January

Happy New Year! However you celebrate, I hope you and yours had a meaningful Planetfall and that 2024 brings a little more gaming into your life and a little more peace into the world.

Production Previews

I am super excited to share this month’s layout previews because the biggest section is a wholly new chapter that represents some of the best of what Recontact has to offer.

Campaign Archetypes - Over the history of Blue Planet, the only consistent criticism the game received was that it was such a big, open world, moderators didn’t know where to start - there was no default campaign structure. To address this, Recontact presents 12 different campaign archetypes by eight different authors spanning the breadth of the campaign possibilities the game best supports. From the classic Red Sky Charters Firefly-esque job-of-the-week to The Argonauts' take on Jules Vern and Chrome’s Incorporate intrigue to Night-Shift’s alien menace, First Responders' emergencies, and the military thriller Operation Polypod, there is something perfect for every gaming group. I hope you dig this new content as much as I do.

Alien Legacy – This chapter includes everything about the mysterious Nereids collected in one place. As always, I suggest that players refrain from reading this chapter as it's intended for moderators and presents information that I think is more fun to encounter in play than via text. 

Beyond the Frontier – Though some may find this section too deep a technical dive for an RPG, as a former oceanography teacher, I have always found this chapter to be particularly useful given Blue Planet’s setting. It offers a valuable resource for those less familiar with the marine environment, so is of particular help to moderators.  

Per usual, please watch for a backer’s-only preview following this one, where you can download these previews (and all the others to date).

Storm Surge Update

Despite the holiday season, which is traditionally hard on gaming schedules, we were able to get both our December playtest sessions in, and a lot happened. 

We created characters for the third of the three campaign threads – operatives for the GEO's High Commission of Internal Security. In the first session, they were charged with developing a working relationship with the Baffin Island insurgents and establishing the secret training camp described in the original BP canon. They were particularly sly and discreet, operating through a dummy NGO from Earth. They took several in-game months to gain trust and get the camp up and running. Their clandestine approach was so cold and manipulative that it reeked convincingly of real-world regime-change tactics and political manipulation. 

In the second session of the thread, they were charged with locating and recruiting the Songless (see page 42 of the Campaign Archetype chapter above). Much clever planning and a smidgin of alien body horror later, they have set things up to break one of the Songless they themselves captured out of the Fort Solitude brig in a bid to win his trust and be led to the troupe. What could go wrong?

The best parts of this latest arc are all the Easter eggs that I planted during the native and Incorporate security threads are finally being realized. From realizing these operators were the ones pulling GEO strings to help their native characters in the first arc, to being the source of the uncanny specimens their Incorporate security characters stole during the EMP heist, to having to deal with a depressurization emergency aboard GEO 1 when debris from Lesear Station (which those same characters destroyed) intersected its orbit, these call-backs, flashbacks and crossovers are giving the game an uncommon verisimilitude. As fun as this has been, I do worry I may not be able to capture the intent in the written product in a way others can effectively replicate. Fingers crossed.

OrcaCon

Just a reminder that I will be running both Blue Planet and Upwind at OrcaCon in Bellevue, WA, next weekend. When I last checked, there were still seats available in both games, so if you are local to the Seattle area and interested in playing, consider attending!  

OrcaCon 2024

Just a quick update to let any local Blue Planeteers know that Biohazard Games will be at OrcaCon24 the first weekend of January. I'm running a couple of events - both Blue Planet: Recontact and Upwind - and as of this morning, there are still a few spots left at each table. Would love to play with some backers, so if you are attending the con, jump on the site and sign up!

December

Time again for a Blue Planet update. And speaking of time…

Timeline

The first of this month’s layout previews is the timeline. I shared in an earlier update that I dig a good timeline, and I love Blue Planet’s in particular. Relevant historical events add essential context, plausibility and realism to a game’s setting. I think I also mentioned how the BP timeline was the very first text written for 1st edition. In an unsolicited, creative frenzy, Jason Werner stayed up late the night I first pitched him the premise and presented me with the first draft the very next day! 

For Recontact, Jason not only updated the timeline but punched up the content as well. He included the past 25 years of real-world scientific advancement and sociopolitical change. He leaned into the future effects of Earth’s ongoing ecological crises, dirtied up the GEO’s white hat and further complicated the situation on Poseidon. The end result is plausible historical context that complements the hard sci-fi of the BP setting.

