(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.

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!”

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!

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.

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)

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!

So after a bust of activity brought on by some really great games at KantCon, I have delivered the final draft of Mecha Combiners to the editor.  (Cue applause) As I sit back and reflect on the work, I keep thinking that “final draft” sounds so optimistic since I know there will be at least two rounds of back and forth between myself and the editor.  Along with rewrites.  Woot.

Still, for now I can sit back and relax.  And by relax I mean blog, work on Gen Con pregens, and put together the playtest drafts for Mercenaries, Transformables, and Kaiju.

With that said, I’m pretty excited about Combiners.  All of the playtests (once the rules got solidified) have produced some really fun games.  I just hope that my writing is up to the challenge of transferring the fun in the game to the written page so that others can experience that same enjoyment.  If not, I guess I can come to your house or game store and run a few sessions.

Also, the first art order has gone out for Combiners.  Hopefully the artist will take the commission because I like her work a lot and the right art will make this book come alive.

With that said, let’s look to the future…

The Schedule

Just so everyone knows what’s going on, here’s the schedule for releasing Combiners.

1. Submit Final Draft
2. Receive First Art Order
3. Edit Draft
4. Create a New Character Sheet
5. Create a Playtest Draft (This will be the full book without art.)
6. Release Draft to Public as a PDF
7. Collect Feedback
8. Produce Final Book with More Art

So, one step down…7 to go.

More soon.

Mecha Combiners

Ever wanted to have your mecha combine into a supermecha, form blazing sword, and
wreak havoc on you foes. It’s Combiner time!

Mecha Combiners is the first published supplement for Mecha and features new rules that
show off the sheer destructive power of a Combiner and a fantasy Japanese SRS in which
to cause mayhem.

Mecha Living Robots

A mecha is a robot linked to a pilot, but what if it was its own pilot? It could live and die
on its own, fight on its own, and maybe even transform.

Get ready for Mecha Living Robots. Built on the Mecha rules, this supplement gives you
everything you need to wage your battle between two robot forces: one obsessed with
dominating our world for its natural resources and the other that will stop and nothing to
protect us.

Mecha: Battle of the Kaiju

When giant lizards, apes, and invaders from outer space attack, only mecha can save our
planet. Join the men, women, and machines of Department 4 to protect our world or find
your own story battling against these terrible creatures.

Dirge of a Dying Earth

The Earth is singing her last note. Food withers on the vine. The young are born sick
and perish far before their time. She’s dying. Then comes a vision: an ancient crystal
that calls out with a promise of renewal and rebirth. A group of villages, armed with
machines of the past, must quest for the catalyst and the code for the chance to save this
world and themselves.

Mecha Mercenaries

War’s not just fighting, but an opportunity. Mercenaries fight not just for the glory of the
kill, but for the thrill of profit. Now, so can you. Mecha Mercenaries is an expansion of
the Mecha core rules, giving the game a grittier feel and featuring a new skill for pilots,
contract negotiations, and a SRS that takes pilots to the stars in search of the next battle
and their next meal.

Mecha: Operatives of the Cold War

Germany, 1950. The flames of World War II, the first to see heavy use of mechanical
tank walkers, or mecha, have cooled. The world Superpowers, the United Soviet
Socialist Republic and the United States of America, have settled into an uneasy Cold

War, each hoping the other will blink first. Fought in the dark of night, in the back allies
of a divided Germany, and in countries far away from the public eye, you and your team
of spies are all the stand between your nation and those who seek to destroy it.

Also We have some awesome freelancers who started as Mecha fans and now we’re honored to call them writers; 2 of whom we are planning on publishing and another we are talking to.

Jacob Ross’s – Paladin Service

The world is in danger and the only thing that can stop it is the Paladin Service.  Five teenagers are granted special powers and a mission to save the world.  Paladin Service gives you everything you need to run a Tokusatsu (Power Rangers) game with new rules, GM tips, and a complete SRS describing the valiant teenager’s fight against a great evil.  Also, Paladin Service features mecha  combiners for that additional mecha-combining awesomeness.  (Combiner book not required for play.)

and

Jake Bakers – Mekayana

All the flash and magic of Bollywood comes to Mecha.  The dancing, pageantry, and the leading roles combine with awesome mecha action for a giant robot experience like no other.  Mekayana builds on the Mecha core rules, giving you everything you need to stage your own mecha-ized version of Bollywood cinema, and adds optional rules for judging how well the audience loved your performance.

Comments are welcome and speculation is encouraged as we look forward to a great upcoming year of Mecha.

Mecha Combiners is coming. I currently have open on my laptop the first official playtest version pre edits and let me tell you its coming along nicely and it will be awesome.

Aside from that we have some nifty SRS’s coming in and they will be available soon… just give us a little time to format them. Enjoy.