BLM Donations and Best in Class Update
almost 6 years ago
– Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 02:33:22 PM
Hey everyone, Austin here, I'll be speaking directly again since I want to go over a few things.
First and most importantly, as protests continue throughout the country to support Black lives and end police brutality, I've contemplated how best to address this subject from a company perspective. Folks who follow my personal Twitter may have noticed a few donations and links shared but I've been pondering the best approach to address it as a company. My goals are to center those most impacted by the movement, as well as model actions to be taken to support that movement, but to not center ourselves. Valorous Games is a minority-owned business and Valor was co-created by myself, a half-Vietnamese US born citizen, and Quinn Gordon, a Non-Binary programmer and game designer, we strive to hire minority and LGBTQ+ creatives and will continue to do so. Additionally, I've determined that every month we will make a simple public post highlighting the organizations we're donating to that month, typically we will donate to one Seattle-based organization and one more national organization or an organization recommended by one of our creative team members that serves an issue they feel is important. The goal here is to center the people and organizations who are impacted and need support, and to provide a call to action for folks who are looking for concrete ways they can help. We will generally be targeting organizations fighting for justice and equality for minority (and especially Black) communities, as well as organizations fighting for justice and equality for the LGBTQ+ community.
This month, we donated to Black Lives Matter Seattle and the NAACP . As some of you may be aware, the protests in Seattle have been subject to brutal suppression by SPD, an unfortunate continuation of the city and the police department's long history of violence, especially directed at minority citizens. Both Black Lives Matter Seattle, locally, and the NAACP, nationally, are working hard to fight this, and while I would normally want to donate to LGBTQ+ organizations during Pride month, the urgency of the ongoing protests have taken priority, I hope to make up for it with our donations next month.
Beyond that, we are still hard at work getting Best in Class finished. We had a fairly serious setback with the book designer, our original designer was unable to provide the full suite of file fidelity we require for our master documents. Thankfully, we have begun working with a new designer who has been providing fantastic work at a rapid pace. We are in the process of updating our text document to be formatting complaint, after which the core design should follow soon thereafter and we can assess the requirement for remaining art and work to complete it. Once the core design is finished, we will be releasing the beta document digitally to all backers.
We appreciate everyone's support, especially with the issues caused by COVID-19. We applied for and have received some degree of government aid, and as I am again employed I feel we are in a good position to finish this book and get it printed. More to come soon!
COVID-19 Update and Bonus Content
almost 6 years ago
– Wed, Apr 22, 2020 at 01:52:48 AM
This is a partial-crosspost from our website.
Hello everyone Austin here again, thank you all for your well-wishes and understanding as we navigate the COVID-19 crisis. We have some great news on our end, as well as an early release of some fun bonus content as an additional thanks for your understanding during this difficult time.
First, I’ve received an offer for a position which will eliminate the immediate funding crisis. I expect it will take a bit of time to fully ramp back up (especially since I’m running into issues getting my Unemployment due to the strain on the system and my Valor operations being incorrectly classified as income), but my hope is that by mid-May or early June we should be back on track. Additionally, since we did have some distribution earnings, I have resumed production on Best in Class, the distribution earnings aren’t enough to complete the project but they’ve got us working again so hopefully we’ll be able to return to the project in full soon and get this finished.
As a reminder, our Valor store sale is continuing through the rest of the month, if you’re looking for a Hardcover book at $10 off or an eBook for justt $5, now is a great time to grab it!
Finally, we've posted some rules intended for release with Villains, Creatures and Foes on our website. These rules are free and open for anybody's use, check them out and tell us what you think!
COVID-19 Update
almost 6 years ago
– Wed, Apr 01, 2020 at 07:21:43 PM
Hello everyone, this is Austin MacKenzie, owner and lead designer of Valorous Games. I wanted to speak directly today to talk about the current situation, how it's impacted us, and how we're working through this. These kinds of updates are unfortunately common at this point in time, so I wanted to make sure to provide as much transparency as possible.
Some of our regular convention attendees are probably aware of this but others may not be - Valorous Games is a tiny studio and labor of love managed by myself and funded by my day job as a Procurement professional. I insist on a certain degree of professional production and design because that is the kind of product I want to make and deliver. In mid-February, just as the COVID-19 situation was starting to ramp up, I lost my job and haven't been able to secure a new one at this point in time. This, combined with the cancellation of Sakura con which has always generated a great deal of revenue for us, has forced me to place development on a temporary hold. It's important to note that I never ask for the full amount of money that I need for development, I always expect to fund at least half, often more of a product out of my own pocket and base my projects and available money around my monthly contributions so while the Kickstarter money has given me the ability to continue development a bit beyond the initial job loss, those funds have dried up and I have nothing available to replenish them with.
Fortunately, the state of Washington does have some money available for small businesses like ourselves who were impacted by COVID-19. The cancellation of Sakura con was by direct order of our Governor in response so we should qualify. I am working through an adviser with the Small Business Association to work to secure these funds, if we are able to do so it should theoretically cover the last bit of development (we have about 18 pictures left to complete and the final printing and import, so we're very close). I don't at this time have a time-frame as to when this will be completed as the state is, understandably, seeing a large amount of requests for this level of support.