The second preview is of the future history chapter itself. This chapter puts the outline presented by the timeline into prose that sets the stakes for present-day Poseidon. The history details how the colony world’s present came to be, focusing on the Athena Project, the Blight, the rise of the GEO and the Incorporate, the discovery of Long John and the factionalization of Poseidon - essential background for the living setting that is Blue Planet.

As usual, a backer’s-only update will follow this one, containing links to these previews. Also as usual, if you want to hunt typos and layout issues, please use the form linked therein to report any you find.

As I put the finishing touches on this update, Robert shared the draft layouts for the View from Orbit and Wild Wet chapters. At first glance, they look great, but I want to give them a good once-over before sharing them out - probably after the weekend.  

Final Files

I know there are concerns about how long it is taking to get Recontact to the printer, but I promise I am more anxious for that than any backer on this blue planet. That’s why I am super excited to share that we have only a handful of chapters still in final proofreading – two cete sections as well as the nereid and the Sol system chapters. That’s it! Once Rachel sends those back and I get them reviewed, Robert will have everything he needs to finish the layouts, and we will finally be able to share out full drafts of the books. We're so close I can smell the salt air…

Storm Surge Update

This month, the campaign playtest was back on pace, and wow, did a lot of stuff happen. The fact is, however, the players’ decision to use an EMP took their Incorporate security arc characters well beyond the charted waters of the campaign as written. I can’t overstate the impact detonating the EMP had in our current instantiation of the setting – the chaos, destruction and loss of life in Haven was massively impactful to the stability and economy of Poseidon. It took months of in-game time for them to escape immediate pursuit and get back on course. Even now, they remain uncertain if they have ultimately evaded the authorities (spoiler: they haven’t). To avoid actual campaign spoilers, I won’t even go into how – unrelated to the EMP – one of the characters also managed to accidentally destroy Lesear Station!

Turns out genestealers make pretty good proxies for niños muertos...

 Like I said, however, they did finally get back on track. They infiltrated Baffin Island and after an uncannily coordinated attack by a hunting pack of niños muertos, discovered why the island is opaque to remote surveillance. They figured out that GEO Internal Security appears to be training and equipping the Baffin Island insurgents. They also closed the story loop I opened months ago with a mission to eliminate their own native arc characters. We paused the action at the moment of their attack, and next week we will start the third of the interwoven story arcs with the first session playing their GEO HCIS operatives.

I worry I may have bitten off more than a Greater White can chew with the three converging arcs structure of this campaign, but it’s been a blast so far, and I am excited to see where it goes. Wish me – and more importantly my players – luck!

November

Despite not having much to share in terms of new layout previews quite yet, October has been a busy and productive month. 

Editing Efficiency

We have made some changes to the editing process in hopes of streamlining workflow, thereby expediting production. The changes already seem to be increasing output as we now have five sections in the layout queue rather than our typical single file input. Given Robert's speed, I therefore anticipate sharing a whole batch of layout previews in the next few days. 

Bonus Art

Poseidon's number one citizen, Pawel D, has done it again, donating a series of character commissions portraying the crew of Red Sky Charters. RSC is the playtest campaign from the original first edition Blue Planet and one of the campaign archetypes provided in Recontact. Pawel's vision of the world of Poseidon is spot-on, and I regret not having been able to afford to hire him as art director for the project. Even so, Pawel has strongly influenced the look of the game with his art donations. The project is much better for it, and we are deeply grateful. 

Red Sky Charters crew - to scale

Storm Surge Update

Unfortunately, school conferences, soccer games, a case of COVID and a new granddaughter all conspired among my players to prevent any progress in the playtest campaign this month. However, these things have not prevented me from working on upcoming encounters, and the longer those get to percolate, the more dangerous they become. I guess my crew can only blame themselves if things go aquatically pear-shaped...

Can of Worms

The ongoing editing process and playtest campaign downtime have given me the chance to finally put some words to paper (screen?) on the Wormhole stretch goal. I don't want to spoil anything, but I will share that including the supplement in your Blue Planet games will fundamentally change the nature of the setting and likely alter the tone and focus of subsequent campaigns. Accordingly, I recommend moderators and their players consider carefully before making Wormhole canon at their tables. 

Don't Panic and Thank You!

