The Newsblade ~ Lots Of Stuff Happened

[1 new Swords episode]

I fell off Swordtember a bit - I don't think I can get 11 episodes finished in 3 days! The blood of Númenor is all but spent, it's pride and dignity forgotten.

The latest episode is about arguing in bad faith on the internet, so naturally people turned the comments section into a hellscape over on Facebook. I spent way too much of this week moderating that one post.

I attended Wellingtaru this week, which is a monthly meetup for New Zealand game developers. I met lots of people from Weta Workshop which was super cool and I think I learned a lot. I definitely need to play Tales Of The Shire now that I've met half (pun intended?) of the team. About 4 times during the evening different people slowly figured out who I was and then pointed and gasped, which I guess is my new fun party trick??? One guy was very dismissive of me and then extremely interested, which was pretty funny.

I also attended the portion of New Zealand Game Developers Conference open to the public on Saturday morning - I didn't realize there would be a board game section, or I would have brought Cut The Deck along. We live and learn.
I don't think I appreciate how little socializing I really do because MAN was it refreshing to see so many people I used to work with. They're all so passionate and supportive. Even when the chips are down I feel like together we can take on anything.
I think I casually declared a friendly anime-style rivalry with tokenin too, so I better get gud.

I explained my broad plan for Swords with a few people, but it goes something like this at the moment:
- Reach Episode 1000
- Every 6 months remaster one old Story Arc as a 24 page chronological book, with a Cut The Deck expansion pack tied in, some additional merch and a voice acted YouTube video
- Increase this to once every 3 months if things go well with the first few (or some circumstances change and I can hire an assistant)
- The core series (Episode 1001+) switches to once a week so I can focus on quality over quantity
I think if I can really nail down a systematic approach like that, you'll all be much happier and there can be more certainty with things. It's still roughly 75-125 episodes a year which is what I've always done.
There's some more plans in my End Of Year Roadmap and I'll just stick to it as best I can.

TheImmortalThinkTank and I won an award for Best Production Design at the 48 Hour Film Festival. You can watch our film, The Bad Tasting Hero at the 25 minute mark but there are lots of other good films in the mix too if you'd like to see what New Zealand is capable of.
Che also animated the first episode of Choplet's Adventure if you'd like to check that out

Caffeinated Dragon are closing their doors in 2 weeks and have agreed to restock Swords: Cut The Deck for me, so they are selling them for half-price as part of their closing down sale. Go support the Dragon team and get yourself some heavily discounted Swords merch! I'm just glad to have some of my office space back.

I have painstakingly reformatted Seasons 1-5 and the Patron Swor'nament Arc into bundles which are linked below. Each link contains:
- A PDF eBook of the Season (season 1 is available in Original and Chronological)
- All of the episodes as high-res PNGs
- All of the episodes as Textless, high-res PNGs
- Thumbnails of every episode
Patreon Swor'nament Part One eBook & Assets
Patreon Swor'nament Part Two eBook & Assets
Swords Season 1 eBook & Assets (+ Chronological Order Edition) | Patreon
Swords Season 2 eBook & Assets | Patreon
Swords Season 3 eBook & Assets | Patreon
Swords Season 4 eBook & Assets | Patreon
Swords Season 5 eBook & Assets | Patreon

I'll be uploading Seasons 6 and 7 over the next few days and then I'm going to spend some time on making the Maps, Lore Charts and Book Of Kargob content tucked away in the archive more consistent.

You're welcome to goof around and make memes, but please be sensible - you do not have authorization to use these high-res assets for commercial purposes.

I am currently writing addresses on envelopes for Sticker Club, but I haven't sealed anything up yet in case I have a brain wave about extra things to add in. Thank you to the 50+ supporters who have responded so far - it makes life easier!

Oh! And I'll be at Great Games With Pals next weekend - see you there!

This week I watched:
The finale of Panty and Stocking Season 2, Dr. Stone, Taskmaster UK S20
And played:
Hollow Knight
Also I got a shiny Pokemon code from EB Games so now I gotta charge up my Switch... When I find it under all these stickers...

That's all this week! Thanks!!