April

Hello Natives and Newcomers alike! I am so excited for this month's update as we have a huge announcement to share... 

New Cover

We have decided to ditch the covers we had originally planned for the Recontact edition and instead commission a more serious, realistic and forbidding take on the Blue Planet universe. One that evokes the true conflict, pathos and hopelessness inherent in the setting. 

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only water!

Slipcase

More seriously, I am excited to share the layout for the slipcase for the Recontact book set. I love the clean and evocative design and am confident it will stand out on any RPG bookshelf.  (And yes, I notice as I post this that the key graphic is taking a bite out of the edge of the map. No worries - we'll fix that.)

Production Update

Alan, our publishing partner at Gallant Knight Games, has some even more exciting news. The blanks are done, and the first test book should be coming off the press as we post this update. There was a brief delay sorting out the spot UV on the title, but unless something else unusual happens, we should be set. The printer is sending us a review video of the test book, but if that's all good, we'll be ready to print!

March

Final PDFs

Depending on how you use the platform, you may have noticed that we recently updated the Blue Planet: Recontact PDFs on DriveThruRPG. The updates are small but essential and represent the final digital versions of the books. The updates include the actual page two of the character sheet and the addition of the global homolosine and full Pacifica Archipelago maps that will be the end papers in the offset books. We also made a couple of section header corrections that we had missed in the original files.

Goode Homolosine Projection of Poseidon

If you've already downloaded your copies, you can re-download the updated versions now at DriveThru. If you have yet to download your PDFs, what're you waiting for? 

Physical Books

The Lunar New Year's holiday is over, and our printer is back at it. We are anticipating the arrival of digital proofs imminently, followed shortly thereafter by unbound physical proof pages. The printer is also mocking up a proof of the slip case, but that will take a bit longer as they have to determine the final dimensions of the actual books before they can finalize the case. 

Thank you for your continued patience and support.

February

Time for the February update, though truth be told, we are in that stage of production where there is not much to share. Accordingly, I pass on these brief words from Alan...

From Gallant Knight Games

"At the moment, the printer is on their Lunar New Year holiday, so progress is quiet. But we’ve received all the final templates, so we’re using the downtime to verify and review the bleeds, ink coverages, and all the other little details that go into making books. As soon as the printer is back at the presses, we’ll be off and running. At that point, we'll have some details to share on shipping schedule estimates to GKG HQ for the splitting of shipments for fulfillment."

Red City

Unfortunately, work schedules have kept us from continuing the backer mini-campaign I teased in January's update, but I hope to be able to share more of their Coen Brothers-style adventures in the next update. 

I can, however, share about another Blue Planet-adjacent one-shot I have run a couple of times now as proof of concept, exploring both an expanded setting idea and a new core game mechanic.

The setting is a future history version of Mars in the Blue Planet universe. The tropes and tone are inspired by Bladerunner, Cowboy Bebop and Detective Miller from The Expanse, and they are intended to tell gritty, sci-fi noir stories. The mechanics are my attempt to apply 'bag-building" from board games to roleplaying, where the bag is your character sheet and its contents are all you need to mechanize your character. 

I'll admit that the mechanics are not quite there yet, and I have sort of stalled in refining them. The setting, however, still excites me, so for those who might actually be interested, I offer the introduction from the one-shot I've been running as a sort of primer...

Mangala Landing. The Martian capital. Most just call it Red City because of all the dust. Or the blood. I guess it used to be something. Now it’s a just another Martian shithole, slowly choking to death on bad air, corruption and fear. Two million stories on its dusty streets and none likely to end well.

Terraforming’s slow, so the planet’s still arid, cold and red. Don’t go outside without a respirator. Under the leaking domes, if it’s not depressurized, obsolete or broken down, it soon will be. The mostly abandoned Perimeter rings the city. The subterranean warrens of the Old Colony are haunted by the ghosts of the desperate. Sand Gate, Scour, Crimson and Noctis Hives separate the Perimeter from the Core and the Haves from the Have-No-Certificates. The farther in or out you go, the higher the risk of running into one kind of crazy or the other. The farther out, the more likely you get caught out by Remnant. The farther in, the heavier the Directorate’s boot on your throat. 