I anticipate a number of layout previews arriving in the next week. I will post them to backers as they come in rather than wait until next month. That way the dedicated among you can continue hunting errors, helping us make Recontact perfect. Thank you to the many intrepid readers who have been making error reports. You are awesome and we are deeply grateful for your submissions.

October

Fall is here, and it's time for the October update. It's a couple days early as I will be offline this weekend. At least, that's my excuse. In truth I think I'm just excited to share this month's chapter preview. 

Hardcore Hardware

Blue Planet has always emphasized the technology of its setting, and the earlier editions dedicated many pages to what we hoped were plausible, hard science descriptions of speculative hardware.  Since it's an RPG, we wanted plenty of cool toys for characters to play with, but more importantly we wanted to evoke the setting through its technological context. This remains an essential intent, so thoroughly updating the technology was a primary focus in Recontact. 

Though it could be argued that modern game design has deemphasized the traditional "gear chapter," we have opted instead to lean into it, spending significant time researching real world advances in technology and updating our speculative tech. From where we got it wrong in the first edition - like separate devices for every function - to where we got it right - like the proliferation of drones - we have cut and consolidated items, updated or upgraded gear and even added whole new classes of tech. From smart materials to quantum computing to bioreactors and direct air capture processors, we have included advanced technologies that weren't even speculative when the first edition of BP was published over 25 years ago. 

All these upgrades and additions have made me particularly excited to share this month's preview of the Hardware chapter, and I hope you enjoy what you see. Don't worry about the lack of vehicles and cetacean gear in the preview - they are in the layout queue.

As usual, a backers' only update will contain a link to the previews and the error reporting form.  Give it a read and let us know what you think!

Storm Surge Update

Anymore I prefer my RPGs to be theater of the mind. There was a time, however, when maps, miniatures and tactical play were my jam - as evidenced by the kludgey but well-intentioned first edition BP combat rules. My RPG and tactical play have diverged over the years as I've gained a love of sci-fi miniature games like Core Space, Zombicide: Invader and the OOP classic, AT-43.  

I have been feeling a little old school of late, so I decided to use all the toys I've collected for these various minis games to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the GenDiver Security thread. I planned a big tactical set piece to challenge my players - and to see how far we could push the new BP rules.  And what makes for a better tactical challenge than a reverse heist into a heavily defended HCIS island black site, camouflaged as an automated cargo depot?

Though I left plenty of openings for them to use stealth, remote intrusion or social engineering, I also wanted to offer the option for tactical play if they chose - or if subterfuge failed and the site went hot. I wanted to really test the limits inherent in the technological tools and defenses of the setting and to that end told them they could utilize anything they wanted from the hardware and weapons chapters - actual tech or implied - but that as the moderator, I was going to do the same. Suffice it to say, things got pretty warm. 

The session opened in media res, with the crew attempting a tactical entry through the shipping container stacks. When this was inevitably foiled by robotic sentries mowing them down, I reassured the shocked players that the scene was only one of the many virtual simulations they had run.  This intentionally put them on their toes for the "real" thing, but also gave them the chance to assess other options in character, via AI sims rather than fall prey to the dithering that often stalls party planning sessions. 

In the end the reverse heist was successful, but what they encountered in the warehouse - and inadvertently released into the wild - was not what they expected and is a whole lot more dangerous than they know...

 Delivery Date?

This month marks a year since our original estimated delivery date of October 2022. I know the old joke that Kickstarters are always late, but for me the delay is no laughing matter. We continue to work as fast as real life and the various production challenges we have faced allow, and we are rapidly completing the layout - as evidenced by the previews we have been sharing. As soon as possible, we will share out the digital versions of the books and head to press. In the meantime, all I can ask is for your continued patience and enthusiasm. It's that support that has kept me and the project going, and I hope you can trust that we are working as diligently as possible. 

September

A new month and a new update. My teacher's summer break has come to an end and that's a bummer, but wow, am I pleased with how productive a summer it was for Blue Planet! I was able to work every day and keep pace with Rachel's proofing and Robert's layout. I feel great about how much we got done, and even though the start of school usually means a slow down for me, I am now in a position to keep production rolling smoothly along.

Waterworlders

This month's layout preview is the "Waterworlders" chapter, and it describes each of the major factions on Poseidon - the natives, the GEO, the Incorporate and the newcomers. Don't worry, the nereids have their own chapter. "Waterworlders" also includes a mostly new section on Poseidon culture, covering everything from family structures and the social perception of genetic modification to examples of social media personalities and generalized AR environments in 2199.  

