now.

Kickstarter is a website for crowd funding projects. This is a way to get the money you need to finish your product and get it into the consumers hands, based on the faith of your customers and backers. We have started a Kickstarter campaign to get the Mecha Combiners sourcebook the art it needs to be cool, and have it printed in full color, plus get you some nifty perks along the way.

As of this post, we’re nearing the funding goal of Mecha Combiners, but it doesn’t end there. We have some stretch goals that are pretty cool. You see we have a ton of Mecha stuff people, and by people I mean our customers, and us, have wanted to see. The first of which is the long awaited Mercenaries sourcebook. It is the first stretch goal we would like to meet, and after that we’re going to crowd source again and see what other product you want to see next. It could be Cold War Blues, Mecha Gladiator, or any number of awesome books that in partial stages of completion.  It’s up to you to decide when we meet the goals.

Also, the one thing that we wanted to make sure of was that we had a nearly finished book when we started this campaign. Mecha Combiners is written and edited. We’re just waiting on art and layout and it’ll be off to the printers. We would love it if you could head over to the Mecha Combiners Kickstarter page and check it out, watch the video and decide for yourself whether this is a worthy project or not. We think you’ll be happy with what you see.

You can find the Mecha Combiners Kickstarter here: Mecha Combiners Kickstarter

Thanks for letting me talk, and no matter what Chris says, “I’ll form the head!”

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More on Mercenaries later, but for now, here’s what the cover for Mercs looks like.  Thanks to Paul Bourne for being awesome.

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Combiners Cover Unveiled

The launch of the Mecha Combiners kickstarter is less than a week away.  It’s tense.  It’s nerve wracking, but it’s kind of cool, too.  In a little over a month from now, Heroic Journey might have enough money to do the book better even than we did Mecha core.  That means lots of big art and big prizes, too.

But until then, here’s something to get you excited.

This is the cover of Combiners!  Let us know what you think!

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Mekayana Has a Cover

The response has been astounding…amazing…and pretty darn cool.  We hoped that by giving away Mekayana, we’d be able to raise enough money for some sweet art.

And thanks to the gaming community’s generosity, we could!

In less than a week, we raised enough money to either do a few pieces of interior art or an amazing cover.  After some brief discussions, we decided that a cover would set the tone for the interior art to come.  And without further ado, here is that cover!

If you like what you see, we’d still love it if you’d download a copy of Mekayana and consider donating.  We’ve got a lot of art we’d love to see in the book.

Also, if you have donated, we’ll be emailing you a new PDF with the brand new cover art before anyone else can download it.  It’s our way of saying thanks!

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Wow, what a great couple of weeks it has been for Mekayana.  The gaming community’s generosity and the willingness to take a risk on a game product never fails to amaze me.

Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know that due to the amount of money we’ve collect so far, that we’ve decided to pull the trigger on the first art order.  It was a tough decision for us since we have enough to pay for a cover or several pieces of interior art.  After really thinking it over and wondering what was best for the book, we decided we would commission a cover and make it the best cover we possibly could.

Of course, the first step in creating a great cover is finding the right artist.  We looked for someone who had some experience creating art with the same themes as Mekayana.  It wasn’t easy, but we finally found elangkarosingo who is both extremely talented and willing to put up with my deluge of “hrmm…what if we tried…” comments.

And this is finalized sketch:

Pretty cool huh?  We’re excited to get the rest of it in and to add it to the downloadable PDF.

Please let us know what you think!  Hopefully the donations continue to pour in so we can commission even more art and make Mekayana the book we hope it can be.

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Mecha 2: Electric Boogaloo

For a few weeks, here at HJP HQ we’ve been hinting at some new Mecha supplements in the pipeline.  Well, after long talks with Mark, we’re finally going to announce Mecha 2: Electric Boogaloo the exciting new narrative-based mecha anime-inspired dance game.