Martians used to have hope. They were proud. Believed the terraforming was making a new world for humanity. Sure, the Families were arrogant, decadent pricks, but they mostly kept things running. Then came the nano and everything changed. Nanotech gutted the Belters’ economy overnight. Mars orbit emptied out, and terraforming became self-sustaining - at least until the tech went feral. The Meltdown killed a quarter of the population before the Public Authority’s counter swarms fought it to a standstill. The Remnant still kill thousands every year, but I guess that’s a price we just have to keep paying.

When the off-worlders put up the Blockade and shut – or shot – down all travel to orbit, that’s when things went from bad to worse. I was just a kid, but I remember the riots over food, water and fucking printer access. The Families expanded their militias and abandoned all pretense of being Mars’ benevolent caretakers, desperate to keep control over vital resources in what could have been a post-scarcity world.

The Martian Directorate is just more Family bullshit – an executive arm, used to legitimize their control over every aspect of life on the planet. The Martian Senate, their political puppet, is all but powerless. The People’s Authority – the Directorate’s municipal services branch – has become just another corrupt extension of their control. PA departments, like Sanitation, care less about feeding people and protecting them from feral nano and more about enforcing printer certificates and raiding unlicensed fabricators.

And then there’s me. Just another tool of the PA. I thought becoming a Public Attendant would mean I could make a difference. Help some people. Sort the right from the wrong and maybe get those who needed it some of that post-scarcity promise. I was an idiot. Still am, I guess…

January

I don’t know if you all prefer the good news first or the bad, but I’d rather just get the bad out of the way.

Unhappy New Year

As excited as I was last month to announce that we were working with Sheridan Printing here in the US, I am equally bummed now to share that we have been forced to go elsewhere to print Blue Planet. Sheridan just informed us their current production schedule would mean that the books would not actually go to press until July! Apparently small press orders are deprioritized when bigger orders come in, and given the threat of increased import tariffs and the resulting increase in demand for domestic printing, Blue Planet was bumped down the queue.

Given the already considerable delays, we are unwilling to wait and have ordered samples from an alternative printer – one back in China. Alan at Gallant Knight Games has been working overtime through the holidays to sort out the new printer, and though we cannot say at this stage in the switchover exactly what the new timeline will be, I’ll post it here as soon as we know it.

No one is more bummed about this turn of events than me, and all I can do is ask for your continued patience. If you’d told me ten years ago that political posturing would someday impact the publishing of something as trivial as RPGs, I’d have been incredulous. Now it’s just ridiculous.  

Good News Second

There is a thin silver lining in this bummer of a dark cloud, however. The new printer is able to produce the slip cases in-house, which will greatly simplify the process, providing a much better product and a more accurate fit. Additionally, it’s the same company that prints books for Free League Publishing, and if you are familiar with their products you will know that they are arguably the prettiest books in the industry.

And there’s more good news. Last month I posted a couple of pics Alan shared of the proof copies we got from DriveThru RPG’s print-on-demand service. I have since gotten those copies into my own hands, and it is gratifying to finally hold physical books after all this time. Despite being PoD products, they look every bit as good as many offset RPG books. They lack the HD printing, paper quality, richer colors, end paper maps and place-marking ribbons that will be featured in our reward books, but they make me excited for how phenomenal those final books will be with all the enhancements and production upgrades.

The combined thickness is 2.5in (6.3cm), and together they weigh in at 5.1lbs (2.6kg). I’m not sure those measurements are relevant to anyone but the shipping company, but they at least provide some context to the pictures. Though our intention is not to release access to PoD BP until the offset books are delivered, it nonetheless feels good to have such a tangible proof of progress.

It's a Game After All

Even in the face of frustrating setbacks, it is good to remember that Blue Planet is a game after all and that with the delivery of the PDFs, it is one you can play! As you may recall, some of the higher pledge levels included some online BP with yours truly. The swankiest of these as a five-session mini-campaign. The backer and their family started this game last week, and so far we are having a blast. They are a found family running a native/newcomer underwater salvage company - ReFound Salvage. Incorporate intrigue, criminal conspiracy, rival malfeasance, hungry wildlife and a bunch of other stuff I have to redact since he reads these updates are all swirling together provide a Coen Brothers-esque story. The kind characters hate and players love. I'm calling it Bottoms Up.

And speaking of playing games, I'll be attending OrcaCon at its new location in Sea-Tac, WA, on January 10-12. I’ll be running both Blue Planet and Upwind sessions and hosting a Gaslands race. If you are local to the Seattle-Tacoma area and want meet up or play some games, reach out. Last I checked, there were still seats available for both RPG sessions, and I’d love to run a game for you.