Per usual, a second, backers-only update will follow this one and contain a link to the draft file. If you find any errors to report, we encourage you to log them via this form. 

Storm Surge Update

As promised, we recently resumed playtesting on the Storm Surge campaign, shifting to the Incorporate security arc of the intertwined trio of story threads. Per that intention, we created a truly despicable group of terrible human beings for the arc. They are in fact so bad that they were each variously "drummed out" of GenDiver's security division, only to find themselves "recruited" into a team of deniable special contractors who ultimately still work for the notorious Incorporate through various cut-outs and shell companies. The  players ironically decided that their front company would be called Sunflower Industries. Accordingly, their handler is Mr. Seed and they each took on flowery code names:

Poppy - The team lead and true believer. Think Miles Quaritch from Avatar, but constantly justifying his actions with quotes from historical philosophers. 

Foxglove - Doc to the rest of the team, this evil man is an expert field medic and a chemical weapons "enthusiast." Enough said. 

Dalia - The socially detached remote operator who sacrificed a past teammate to save his combat robot (and best friend) Dandy Randy's "life." 

Buttercup - A ruthless killer who simply likes cruelty. An evil version of Amos Burton from the Expanse - but more murdery. 

Given the intent, I started our session zero by leaning hard into safety tools, and after making some truly awful paper people, we played the introductory scenario.  I don't want to give away spoilers, so suffice it to say it turns out the characters are - quite intentionally - responsible for the precipitating event that was used to frame the players' other characters in the native arc. What I found most compelling about the session, however, was the ease with which the Recontact character creation rules allowed us to create such evocatively monstrous people. 

Character Sheet

Another cool thing to come out of the playtest is that the artist who created the character sheet (and GEO/Incorporate logos in the images above) is playing in the campaign. As a result, he is getting some good, first-hand feedback about the character sheets. He is fine-tuning their design, and I am looking forward to sharing out the final version soon. 

Current version of the character sheet - final playtest update pending...

Pledge Manager & Shipping Reminder

I hope it's not long before we have the Blue Planet pledge manager up. This will allow anyone who wants to upgrade their pledge to do so and allow the many folks who missed out on the original campaign but now want to get to Poseidon to hop aboard the wormhole express. 

As an associated reminder, I am compelled to note that the pledge manager will also be how we charge for shipping. As you are probably aware, shipping has become the bane of small game companies, and I just wanted to make sure that - as shared during the campaign - everyone remembers that the plan is to charge shipping closer to the shipping date to best manage the actual costs.  Thank you for understanding the economical reality. 

August

It’s August. August? Where is the summer going?

Production

Layout on Blue Planet: Recontact is sailing along, and soon we should have complete digital versions of the books to share. In the meantime, you will still get preview drafts of each of the sections as we finish them up. This month it’s the biotechnology chapter. I know I had promised it in July, but I did such a good job of botching the subsection order and nesting in the original text file that poor Robert, our layout artist, ended up having to do the whole thing over again. I take all the blame and thank you for your patience. In the end, I think it looks pretty dang sharp.

As usual, I will follow up this post with a backers-only update that contains the preview. Also as usual, if you are so inclined, please point out any errors you find via this form.

Speaking of layout changes, we have decided to change up the chapter heading design. As keen as I was to use details from the topographical maps, readability and graphical cleanliness was becoming an issue. We have therefore opted to go with what might be a simpler, but I believe a sharper, more striking chapter header. Hope you like it.

Mahalo Pawel

I want to give another big shout-out to Pawel, who continues to be the single most supportive Poseidoneer on either planet. Not only did he write some fantastic contributions to the new edition, but he has also been an essential continuity director, particularly regarding the cartography. He also continues to donate additional art assets from his own private collection of Blue Planet commissions, most recently a series of character illustrations that I think nail the BP ethos. Here are a couple of examples.

Thank you, Pawel – your contributions, support and enthusiasm have been essential to Recontact.

GenCon

A few folks have asked, so I wanted to share. Sadly, Biohazard will not be at GenCon this year. As much as I love going to the convention, meeting backers and playing games with all my con friends, I figured my summer holiday time would be better spent working on finishing up Blue Planet. Our publishing partner Gallant Night Games – in the person of Alan – will be at the convention, however. Stop by booth #2029, say hi and have a chat about Blue Planet.