With all this uncertainty, I am also exploring other options. I am working with the SBA to refine our business plan with the intent to court investors. It's always been my dream to eventually work on Valor full time, and while we are still at the small startup phase today there are a number of actions I am looking into that could exponentially expand our reach and profitability - so long as I can receive the funding to carry it out. Beyond that I am, of course, still searching for a new day job, postings and interview requests are starting to pick back up and we are somewhat fortunate in that Washington State's social distancing initiatives seem to have blunted the effect of the virus in our region which leaves me hopeful that securing a new day job soon isn't out of the question.
In the interim, I am doing whatever I can to secure funding. That is why for the entire month of April, we will be offering a $10 convention-level discount on all hardcover and hardcover+ebook bundles on our store, as well as a $20 discount on the base Valor ebook - if you've been interested in Valor but on the fence, you can now obtain a digital copy from us for $5. Please allow up to 24 hours to receive it - our process for sending ebooks is at this time still 100% manual (our web infrastructure being about as good as I can afford through self-funding, which isn't saying much). You can find the sales active now on our Storefront. The bottom line is I will get this book out come hell or high water, and I am working all of these paths simultaneously in hopes that at least one of them will pay off. Best in Class has hit me with so many unexpected production issues at this point I suspect it is driven by some kind of malicious spirit to thwart me, but said spirit underestimates my stubbornness. I WILL get this book out, one way or another.
And for those looking to try out a new system and taking advantage of this deal? I recommend Roll20. Roll20 is a great, free program for tabletop RPGs in general, and Valor co-creator Quinn Gordon has created a character sheet on it that will do most of the math and calculations for you, it makes creating characters and running the game so much easier and the online grid and voice features let you run RPGs even if Social Distancing has you housebound. We're currently testing new content through this platform ourselves using this exact character sheet, it works great.
Finally, there are a few things I am looking into, as this situation has, if nothing else, given me an abundance of time. With the help of my lovely, talented and all-around wonderful wife we're looking into an official Discord channel for Valor as a place for people to congregate and set up games together. Our primary concern is if a combination of bots and available people are able to properly mod it - if we were to host an official Discord it is imperative to us that all players feel welcome and included no matter their race, creed, sexual orientation or gender identity. Every Valor fan we've met thus far has been wonderful, and I want to make sure if we create this space you will feel valued and protected. The other thing I am looking at is, potentially, an early content release, perhaps through Patreon or some other platform, to get some of the finished material out sooner. The text from Valor: Villains, Creatures and Foes remains more or less complete although I am retooling the story text to make it more in-line with our setting as it comes together, so this would be a great way to release less polished but fully playable rules for people to test. I am also sitting on a fair few new mechanics for Valor: Tools of the Trade, the major book release I am working on for after Villains Creatures and Foes with expanded skills and abilities that I'd love to release to people sooner. I'm working on a few potential ways to release this and some of the content will likely be made available for free on our website either way, so there will be more information on that as we work on it.
If you are interested in any of what we've talked about, I'd love to hear from you! I'm opening up our [email protected] email to receive feedback, if you want to send some thoughts, wishes, or critiques please feel free to send it to that email. I understand folks are likely rightfully frustrated at the continued delay, as I am, and I want to make sure to give you the opportunity to be heard. It's tough right now, but I am confident we will get through this, and I am doing everything in my power to deliver on what I've promised. Thank you to everyone for being amazing, and I'll keep you all posted as things develop.
Note: This is cross-posted with our main website, there is no difference between the two posts.
Progress Update
about 6 years ago
– Fri, Mar 06, 2020 at 02:53:59 PM
Hello everyone! We're working hard to finish up the art backlog and get this off to the printer. As of today, we have 21 pieces left to be completed, we've added some new artists and will look to add a few more to finish the final push. We've got a few sample pages to show, please note these are all still work in progress and may be subject to change before final release.
On the character builder front the prototype is working well, with all skills and flaws input and functioning as they should. Next up is the Techniques, after which this should be good to launch. Once complete we will release it digitally to all backers immediately. Here's a screenshot of what the character builder will look like.
We'll have another update in a month or so as we continue to work through the backlog, stay tuned!
New Year Update
about 6 years ago
– Sat, Jan 04, 2020 at 03:31:36 PM
Happy New Year everybody! We hope everyone had a good, restful and fulfilling holiday. We're pleased to report that, with essentially an entirely new art team hard at work, we've made significant progress on artwork for the book and things are again moving at anticipated pace. Currently we have about 37 pieces left to complete, plus a few additional bonus pieces, we'll keep you updated as we work to burn down the backlog and get this off to the printer.
As we finalize layouts we're getting the graphics input for the finalized book, once this is completed we will look to release a digital beta ASAP no matter what the status of art completion is - we want to ensure this gets into backer hands as quickly as possible and again apologize for the major delays due to artwork issues.
The character builder is also progressing well, we're finalizing a list of skill and technique descriptions to be input into the system so the wording will ensure ease of use. Look forward to more information on that as well. Our hope is to have a better idea as to when we'll be able to start doling out more rewards within a month or so, look forward to more news in early February.