This new version of Mecha will be a fairly radical departure from the original, but don’t worry, both will pack tons of awesome mecha action.  However, in the new version the Weapons stat will be replaced with Dance, Agility has been renamed Feet and Overdrive tokens will know be known as Getting Funky.

Unfortunately, because we’re a small game development house, we can’t have too many irons in the fire.  That means we’re going to have to bear down on just one or two properties.  Since Bounty Head Bebop continues to be successful, in order to support Mecha 2 Electric Boogaloo, we’ll be discontinuing or putting on hold indefinitely the following items:

• Mecha core
• Combiners
• Mercenaries
• MechaWest
• Mecha Gladiators
• Cold War Blues
• Mekayana
• Elemental Clash
• and Mark’s unnamed d% game

Sadly sacrifices must be made.

Our initial release date is sometime in 2014, but please check back for more updates!

Happy April 1st.

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Welcome Wayne to Heroic Journey

One of the best things about being a part of Heroic Journey is that I get to work with some of my best friends and occasionally even get to bring them in to the fold.  That’s why it makes me extremely happy to welcome my friend Wayne as a super-volunteer/not-quite-employee of Heroic Journey.

In his new quasi-official role, Wayne will be overseeing our social media, PR, web site, blog relations, and generally getting the word out about us and what we do.  It’s already paid dividends as he’s probably the reason you’re reading this right now!

Anyway, if you talk to him, congratulate him.  Being a super-volunteer at HJP isn’t quite the same as being a staffer for say WoTC, but I’d like to think it’s kind of fun and it’s not very stressful since we suck at deadlines!

Anyway, thanks again to Wayne!  We know he’s going to do big things.

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Get Mekayana

It must be strange seeing two blog posts from us in one week, but alas, it’s true!

We had to post because we’re giving Mekayana away to anyone who wants  a copy.

What is Mekayana?

Mekayana is Mecha meets Bollywood!  It’s missiles and leading men, lasers and dance numbers, nova bombs and star power.  And it’s awesome.

The book contains everything you need to play Mecha in Bollywood from a brief survey of the culture to a fully realized SRS with optional rules to turn your Mecha game into a mecha silver screen extravaganza.

Seriously, Jake Baker did an excellent job putting this supplement together and we really hope you enjoy it.

How do I get Mekayana?

All you have to do is click, let us know who you are and we’ll send you a free copy of the first official Mecha supplement (that means you’ll need Mecha core, but hey that’s a good game, too)!   Seriously, there’s no reason not to get it, read it, play it, whatever.

Then, if you like it, we’d love it if you’d consider making a donation.  Every dollar we collect will go to buying art and printing physical copies of the book.  Even better, everyone who donates now will get a PDF if we can get enough money to do the game right!

Thanks!

Oh, and if you need to buy Mecha Core, you can grab a copy at

Indie Press Revolution (paper)
DriveThruRPG (PDF)

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Don’t Count Us Out Yet

Rumors of Heroic Journey’s demise are greatly exaggerated.

The good news is that there’s a lot going on with Heroic Journey.   Literally, Mark and I talk every day about the company.  The bad news is that it’s all behind the scenes.

However, I believe in being as transparent as possible, so, here’s what’s going on…

Heroic Journey’s Vision for 2012

Okay, the end of February is a bit late to visioncast for a year, but better late than never?

Mecha

Mecha is most assuredly not dead.  In fact, prior to Gen Con, I’m hoping to have a flurry of activity on this front.

Mecha Core Rerelease

First and foremost, Mecha is getting a facelift and a bit of a reworking (mainly just some edits and such at this point, but the book will also be re-laid out.)  The new cover is sweet and we’ll unveil it soon.

I’m glad for the chance to redo the interior, but I always liked that cover so I’m kinda sorry to see it go.  However, we’re currently working out a deal to get Mecha into distribution and the new cover is seen as one of the book’s selling points.  More on that soon.

Oh, and in future posts, Mecha Core (that is the original MECHA role playing game) will be abbreviated as M0.  (M-Zero…it’s kind of anime-ish, yeah?)