Storm Surge Playtest

Given the various summer travel plans of the folks in my playtest group, we took a break from Storm Surge for July, so I don’t have the typical update on how that’s going. I can say that we will be starting the Incorporate security thread when we resume later this month, and I am excited for the chance to run a game featuring some truly awful characters. The fun will be seeing if we can redeem them by the end of the campaign, or if they will go down with the rest of the Despoilers…

Heart of the Muse 

Ladysmith Harbor, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

If you ever have the chance to visit the San Juan Islands of Washington State or the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, you absolutely should. They are some of the most beautiful places on earth and provide endless inspiration for ocean people. Who knows, perhaps I could even show you around…

July

July is here, and though the summer is hot, this update is pretty cool...

Layout

Blue Planet: Recontact is coming together fast as Robert blasts through the layout. This month there are two big chapters for you to preview (and proofread).  The first is the largest section of the Moderator's Guide. It's the Archipelagos chapter and features all of Poseidon's regional gazetteer information, as well as the all new Outback section.  

The second is the Biotech chapter, covering all the cybernetic implants and genetic enhancements available to characters, including the new stretch goal Skink and Xenos mods.

As with previous layout previews, this update will be followed with a backers' only post on Kickstart that contains links to these chapters.  Please note: We are making a couple of last-minute adjustments to these section layouts, and I will send that follow-up update asap. 

22 Years!

Despite the books being tardy, I can't overstate how much of my time and effort have gone into to this project, and I therefore occasionally wonder why I'm doing it? Then, I get a note from someone who loves the game reminding me. A few weeks ago, a post on our publishing partner Gallant Knight Games' Discord shared what is perhaps the most touching such reminder I have ever received, so I thought I would repost it here. 

"I just want to share with you that in 2001 I bought Blue Planet (v2) and my group who just had met the 2nd week of my freshman year of University decided to play a small campaign in this system as we all loved sci fi games. We really loved the setting and one of the girls in the group decided to be the storyteller and we all sat down and decided that we wanted to play a small Lunar company who had invested in a small underwater laboratory on Poseidon. Yesterday, almost 22 years later, our campaign came to an end. We have seen so many fun things in the storyteller's interpretation of your game and we have seen so much together:

• I met my then girlfriend-now fiancee and mother to my daughter in the gaming group

• We have gone to cruises in the Baltic sea and between Copenhagen and up around Iceland and back, and we brought our RPG with us and borrowed a conference room and played

• People have met their loves of their lives

• One of them got a divorce and later found a new love, whom they married in April this year

• A few of us have had children

• We lost one of our players to a disease in 2019 and our game will forever be a memory to all the fun that she brought us

• We have had our children sit by the table and join us when they grew up and wanted to join. Later we have waved two of them off to university

• We have had so much fun, sadness, joy and laughter

• After 22 years of playing, we are still 6 people who enjoy hanging out together and being there for each other when life is good, bad or in between

All this thanks to you. In a way, you gave us 22 years of fantastic fun. So whatever happens in your life, or if you have one of those days when you are not sure why you are working on this project, we all want you to know that you gave us so much meaning and happiness together. So from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you from a very sunny Sweden! 

- Amanda, Elenya, Marcus, Mathias, Tia, Veronika"

Storm Surge Playtest Update

In the ongoing playtest, the characters, sobered by their too-close encounter with the Greater White (see June post) arrived at their destination - a notorious site known among the Northwest Territory natives simply as "The Mangrove." This towering marine forest hides an abandoned Biogene facility with an ominous reputation - one that leads the superstitious to claim that it's haunted. The truth is perhaps less supernatural, but certainly no less ominous. 

-Spoiler Alert-

The plan was for the characters to execute their propaganda sting by meeting an investigative journalist at the site to conduct a live interview. The unique location would allow GenDiver search algorithms to ID their location, hopefully luring away security forces from another regional installation and the insurgency's actual target. 

There was a lot of roleplaying among the family members around recent events as they set up perimeter sensors and planted the anti-personnel mines they'd brought along. The RP was interrupted by an enigmatic and ultimately terrifying midnight encounter with what the characters now suspect was a Nereid. They simultaneously discovered that the old Biogene facility was being used as a weapons depot, but that something stranger still was going on at the site when their exploration revealed that most of the structure's interior seemed to have been "melted away."

