Free episode by Tomb of a Thousand Doors × Blister Critters!
5 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.
Surveys are out!
5 months ago
– Fri, Mar 29, 2024 at 07:37:18 AM
We've sent out surveys, so look for one in your inbox
If you don't hear from us today, we need to confirm your email address; DM me.
Reminder, Producer-tier backers, the survey has instructions on what direction to give Tony regarding your Stuff/animal illustrations. There is a big open field, so you have plenty of room to get creative.
Further reminder, you can only pick up the Producer screen (GM screen) + character sheet pad in the BackerKit store or as an add-on. This was not offered during the campaign proper because we didn't unlock it. But we decided to create the screens + sheets anyway. We're wildcards! Zany! Can't be guessed-at!
Point is, if you have a hankering for the lovely GM screen, please add it in BackerKit.
Thanks, all! More updates soon!
BackerKit is up: reserve your Producer screens! / Shipping estimates
5 months ago
– Wed, Mar 27, 2024 at 09:16:32 PM
BackerKit
We’ve set up the BackerKit Store, so you can now reserve Producer screens + character sheet pads! It was possible to combine these products and keep the cost low enough that we can offer both for $15, only on BackerKit. We think these game aids will be useful as you and your friends dive into the wide weird world of Blister Critters!
Note, we're also offering the official dice set and 48-card booster pack full of Beasts, Bliffs, and Critters.
In other good news, we’ve now set up our Kickstarter pledge surveys and requested a review from BackerKit. We’ll start the first round of surveys (the “smoke test”) soon, followed as soon as possible by the rest.
Producer-tier responses: new canonical Stuff and art!
Dear Producer-tier backers, please fill out your surveys before April 15! We need your ideas for new, unique, canonical odd products and animal illustrations in order to finish the book. We will try our best to work with whatever you give us—and we know it’s a tight timeline—but we cannot guarantee that we’ll be able to accommodate ideas that roll in after our own deadline to the printer.
If you have any questions that you can’t fit into the survey, DM me or email co [at] stillfleet [dot] com. That said, the survey answer is freeform, so you should be able to tell us everything there.
Shipping estimates
Finally, we confirmed with our BackerKit: shipping will be charged later (when we ship), based on the total weight of the orders. These are our current estimates based on global shipping prices:
USA, 0–2 pounds: $12
EU, 0–2 pounds: $18
Rest-of-the-world, 0–2 pounds: $20
Note, the boxed set is only estimated to weigh 1.5 pounds (and the book alone is only a few ounces), so most orders will fall into this category. We will have to develop estimates for larger weight categories, however, just in case. (If you’re a retailer and want to order lots of boxes or books, please reach out directly!)
Further reminder, you’ll only be charged for shipping later, after the printer ships the books and other game products to our distributor. More info when we have it.
Stay tuned!
We have more news coming, but that’s it for now. Tony is working on a massive art list. Jedd is almost done with the book edit, and Tony and I are responding to suggestions and requests for clarification.
And of course Tony and I are carefully reading through the Critter City Crawl game jam submissions. Thanks so much to everyone who submitted an entry: we’ve been overwhelmed by the range of fun ideas, mechanics, and illustrations!
More updates—and more art and free content—soon!
We did it, y'all!
6 months ago
– Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 10:58:36 AM
Thank you!
This is a quick update to express our gratitude to everyone who backed Blister Critters. Your money, project-scrolling time, and game-playing energy are all precious resources. We appreciate you donating any amount of them to supporting Tony's vision for a world where any RPG player can quickly whip up a fun mutant character such as a philosophical cockroach thief, a bad-ass armadillo boss, an inexplicably quick box turtle, or a vibes-mesmerizing echidna (e.g.).
Look out for updates soon regarding BackerKit, where you'll be able to pick up the Producer screen as an add-on.
Once BackerKit is up, we'll finalize the survey, which will include questions regarding Producer-tier content.
In the meantime, we're still plugging away at bringing the game to life. We'll share more art and specific milestone-updates as we have them.
Until then, thank you! You rock. This game could not rock without you.
Quick reminder
The Critter City Crawl game jam closes in 4 days! This is your last chance to enter a Blister Critters location/episode hook (1 page or longer) and possibly win a free boxed set! We'll give away our favorite locations bundled as free PDF after. Can't want to dig into these locations!
Final days / Dino shout-outs
6 months ago
– Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 10:15:51 PM
Final two days!
We're excited to enter the final days of the campaign and inexorably move from a focus on marketing to production. It's been an intense but rewarding journey. We've been lucky to reach a lot of players, GMs, and press so far, and we hope this is just the beginning. Thank you! (Shout out to Pint of Cthulhu for having us on twice—actual play coming soon!)
By the way, thanks to everyone who tuned into the double-header telethon on Sunday with Jenn De La Vega and a slew of special guests! Watch out for more updates and examples of actual play in the very near future. (I'd hoped to have uploaded the VODs from Sunday by now, but the files are massive.)
Seriously, thanks to everyone who checked out *six hours* of Blisterful mayhem!
Right now, Tony is finishing the cards. Our editor is reading the book closely. And I'm focused on editing video and setting up BackerKit… and of course diving into cool games by other writers.
Two more projects to shout out
One: there's another animal-themed post-apocalyptic campaign winding up right now. Children Of UMA: Death By Dino!—the latest addition to 3, 2, 1… Action!RPG—pits player characters on cars and monster trucks versus bad dudes riding dinosaurs. I really enjoyed the 3, 2, 1… Action!RPG zine about teenage punks fighting cops (and the Jersey Devil!), and Death By Dino has a similar punk vibe with the zaniness punched up to 11. Here's the official teaser text:
Drivers start your engines and ride it like you stole it in the ultimate vehicle battle RPG Children Of UMA: Death By Dino! Set in a post-apocalyptic Las Vegas where the primal force of dinosaurs meets the fury of machines, can you stop the mad scientist Exus Grievves from bringing the wasteland to its knees? Or will this be the start of a new paleolithic era? It’s up to you and the rest of the Hellsings to stop him.
Two: there's a vividly illustrated, kid-friendly story + game resource in the early stages of marketing that caught my eye. Big Empty Blue is a pair of graphic novels that include resources for DnD 5E. While I'm very much a writer first, working on Blister Critters has definitely made me appreciate the process of illustration-driven TTRPG design. Big Empty Blue seems to start with a graphic story and then build game tools around it. I'm curious to read the results. Official text:
Two graphic novels, 15+ resources for DnD 5E, a massive new world inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Legend of Zelda. Are you ready to dive into the Big Blue? Subscribe to their prelaunch page and get a FREE welcome bundle with creatures, magic items, maps, and a one-shot adventure at launch!
And if we make it to 20K, we're unlocking the Producer screen, which will be available as an add-on in BackerKit and come with a pad of character sheets.
We're so close! With any luck, we'll bring the screen to life. (If not, maybe we can create a print-at-home version? The art is so cool. That bird has a knife.)
