PDFs are coming!
3 days ago
– Wed, Jul 24, 2024 at 07:27:34 AM
The Blister Critters Rulebook…
…is done!
Dear backers: we are locking down orders on BackerKit so that we can send you PDFs. In the coming couple of days, you should receive an email from BackerKit soon about the lock-down, followed by an email to download the PDF.
In addition, we’ve created a resources page for useful game aids such as fillable PDF versions of the character sheet (color and black-and-white), as well as a print-friendly Blister Tree. Major thanks to Aaron H. for getting this page live.
How cool is this book?
We are tremendously proud of it. Tony has put in a ton of time to perfect the book—working in all of your Producer-tier ideas, expanding on his initial thoughts about the game's cartoon-inspired playstyle, adding and refining rules, filling up a whole chapter worth of Stuff (all with mechanics!), and of course bringing to life page after page with glorious, boldly colored art.
The result is an approachable, all-in-one handbook, just shy of a hundred pages. Its visual and textual design is balanced on a knife’s edge between the innovative but legible mainstream of the OSR/NSR and the super-maximalist, hyper-eclectic, “punk”/metal vibes of the Borg books. We think it rocks, and we hope you will, too.
In terms of proofing, Jedd Cole, Tony, and I have gone over every page many times. That said, if you see a typo, please let us know on Discord!
Just one glorious page from the Rulebook.
Itch and DTRPG codes
We’re still getting the game up on Itch and DTRPG, but these codes will follow. Thank you for your patience.
Files are heading off to print!
We have sent all files related to the Blister Critters Boxed Set off to our printer for production review and, soon, physical proofing. We are still confirming a couple of small details, but production is moving ahead.
This week, Tony is working on the Producer Screen and the once-super secret Squirrel Queen Zine for early backers. The zine is almost done (all but one last proof); the resplendent oversize art for the screen is done (it's absolutely striking); and we’ve selected sections of rules for the back. Tony is just finalizing the layout of the back, and we’ll hand off final versions of these files to the printer soon.
Seriously, tattoo-worthy art—in this case, the cover the Boxed Set.
Other news
Shouting out a new Grit System game
In the background, we’ve been working with artist and writer Christopher Pickett on a new Grit System game, Danse Macabre. This is a deeply historical, OSR-adjacent medieval horror game that’s simpler in some ways than Stillfleet or Blister Critters, using 4 scores instead of 5. I’m mentioning it in part because Danse Macabre is also a game about acquiring mutations—although in a much more dark style, more inspired by anime and manga than by Saturday morning cartoons.
If you’re interested, you can pick up the pay-what-you-want early access edition, Danse Macabre: Prima Mors, on Itch or DTRPG.
Gen Con
Finally, we are headed to Gen Con soon! We’re running two official games, including an introduction to Blister Critters on Sunday. (I’m GMing that one: it’s set at a tattoo shop just behind the greatest temple of Stuff known to your Burrow—the mall…)
If you want to get in touch about Gen Con, please join the Discord and drop us a line. We’d love to see you there!
More news soon! Lookout for BackerKit emails—and enjoy the book!
Big production update
about 1 month ago
– Sat, Jun 22, 2024 at 10:09:24 AM
Almost ready to send PDFs…
Happy summer! Tony and I have been heads-down for weeks, finishing up all-things-Blister.
TL;DR: we are now very close, 90% done. Digital rewards should be headed your way in the next month-ish, if not sooner.
Imagine here, dear reader, a cool graphic showing bar charts that track the progress of each element in the box on its way from initial ideation (Tony writes down all of his amazing ideas; Wythe and the Stillfleet Studio team provide suggestions on rules, tone, and strategies for turning good ideas into maximally useful-to-players products) through development (writing writing writing, illustrating illustrating illustrating) into layout (o InDesign, our most steadfast frenemy) and then through proofing (thanks, Jedd! you freaking rock) and finally off to production (soliciting estimates, checking physical proofs, printing in China, shipping to our distributor in Tennessee).
Note, this cool progress graphic does not exist—because we have been busy doing the work! So instead, let me walk you through our progress…
Updates by item
The Blister Critters Rulebook
The book has been written, edited, illustrated, laid out, and almost totally proofed. All of the Producer-tier Stuff and Critters are now done. We even have a barcode!