Their investigation was cut short by the arrival of the journalist and her cameraman and the roleplaying of the in-character interview. Having estimated potential response times for the security forces, the characters were not surprised when their perimeter electronics alerted them to intruders and the first explosions went off. As I closed the latest session with this cliffhanger, the players realized that their non-fighter characters had not really planned an escape route...

We are taking a break through July as several of us will be traveling, but we will resume playtesting in August with the GenDiver security thread. 

June

Welcome to the June update. Hope you are excited because there's a new chapter layout to share...
Art, Text and Layout, Oh My!
I've realized that with the layout well underway, the old format of these updates has become obsolete. Where I used to share an image preview or two and a text excerpt from one section or another, sharing whole chapter previews is offering even more of both.  

Layout has continued at an incredible pace, and Robert is turning Recontact into a book faster than I can get him the text - it's amazing.  He's currently blasting through the very long gazetteer chapter which covers the Pacifica Archipelago and the all new Outback section.  Earlier in May, he completed a draft of the "Bio-Survey," and though we are still tweaking a few things here and there, I am excited to share the current version of the field guide with you as part of this update. 

If you are a backer, check out the backer-only update on Kickstarter for a link to the full Bio-Survey chapter preview. As a reminder, if you are the kind of waterworlder who likes to hunt typos and wants to help with production, please consider submitting an error report for any issues you find via this link.

Storm Surge Playtest Update
As promised, here's another update on how things are going in our playtest of the stretch goal campaign. The family of budding insurgents spent several months on Baffin Island, training with the freedom fighters and cashing in their accumulated character improvement points on new skill sets - online propaganda, electronic countermeasures, sniper training and clandestine logistics. 

-Spoiler Alert-

They got pulled deeper into the intrigues of the island and the movement, discovering the settlement's secret lava tube refuge and GEO Internal Security's secret training camp in the mountains. Against their will they were teamed up with an ex-Incorporate soldier-turned-insurgent when a new player joined the table. I contrived a series of problematic introductions that left the characters extra salty when the offworlder was charged with leading them on their first actual mission.  That mission is ostensibly a propaganda operation meant to generate public sympathy, but actually intended to draw Incorporate security forces away from a critical long john refinery, allowing for both an ambush of said security and an insurgent strike against the unguarded installation. 

The highlight was when their double-hulled, ocean sailing canoe "ran aground" on a massive Big Round Thing (see the Bio-Survey preview) that surfaced beneath them unexpectedly. The exciting bit subsequently came when, while struggling to un-strand the party orca and re-launch their boat, the BRT was attacked by a hungry Greater White intent on an easy meal. The resulting chaos and desperate action made this one of my favorite Poseidon wildlife encounters of all time.

Can't wait to see what happens during the ambush next week, and I can't wait to share more layout next month. Thank you for all the patience and support. 

May

I am more excited for this update than for any in a long time. That's because, even though last month I shared that we had lost our layout artist,  we now have a new one, and he has already knocked out full drafts of both the rules and the character creation chapters! And the exciting part? I am sharing them out…today! 

If you are a backer, you can find those previews in the supplementary, backer-only Kickstarter update that follows today’s KS update.  

New Graphic Design(er)

As an RPG graphic designer, Robert Denton is probably best known for his work on the Legends of the Five Rings line, and he has also done a lot of layout work for Biohazard's Blue Planet partner, Gallant Knight Games. He is creative, easy to work with and super-fast, and his speed has already convinced me that layout will definitely not become a production bottleneck.

For those familiar with the graphic design of the Recontact Quickstart primer, you will notice a lot of changes in the new layout. The change in artist provided the opportunity to refine the style and mechanics of the layout in significant ways. My priorities for BP are readability, visual cohesion and an evocative palette. If a spectrum of book design runs from Apple to H.R. Giger, I want the BP layout sitting next to AirPods. In my opinion, Robert is blowing it out of the water, and I hope these previews make you as excited as they've made me. 

Though the text is final, please note that we are still tweaking the layout, and some minor things will change. For example, the map graphics heading each section are currently only placeholders for the text-free versions we are working on - their "busy" look will be sorted out shortly. 

Typo Hunting?