December

Some exciting news for the November Update…

Off-Set Printing

We have been quiet about a change of plans because we wanted to make sure all the details had been worked out before announcing anything, but now I’m super-excited to share!

These days, most US-produced RPG books are printed in China. The cost is always cheaper, but there are lots of complicating issues – language barriers, asynchronous communication, long lead times, production interruptions for Lunar New Year observances, higher environmental costs, loooonng shipping times, not to mention potential, pending political impacts on both tariffs and customs.

Accordingly, we’ve been working to move production to the US, specifically to Sheridan Printing. Not only will this help us avoid - or at least mitigate - the potential issues I noted above, but there’s also a fun bonus! Bang Printing (who produced first edition Blue Planet) is now part of Sheridan, so in a way the game has come full circle. Bang was amazingly generous and helpful back in the day as we raced to make a deadline with the 1st edition, so it makes me really happy to have the project back with them.

Slipcases

November progress was limited by, of all things, the slipcases. Slipcases have to be precisely fitted to the size of the specific books, so most printers outsource them after the books are done, adding up to eight weeks to the overall production times. Sheridan can produce the cases simultaneously, saving us up to two months! 

Print-On-Demand

Through our partners at Drive Thru RPG, customers are able to purchase Print-On-Demand versions of the PDFs they sell there. For those unfamiliar with POD, the process basically uses industrial copiers to print one-off, hard-bound, full-color books. While they are great quality for what they are, the typical POD book does not have the image fidelity, color matching and physical quality of off-set printing. Still, for some applications, it's a viable option. It's particularly valuable for small printing houses such as Biohazard, allowing some to provide the only physical versions of their PDFs or to extend the tail on the physical existence of a game line as off-set print runs sell out.

Accordingly, we have been testing the process for Recontact, and though it won’t be going live until we deliver the core rewards, I thought it would be fun to share some images of extant (albeit POD) versions of Blue Planet: Recontact!

November

Welcome Natives and Newcomers alike, to the November update!

As I shared last month, we are in that part of the Blue Planet project where we won’t have much to offer production news-wise for a while. Save for a few tweaks on the printer files and logistics stuff, there’s nothing to report at the moment. I anticipate the next notable milestone will be our receipt of the first production proofs, which I am super-excited to see and share. Alternatively, I thought I would offer some other fun news and provide some supplementary Recontact adventure resources.

WildWeaver Recontact Fundraiser

My good friend Rich Howard - one of the OG champions of Blue Planet and a contributor to the new edition - runs WildWeaver HSE with his wife. WeaverWild provides after-school and homeschool enrichment programs in East Texas. They offer a wide range of small class groups teaching science, math, creative writing, 3D printing, art, natural exploration using board, card, and roleplaying games to build kids’ excitement about learning.

WildWeaver is hosting a series of fundraisers over the next couple of weeks, and Rich has invited me to run a Recontact game this Saturday, Nov 2nd, at 7.30p PT. If you want to check it out, you can support a great cause and get some insight to how I like to run the new Blue Planet system.

Natural Instincts

The scenario I will be running for the fundraiser is an oldie but a goodie - a convention demo I wrote years ago back in 1st edition days - but it remains one of my favorites. I will actually be running a Recontact version of the Natural Law variant of the scenario, as it gives players a lot of roleplaying grist right from the jump.

Though long time BP players probably already know about Natural Instincts, if you are interested in checking it out you can find the original write-up here. For those interested in using the scenario with the new rules, I have included some Recontact pre-gens so you can dive right in... 

WeaverWild Fundraiser

WeaverWildHSE provides after school and homeschool enrichment programs, as well as childcare and Parent Nights, in support of families in rural East Texas. We offer a wide range of small class groups teaching science, math, creative writing, 3D printing, art, natural exploration, and using board, card, and roleplaying games to build kids’ excitement about learning.

October

Splashdown

Since the first of these monthly updates I have been leaning on the thematic analogy of a trip back to Poseidon - leaving earth orbit with the Kickstarter success, passing the outer planets when drafts were submitted, transiting the wormhole when the editing was done, entering orbit as the layout started coming in. If I may continue without stretching the comparison too thin,  it feels like our shuttle has finally splashed down with the final PDFs and that we are being towed to the Haven docks as the files head off to the printer. 