We only need to proof a final few pages where content shifted during layout, including the interior covers, and then we can send off a PDF. At that point, you can kick off a full Blister campaign!
In the meantime, check out just a few amazing spreads:
The final book clocks in at just under 100 pages. Tony and I feel it is equally “full”—chock full of fun ideas and complete rules—and approachable—easy-to-use, not overly complex. We wanted a game that would appeal to a wide audience, including first-time RPGers—who doesn’t love cartoons?—and I truly think Blister Critters delivers. We hope you agree.
The Book of Ad-Libs
The smaller book is written, edited, illustrated, and laid out. Currently, Jedd is proofing it. You can use the Ad-Lib scripts both for framing episodes of Blister Critters as well as fun quick mini-games on their own.
These Ad-Libs were a blast to write! Tony had a clear vision: old-school fill-in-the-blank scripts for commercials that would fit right in to the world of Blister Critters without directly referencing the Rulebook. After all, these are presumably commercials created by humans—perhaps echoes of the world before the mutant Critters gained intelligence, or fourth-wall-breaking moments between the diegetic (in-game) action of the Critters. (We leave the interpretation up to you.)
Please let us know how you use the Ad-Libs! Should we come up with more, different commercials for future Blister Critters books? Should we try to get Tony to animate one of these…? 👀
Blister Cards: Sunscorched Suburbia
The cards are written, edited, illustrated, and laid out. Currently, Jedd is proofing them. They came out perfectly, both filling out the core visual style of the book as well as introducing a greater diversity of visual Blister-styles.
Since there are 48 cards in this first set, we were able to explore a range of scores, powers, and narrative hooks. While many of these animals are bestial and/or bad, not all are game-term Beasts or Bliffs. Several can be Critters from rival Burrows, or even super-light pregenerated characters!
As with each element of the boxed set, we can’t wait to hear how you use the cards in your own games—and what we should include in future decks!
The Tons-o-Stuff Mega-Poster
Tony is converting the Stuff chapter of the book into a giant double-sided poster. This is meant to be 1) a beautiful piece of wall-art and 2) a useful aid to gameplay. More to come soon.
The Producer Screen
Similarly, the art for this is done, and now that the book is final (ish), Tony can now start porting over the most useful content into the screen. More to come soon.
The Squirrel Queen of Atlanta Zine
To come after the box elements and the Producer Screen.
The Critter City Crawl Jam PDF
I know—we have to do this! We’ll get to it after sending the boxed set off to print.
The present
Currently, Tony is finishing… all of the above. I’m helping Tony with final edits of some pieces and Jedd with final proofs of others. I'm also coordinating with our printer and distributor to make sure production and shipping happen smoothly. And Tony and I are working on our production partners on a retail strategy so that—after we’ve fulfilled all of your orders—we can bring the game to more players.
Stay tuned—and stay cool!
Critter City Crawl Jam winners / Production updates
2 months ago
– Fri, May 17, 2024 at 12:17:03 PM
Critter City Crawl Jam winners
Howdy! Sorry for the delay in providing updates. We've been extremely busy editing and—mostly, in Tony's case—illustrating and laying out both the Blister Critters Rulebook and the cards. Updates below!
But first, we will announce the winners of the inaugural 2024 Critter City Crawl Jam on Itch.io.
There were so many great locations, new Beasts and Critters, illustrations, uses of Blister-tastic yellow and pink, and lists of fun Stuff—y'all made it extremely hard for us to decide on a winner or even a short-list. Major thanks to everyone who submitted.
We took our sweet time reading and re-reading everything, chuckling at your bizarre creativity. Of 31 total entries, we have selected 11 to publish in a free PDF. Look out for that in the near future!
Here is the list of winners, whom we'll contact on Itch:
Overall winner
"The Rumor Mill" by RedSquirrel93 – They win a free Blister Critters Boxed Set!
Thanks again to everyone who took part in the jam. We hope you had fun. Who knows—perhaps we can host another jam next year to further expand the world of Blister Critters… Hit us up in the comments if you'd participate!