It has been my intention all along to share out chapter PDFs as they are completed for two important reasons. The first is so that you can start enjoying the new material as soon as possible. The second is so that those of you who are so inclined can hunt down and report typos - helping us make Blue Planet as error-free as possible. If you want to be one of these editing heroes - or if you just happen to notice a mistake as you read along - I would ask that you click on this link and fill out an error report. Please respond to the prompts with enough specificity that we can quickly identify the issue, and feel free to report anything at all that you think might be a mistake. Typos, layout glitches and even math errors - everything is fair game!

Storm Surge Playtest

Only one session this month as illness and work obligations kept half our party away from the table last week. It was a big one, however, as the characters got arrested, survived a sabotaged VTOL crash, and endured a long distance tow by the party orca to Baffin Island. Coming ashore at the notorious settlement put them at the heart of the northern insurgency just as circumstances were pushing them over the edge. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the night, the characters had gone all in with the freedom fighters. 

While they awaited the arrival of Bataku’s war pod, they worked to adjust to their dangerous new status and train up for their first mission. It was a good distraction from the fact that the characters (and players) have no understanding of the magnitude of what’s coming. 

Structurally, we are building to the first of the nine or so transitions I intend for this three-character-party campaign. We are shifting next to the Incorporate security perspective, where things are going to get really ugly, really fast. 

Gratitude

I want to close out this update with a reminder of how grateful I am for the ongoing support. Whether you are a silent (and very patient) backer, a regular voice in the update comments, on our Twitter, in the BP forums or Discord, or you are Pawel (the hardest working human on Poseidon), it is your support and enthusiasm that are creating Recontact. You all are providing the essential motivation needed to keep pushing forward.

Mahalo...

April

Almost April and time for another Blue Planet update. I'm posting this a day early as I may not have Internet tomorrow. 

Art Preview

I know I say “this is one of my favorites” every time I post an art preview, but I guess that’s what happens when you do all the art direction on a project like this. This illustration truly is one of my favorites. It represents so many things I love about BP, capturing the defining juxtapositions inherent in the setting, all in a single image.

New Layout Artist

In the interests of transparency about project progress I wanted to share that for personal reasons our original artist is unable to complete the project. We are transitioning to a new layout artist and will do our best to get them up to speed quickly. We'll strive to make sure layout does not become a production bottleneck.

Maps

This is a link to the final, high resolution draft of the Endeavor Island map and the final chance for those of you who contributed names for geographical features to make any corrections. Accordingly, please review the map and let me know through the KS message system if there are any issues with your submission. After April 15th, no further changes will be possible.

Low resolution preview - please follow the link above for the high res version.

Storm Surge Playtest

As I mentioned last month, I have resumed playtesting on the Storm Surge stretch goal campaign. Not only is the playtest essential for developing the adventure, but as running games always seems to do, it’s providing me with additional enthusiasm for the overall project.

I'm torn about presenting spoilers here in case any of you will be eventual players in the campaign, and because I think all my current players are backers so receive these updates. As a compromise, I’ll use a SPOLIER ALERT warning before any scenario specific content, and I just won’t address anything that hasn’t already happened at our table.

We started with the native thread of the campaign and though we are only a couple of sessions in, the characters have reached a pivotal decision point and I am excited to see which way they dive. Though the plot is only just spinning up, I am already particularly enjoying the player dynamics and the more campaign-focused aspects of the mechanics.

Entirely independent of the campaign structure, the players opted to make characters who are all members of the same family – Ephraim the father and his adult twin children Liam and Violet. The fourth player is an orca named Nana who adopted the family as his pod when the siblings were babies. The player interactions are already ranging from the hilarious to the heartbreaking as they roleplay family dynamics and stumble their way through the unresolved trauma of having lost their partner/mother to the planet when the children were young. In fact, play has already generated a common native aphorism – “Poseidon is always hungry.”

I am also enjoying the opportunity to really lean into the campaign effects of character profile, advancement, tags, tracks and ties. As you might guess, most of the playtesting of the new system consisted of one-shots, so it’s great to be able to push hard on these rules and experience the effects they have on roleplay, character growth and character interrelationships. I have particularly enjoyed the roleplay resulting from changes in the track we created for the family:

Family Dynamics

Sacrifice +/- 4

Dedication +/-2

Loving 0

Distant -/+ 2

Estranged -/+4

In the last session there was a  moment of true emotion when, after a tension-filled roleplay encounter with the daughter, I asked the father player to make a Psyche test. He failed and I asked him to move down the track to “distant.” It was clear narratively that the father had been trying to mend a fence but had only made things worse. The rules helped create that perfect moment of family drama.