During the printing phase, the project will mostly be out of our hands. We will be reviewing proofs as they come in, but most of the work will simply be waiting until the books come back and orchestrating distribution. It means that this, and the next couple updates, are likely to be a little thin on first-hand progress reports. It’s simultaneously exciting and anxiety inducing… 

Final Covers

I do get to share - first hand - the final cover designs however. We considered more complex title graphics, but in the end decided simplicity best complimented the layouts and was more readable in the complexity of hues. You may notice we did change from white to various blues however, as the color’s in the name after all. 

Pledge Manager and Preorders

The Pledgebox site has been up and running for a week now, and it's going well. If you have had any issues or questions, please know that Alan at GKG is working through those, and if still pending, you should have resolution shortly. In the meantime, please consider passing on the link to gamer friends who you think might be excited to visit Poseidon. 

Storm Surge

Now that the books are out of our hands for the time being, I can turn my full attention to the Storm Surge campaign. I have been giving possible formats a lot of thought, and I may have finally settled on a structure. 

Given the restrictive word count limit, I think I am going to present the story as a series of nodes - each detailing a key event or featured setting element that would play out or develop in specific ways without player character intervention. I’ll itemize ways that each of the three character parties could encounter, engage or otherwise become entangled with these events and allow lots of open sea room for any given group’s particular characters and play style. I’ll offer possible outcomes and paths to subsequent nodes, recognizing that the scale and intention the campaign requires maximum flexibility.  

This means that the final product will be more a campaign skeleton than a body of fleshed out narratives or encounters, and that it will be up to moderators and their players to add their own…meat…to the bones through play. (Ok, that analogy got away from me, but you get the idea).

First Underwater SF

Last week I stumbled on this quote from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and was bummed that I came across it too late to put it in the core books. It is perfect however for Storm Surge, so it will feature on the campaign’s title page. 

“May the contemplation of so many wonders extinguish forever the spirit of vengeance! May the judge disappear, and the philosopher continue the peaceful exploration of the sea!” - Jules Verne

First published 1870, it astonishes me how ahead of his time Verne was. Not only did he get so much right about submarine technology, but over 150 years ago he understood the threat posed by imperial exploitation of the seas, and in understanding, created Captain Nemo, one of the first anti-colonial, environmentalist heroes of modern literature.

Community Building

The following links will take you to various online venues were you can engage with other Blue Planet enthusiasts. RPGs survive (and sell) based on their player communities and word-of-mouth, so please spread the word. 

Biohazard Games Website

Official Biohazard Games Forum

GKG's Blue Planet Discord

Blighted Mike's Unofficial Blue Planet Discord

Blue Planet: Recontact Pledge Manager and Pre-Orders

I am super-excited to finally share the news I imagine many of you have been waiting for. After years of very hard work by some very talented people, we are about to go to press on Biohazard Game's latest RPG project, Blue Planet: Recontact. 

Though the original Kickstarter campaign is long over, if you are interested in a trip to the frontier waterworld of Poseidon, I would like to invite you to check out the new pre-order page. 

Blue Planet presents a deeply immersive, richly detailed and uniquely compelling role playing world of hard science fiction, dramatic sociopolitical tension and strong environmental themes. If this sounds interesting to you, please check out the game and maybe dive in for a swim. The water is amazing...

Thank you for your consideration and support!

Blue Planet is a compelling RPG journey into humanity’s precarious future on a distant water world where political unrest and a hungry alien ecology threaten the nascent colony. A planet where GEO marshals struggle to maintain the peace, Incorporate mercenaries wage amphibious range wars, and native insurgents fight for their adopted home. A frontier where human desperation and corporate greed ravage an uncanny ecology, threatening to plunge humanity into a war of survival with an ancient, alien legacy.

September

Welcome to the September update! I am excited to share four cool things…

Cool Thing #1

The final, indexed PDF versions of the Blue Planet books are done! Unfortunately, the final hold up in their distribution has been…me? I am being picky about some color choices on the covers and so decisions and edits in that space have delayed distribution of the files. But be reassured! Per Alan, the plan is for those to be shared out with backers by 9.7.

Cool Thing #2

A few weeks ago, I realized that though there are multiple places in the books where Poseidon’s 30-hour day is referenced – including the planetary data section – during the collection of the text from the various original sources, I apparently left out the text that explicitly addressed the socio-biological effects of the longer day. I am bummed by the omission, but I had an idea of how to rectify most of that oversight.  

