Hi Kickstarter fans and you amazing, loyal pledgers and followers.

I'm going to start off this update with the news I've been itching to reveal. 

THE ELITE ENCOUNTERS RPG IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!!

(click above to be taken to the pre-order news page)

Oh yes. We are definitively in the final stages now, and we're just waiting for the Frontier head honcho David Braben to cast his eye (but hopefully NOT his red pen) over the release candidate and give it his seal of approval.

We're almost home. Once that approval has been received, I've been told there would be minimal delay in being able to start fulfilling orders. The priority is to get you Kickstarter people sorted out with your copies of the book then fulfill the pre-orders, both from the new version of the site and the old (yeah, i forgot to mention that...site got redesigned. I'll go into that later).

The worst case scenario is that the proofread from DB comes back with changes to be made. If that is the case, then obviously there will be slightly more of a delay whilst those issues are addressed. The belief from Frontier's licensing contact is that following the detailed proofing from Michael Brookes and the amount of change that has already been implemented, there should only be minimal changes, if any at all. She has also noted that enabling pre-orders at this stage would be timely. So we all have our fingers crossed that Mr Braben will be kind to us and if anything needs to be changed, it will be easy and quick to do.

OK, so now that is out of the way, what's been happening for the last few weeks?

Well, the release candidate was handed in. Following that, there was a bit of back and forth about errata, edits and a few additions. Most significantly, the "GM screen" design was completed, and upgraded to what I'm calling the "Commander's Screen". I decided that something as useful as a screen should be usable for all players, so I expanded the concept to include useful bits and pieces for players too. The concept of a player's reference card was rolled into the GM screen idea to fulfil that task. The book still has the character generation reference within its pages, and the stand-alone version will have a quick guide to spacecraft stats on the other side. The bonus concept to this is that now, the Commander's Screen pages are included in the book as well to provide a quick-reference section there too.

Other than that, nothing much book related has been happening! It's all been about the waiting. We have updated and revamped the content on the website as well, reflecting the new design for the book's cover (revealled at last!!) and showing off some of the content. We hope you like it. We've also started looking into sales options and further POD options, including the potential for ongoing single-item orders for hardcopies and what to do if a bulk print run is requested or demanded (hey, you never know).

Then there's the question of other Kickstarter pledge fulfilment. Worry not, we're thinking about that too. Dice are top of that list, as are Dice Rings. We're hoping to start finally getting them out the door in the next couple of weeks. Then we will move on to sorting out the other design aspects of the pledges. Many things are moving, some of them slowly, but all progress is good progress.

Before all that, we at Daftworks Towers will be showcasing the FINAL DRAFT of Elite Encounters at Fantasticon 2017 this coming weekend (2nd and 3rd September). Oh yes. Dave (that's me) will be running sessions through the convention, and will be available for questions, pre-order stuff and general chat. If you haven't got tickets and would like to go, visit the above link or fantasticbooksstore.com for more details.

We'll also be at FRONTIER EXPO on October 7th at Here East in the amazing London Olympic Park. We won't be playing games and we won't have a stand, but we'll be in attendance and visible. Feel free to come and say HI and ask about the game!

That's about it for this update. Hope you've enjoyed it and as are excited as we are that the journey is almost over.

Dave.