Production updates
The rulebook is now fully laid out, and all art is drafted. Our amazing editor, Jedd Cole, is hard at work proofing the book. It's looking very clean, just a matter of perfecting various callout styles and filling in a final few blank spots.
The book clocks in at just under 100 pages, so we're still good with our initial estimates re cost and shipping. It's a pleasure to flip through, feeling both full enough to support any number of game sessions as well as light enough to not scare off first-time players. We will share screenshots after this first, heaviest round of proofing wraps up, and as we receive printed proofs.
In the meantime, Tony and I had a great time writing The Book of Ad-Libs together, which I and then Jedd will edit once Tony finalizes the InDesign template (so we know final word counts to aim for). This is a very fun short book that we're proud of. We hope it adds something unique to your gaming tables, even if you use these fill-in-the-blank commercials on their own or in other games. (They'd work just as well in any modern setting, or as time-fillers among friends, regardless of the TTRPG.)
Finally, all 48 cards featuring Beasts, Bliffs, and NPC Critters are written, edited, and illustrated. Tony just has to lay them out, and we have to proof the layouts. For now, enjoy a peek at a few of the card-fronts:
Arcade mouse!
Cat thief!
Gatcha-gumball Bliff!
Two-headed rabbit!
Timeline
The following is purely WILD speculation on Wythe's part and subject to change due to printer issues, Bliff attack, etc.
We hope to have all creative work on the rulebook, Ad-Libs, and cards finished in the next three weeks (early June) so that we can send these files off to the printer. Tony will then finish the various other pieces of the Boxed Set (the poster, card tuckbox, and the big box itself) as well as the Producer Screen. This means we may be working through June, in conversation with the printer, which likely means shipping rewards some time in the fall.
That said, you should receive a PDF of the final rulebook within a month. So get ready to play some games!
That's it for now. Stay tuned for exciting news regarding NEW Blister Critters projects that are already in the works… Goodbye and hooroo for now, friends. Happy gaming!
Reminder: please complete your BackerKit survey!
3 months ago
– Mon, Apr 15, 2024 at 01:43:18 PM
Dear backers, quick reminder: we really need your surveys, especially if you backed at a Producer tier (unique Stuff callout, or unique Stuff callout + unique art).
If you don't see your survey, please DM me or, preferably, email co [at] stillfleet [dot] com. Usually, the email just gets caught in your spam filter.
Thanks to everyone who has supported the game, and expect more substantial updates with art soon. By way of a quick one:
The book has been edited! Jedd is wonderful and extremely fast!
Tony has written 252 items of Stuff, broken into various tables by room, for the main book and poster. That's a lot of Stuff!
Tony is working on the 48 cards, which we'll show off soon.
We're planning some ongoing content in the form of episode scenarios to help y'all get playing…
More soon!
Free episode by Tomb of a Thousand Doors × Blister Critters!
4 months ago
– Thu, Apr 04, 2024 at 05:14:56 AM
Meet the Critter of a Thousand Blisters…
We’re very excited to announce the publication of a free standalone episode in collaboration with the crew behind the community-led Mausritter megadungeon, Tomb of a Thousand Doors.
Inspired by Stranger Things and home-shopping television networks, this delightfully weird romp mashes together the OSR-inflected dungeon-crawling of the great mouse game and our own signature obsession with (human) Stuff. It's a single-location, single-villain story driven by random tables making fun of consumer culture. And it features art by both our own Tony Grasso, creator of Blister Critters, as well as Piotr Kuberkiewicz from the Tomb of a Thousand Doors team.
The story: the Critters have fallen through a portal into the Static Zone—an inter-realm that links all of the universes in which humans have disappeared and animals taken up the reins of the earth. This strange and foreboding place, covered in TV-static snow, is home to one very curious Beast: a giant centipede now imbued with all of the powers of TV advertisements and infomercials… (Think Max Headroom meets… a giant centipede.)
"The Critter of a Thousand Blisters" was written by Wythe Marschall, Anthony Grasso, and Matthew Morris. The episode will be published in the print editions of both Tomb of a Thousand Doors and the Blister Critters Rulebook, enhancing books with one more playable scenario! Note, for that reason, the episode will be slightly different in each book, with modified mechanical language for one game or the other.