March

Welcome to the March update! I’m excited to share more BP goodness.

Maps

One of the best things about producing the new edition of Blue Planet is getting to work with Mark Richardson of Green Hat Designs fame to create all new, full-color maps! As a professional, working cartographer and a game designer in his own right, I cannot imagine a more perfect matching of skillset to purpose than Mark and Poseidon.

Though I know I previewed the main Pacifica Archipelago map before, that was a low resolution draft. Now that the final versions are in, I want to share the Northern and Southern Pacifica detail maps so you can see how good the high resolution versions look. You’ll have to click here (north) and here (south) to download the hi-res files this thumbnail can’t do them justice.

Art

Some might argue that I should save some of the art reveals for when the books are finally released, but it’s hard to resist. I am excited for you all to see the amazing images, and since I figure you’ve already paid for them, why not share? What do you all think? Should I leave some in the vault so they will be surprises when the books come out, or should I keep them coming?

This image of the Niños Muertos is in my top five favorites of the project. There is so much going on - the alien biology, the violent attack, the desperate reaction, the bad-ass POV, the amazing creature design and the perfect color palette. The artist absolutely killed it!

Words

In the November 22 update, I previewed the 12 campaign archetypes we are packing into Recontact. In the comments, backer Troy G made a great point about the lack of a mining-focused archetype, and though long john mining is the background MacGuffin for many of the archetypes, I realized he was right and we should include one. Accordingly, I refocused the newcomer hook to present the travails of managing a cooperative mining colony. The final draft was submitted over the weekend, and it’s so good I'm previewing it here. Please keep in mind the caveat that this is the raw text and has yet to go to editing.

This is the last of the archetypes, and later this morning I will send the lot to our editor. Though I was motivated to provide these new moderator resources in Recontact, I did not expect to be so excited about them. The value, diversity and inspiration they bring to the project are amazing, and I can’t wait to see what players do with them.

Production

We have mostly transitioned from production of text and art to editing and layout. Accordingly, I thought I would share a little about our editing process.

Much of my time on the project has been spent content editing text – both new and existing material. I edit the new content to fit freelancer contributions into the Blue Planet setting and style. I edit the existing content to keep the cool stuff we want, cull the stuff that just won’t fit, and update, modify and add to that original material. There’s been 25 years of technological, scientific, societal and game design advancement since the 1st edition was published, and one of the main reasons we are doing Recontact is to catch the game up with all those improvements.

I’ve finished the content edits on almost everything, and our editor Rachael is cranking through her two-phase process. First she makes a line editing pass, editing for structure, grammar, comprehensibility and continuity – facts, dates, names, locations etc. Then she sends the files back to me for line-by-line approvals, after which I send them back to her for final proofreading - spelling, fine grammar and anything missed in the first pass. When these come back, I make a final review, and they go to layout.

Keeping this process flowing is critical so there are no production bottlenecks with someone having to sit on their thumbs waiting for files to come in. The process is optimized when each of us - production, editing and layout - have stockpiles in our queues so we can all work in parallel. So far we have been able to maintain that balance, and it is serving the project well.

Storm Surge Playtest Updates

In the January update, I mentioned that playtesting on the stretch goal campaign “Storm Surge” would be resuming this month. We had our session zero last week and made the first of the three sets of characters I plan to run through the perspective-shifting story. I’m happy to report that with very little input from me, the players – three of whom had never made a Recontact character before - were able to do so in about 30 minutes. This is pretty great given how rich the resulting characters feel. I hope to be able to share the character creation section here soon.

We are starting with the native insurgent party, and our first actual play session is next week. Depending on how things go, I thought perhaps I might provide monthly updates in these…monthly updates, so stay tuned.

Shipping Reminder

I know I’ve shared this before, but I feel compelled to occasionally offer a reminder. Shipping costs continue to be gravely impacted by the outsized influence of major corporations, and though they have come down some in recent months, they remain high and unpredictable. I just wanted to remind everyone that shipping for physical rewards will be charged when we open the pledge manager prior to going to press. This will not only keep us from losing our wetsuits if prices go up again, but hopefully will allow us to offer you all lower costs should they continue to go down. Thank you for your patience and understanding.