I asked James, our amazing logo artist, if he could do a sexier version of the “clock” graphic I originally included in one of the first Undercurrent newsletters 25 years ago. As is usual for him, James took the request to 11 and produced this amazing visual reference. Its purpose is to give players and moderators alike a sense when the points in a 30-hour circadian rhythm align with commensurate times in our familiar 24-hour daily cycle. There are several suitable locations with sufficient white space in the current layout into which we can drop the graphic. It is too late in the process to be pushing any text around, and we don’t want additional delay.

Cool Thing #3

I have some words from Alan at Gallant Knight Games about the very-soon-to-launch pledge manager:

“We’ve decided to switch from GameFound to using PledgeBox. It’s an easier customer experience for backers, being less confusing to use. Some of the features will help us be more fluid when handling international shipping. We’re just finalizing the move over there and importing the backer list so we can do a smoke test. Our plan is to have that test up by 9/7."

Given the pledge manager is about to launch, I am obliged to remind folks that the manager is where you will finalize your shipping address and where you will finally pay for shipping. This last is not really a cool thing, but more a cold reality of Kickstarter Fulfillment. Thank you for your patience and understanding regarding the burden of shipping.

Don't worry - we will shout it from orbit when the pledge manager goes live and share simple instructions for what you need to do. 

Cool Thing #4

Those who follow the comments on these updates might be aware that after the July post, a backer shared the history of the word Lebensraum – a history of which I was unaware. Accordingly, to eliminate my concerns about inadvertently supporting fascist imperialism, we made a universal change to the BP text, renaming the Hanover Industries capital Gelegenheit, which means “opportunity.” We had to use a word that had exactly the same kerning length (interesting challenge) so that the universal change would not shift the layout, and we vetted the word for any unwanted associations.

This process took a while to effect, as we also had to have Mark, our cartographer, edit several of the maps. Executing these various changes took unplanned-for time and is the greater reason that the final PDF versions of the books are not already in your hands. We apologize for the delay, but we couldn’t do anything less. Thank you for understanding.

August

Welcome to the August update - and a day early! I have been traveling off-grid for the past few weeks and had to make a quick stop in civilization to post this, so it will perforce be short and sweet.

Production

The final PDFs of the core Recontact books are almost complete. We are finalizing the covers (see below), and Robert is hyperlinking the extensive indexes as I type. As soon as these last bits are done, we will share out the final files. 

Covers

Though we have previewed the cover art at various times during the project, we have not spent much time on the topic. Here is an update, which should be pretty close to final. I think they are pretty striking and we hope you dig them, too. 

Desolation Sound

At the risk of encouraging more people to come to a place I love in part because of its lack of people, if you are an ocean person and can find your way to coastal British Columbia, do yourself an adventurous solid and take a trip to this amazing part of the marine world. Captain Vancouver may have been discouraged by the rain when he gave the region its English name, but he obviously did not visit in the summer. It is glorious!

Sorry for the brevity, but I have a tide to catch. Thank you for the ongoing patience and support - and watch your inboxes for the final books!

July

Welcome to the July update, and I suspect it’s the one you have been waiting for.

The PDFs

I am beyond excited to share out the completed* interiors for the Blue Planet: Recontact books – all 663 gorgeous pages of them! Robert did amazing work on the layout and I am so grateful for his creativity and diligence. As usual, this update will be followed shortly by another for backers only that will contain links to download your copies.  

*A couple of notes regarding these versions. There will still be a few tweaks as we get them ready to go to the printer. I am doing a final layout review now and building the indexes as I go. For ease of sharing, these are the low-res versions, but be assured that the final PDFs we officially distribute will be in glorious high resolution. As soon as the review and indexes are done, we will send the files off to our printer. Thank you all for your patience, but we are finally coming in for a landing!

Pledge Manager Update

Alan from GKG here with some info about the pledge manager. 

First, we’re sticking with Gamefound, as the new Kickstarter management option is only for new projects and cannot be used for campaigns that have already closed. 

Second, we feel it is important that we live up to our environmental ethics, so we have requested updated quotes from the printer for sustainably sourced and recycled materials. They are finalizing those quotes so we can calculate the final weight to make sure the shipping quotes are as accurate and affordable as possible.The Blue Planet Gamefound page is built and just waiting for these final numbers. 

I have put together a walkthrough we’ll share out when we go live, making it as easy as possible to use. We know extra platforms add complication so we appreciate your patience with the process. Thank you!