Mecha Combiners

Well, it only took two years, but Mecha Combiners has been written and the editor has beat it into shape.  There’s also a cover for it and some interior art!  There’s only problem…we need more and we’re going to need your help!  Yep, we’re going to do a Kickstarter for Mecha Combiners hopefully within the next month!  I’m just waiting on voice talent and video editing for our Kickstarter video.

I’m really hoping everyone will consider contributing and if not everyone, then everyone who reads this.  Combiners will be a much better book if we can get the art funded and I have some amazing stretch goals if we can make it.

Oh, and in future posts, Mc will be Combiners!  (That’s why Mecha Core is Mo…)

Mecha Mercenaries

Most of my game development efforts on the Mecha line have been on this new book, which is a reformulation of the rules.  It’s kind of funny, but I’ve basically added a bunch of things back into the game that I originally took out.  The result is a book with more crunch without taking it too far from its roots.   Playtests are positive and an early release draft will be available to those who contribute at certain levels to the Kickstarter.

(Hint: This is Mm!)

MechaWest

Not going to say too much about this, but think Old West/Weird West with Mecha.

Mekayana

Can you say Mecha + Bollywood?  This manuscript is so awesome it makes me cry (or as I said on RPG.NET, it makes my eyes bleed.)  Jake Baker, a supremely talented writer and Mecha fan, wrote this bad boy and I can’t wait for you to play it.  It’s going to be available this month on a sort of reverse-Kickstarter idea we’ve got going on.  More on this later.

More Mecha

If that weren’t enough, we have an expansion for Combiners already purchased, a historical game using the M0 rules, Mecha Gladiators, an epic-scale mecha expansion, kaiju and a bunch of other stuff in the wings.

Elemental Clash

A friend of the company, Andreas Propost, who wrote the Elemental Clash card game, approached us about doing a role playing game adaption of his game.  We jumped at the chance and we’re now wrapping up playtesting on the game, which uses the 4C (original Marvel Super Heroes) rules.  Players take on the role of mages who cast powerful spells using inscribed runes, summon deadly allies, and duel for fun, profit, and saving the world.  Just about every mage is possible from the Old Wizard in his tower to an Indiana Jones-style mage and everything in between.

It’s been fun to work on a licensed product!  It’s been challenging to keep true to the original world, while expanding it and fleshing it out.  It’s been even more fun to try to adapt card game mechanics to an RPG, which we think we’ve done pretty well.  Andreas is doing all the art for the game, which will feature, we’re hoping, at least 100 pieces of interior art!

We’re targeting July 2012 for the release of this game.

I20

Some of you may know that the system that powers Bounty Head Bebop is called I20.  It’s a cinematic, rules-quick system and has powered BHB perfectly.  Right now, we have two new games in the works using the system.  The first is called Hexslingers and introduces spell-casting to the world (BHB has psionics, but the magic rules are different.)  The rules will slot into BHB with no additional work, but the game will come with 1-3 magic-related settings for players to explore.

The other game takes the I20 rules and overlays them on top of a space/naval combat game.  The results on this are promising, but it’s going to take a lot of extra structure to go from RPG to mini game.  Hopefully there will be something on this by the end of the year.

???

The last game that’s getting a lot of attention doesn’t really have a name. Mark, inspired by epic MMO/Skyrim style gaming, is working to capture that feel in a tabletop game.   The system is quick, light-yet-crunchy-in-the-right-places, and the way the campaigns are structured should blend the best elements of console RPGs and tabletop RPGs.  More on that when we can.

So, as you can see, we’re definitely NOT dead, but we are small and sometimes blogging falls by the wayside.  If you ever have any questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or visit Heroic Journey‘s Facebook page.  I’ll also try to do weekly posts.  Cross your fingers!!

Thanks and more soon!

Filed under: Announcements, Bounty Head Bebop, Elemental Clash, Hexslingers, Mecha | 2 Comments »