Lots of stuff going on. First, Skortched Urf’ Studios just celebrated out first year in business as a PDF publisher! It’s been a very interesting year, and I’m looking forward to the next year. We’ll be focusing on some D20 Modern projects and gearing up for 4th edition. I also plan on branching out into M&M Superlink projects as well.

Black Tokyo is progressing slow but sure. And Chris has several projects lined up right behind the first Otherverse Games release.

Halo 3. I’ll be in line with the rest of the geeks tonight for the midnight release. I pre-ordered the mega-uber-geek edition packed in a Master Chief helmet. I am taking off work tomorrow so when I get back from the midnight release I can play until my fingers bleed.

Star Wars RPG. We played last Saturday and went through two different missions/adventures. The first one I hardly had to do anything combat-wise, wheras the second one we all got our hands dirty. I had to spend a destiny point to ensure a critical smackdown on a high-level Star Destroyer Commander. It was a group effort to bring her down; as she was burning destiny points like they were going out of style to stay alive. (For all the good it did her!)

We bought some Hirst Arts molds at Gen Con and cast up a whole mess of them to create a 3D model of the Star Destroyer bridge. I am really digging the blocks; we just need to cast a bunch more.

Posting has been sporadic for the last couple of months.  Things have been very busy for me with both work and my personal life.  I am still hard at work on Black Tokyo…and it is by far the largest release I’ve worked on to date.  It is progressing slowly but surely.   Look for it soon!  More info to follow.

Some random thoughts I’ve been having; as well as some plans for our second year in bizness.

First: 4th Edition.  I am looking foreward to it.  No, I don’t think it will have a negative effect on what we PDF publishers are currently doing.  I think “change” is a constant, so to get bent out of shape about something all of us were expecting doesn’t make sense.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that a lot of my publishing efforts have been in the D20 Modern area either!  Our Adventurer Essentials line will translate well from 3rd to 4th; and may not even need to be re-done at all.  I have a couple of Modern projects I have wanted to do, so the next year will be a perfect opportunity to put them out while we all wait to see what 4th edition brings.

Modern: I have two campaign settings for D20 Modern that I’ll be focusing on this year.  One will be a series of Adventure Sourcebook/Modules similar to the War of the Burning Sky; where each one will advance the story line.  I will be taking the PC’s from their first meeting to their introduction the the newly-formed Department 7 and through higher levels as they combat the massive changes the world undergoes on their watch.  Should be a lot of fun!  The second campaign setting has a working title called the Pandora Project.  More on that later.

The Merger.  I’m glad it’s done.  Sure there are a few more kinks to work out but for the most part that is behind us.  I have enjoyed my partnership with PRGNow/DriveThru up until this point, and  look forward to an even more prosperous year ahead.  (That doesn’t mean I plan to go exclusive; I prefer to keep my options open!) I had a conversation at a publisher dinner with one of the owners (Steve, I think; very nice guy!) and he indicated they want to implement an Audio Commentary feature for publishers in the future.  That, coupled with the Flash previews they implemented gives me the impression people are taking a notice to what I have been doing.  Of course I didn’t invent either of these technologies, but I do believe I was the first one to put them directly into the sales listings.  It’s a bit of an ego-boost to see the “Big Dogs” implementing site-wide a couple of things I started doing.  I truly hope it works as well for other publishers as it has been working for me.

Well, back to work…I am still knee-deep in a couple of releases I want to get out ASAP!

Sorry for the lack of updates!  Gen Con was a blast.  But aside from a few weeks off I am now getting back into the groove.  I have been working on Black Tokyo as well as another D7ACU.  Black Tokyo is shaping up, but is taking far longer than I had thought it would.  It will be by far the largest PDF we have done to date!  After that, we have some big plans for the next few months.