Art budget boost achieved! Plus: Playing aid cards and new excerpt!
over 8 years ago – Sun, Feb 07, 2016 at 02:15:29 PM

Hi, Rose here. ^_^ I've got a roundup of things for you today.

Add-ons

As unlocked at $115,000, we're making Pugmire cards (over 150 of them, including Spell, Trick, and Condition cards) available as an add-on. Simply add $18 to your pledge. Then, after the KS is over, let us know you pledged for the cards on your backer survey.

Stretch Goals

Having passed $130,000, you've enabled us to boost our art budget by 20%. Which means more full-color art of adventurous dogs!

Up next, at $145,000 of contributions, we will commission an additional 3 short stories for the Pugmire Fiction Anthology PDF/eBook that we will send to all backers who pledge for a reward tier that include a Pugmire PDF. Included in these three stories will be a story by friend of Pugmire and internationally noted writer Aaron Rosenberg.

Excerpt

In today’s excerpt from Pugmire Early Access, Princess Yosha Pug and Pan Daschund talk about monsters and the nefarious Unseen.

Yosha: There are some things that can’t be good. Not ever. They are insane creatures that roam the wilderness, or twisted animals that cause too much damage to be allowed to roam free. Some are actually quite intelligent, but for some reason they don’t have any interest in being our friends, focusing instead on chaos and destruction. We generally label these kinds of creatures “monsters,” and many of them are very scary.  

The worst, though, are the demons — invisible spirits and manipulative monsters that want nothing but murder and torment. We call them “the Unseen,” and they are the most frightening of all. Demons can take on many forms, even those of your friends and loved ones, making them very insidious and dangerous. The Church tells us that dogs used to protect Man from the Unseen, barking to warn all those nearby when a demon was in the area.  

Maybe that’s why Man is no longer with us, because we failed to protect them from the Unseen. I hope that isn’t true, but some nights I worry that they are still mad at us for our failure to protect them. In my heart I know that Man loves me, and I try very hard to do everything I can to be a good dog and be worthy of their forgiveness.  

Pan: This is what I do: I hunt monsters. I don’t need to dress up every horrible thing as a “demon” in order to know that it’s dangerous and needs to be stopped. Monsters are bad for everyone, civilized and free dogs alike, and if I go to my eternal rest putting an arrow into a rampaging monster, then I’ve lived a good life.  

Yosha: And that’s why you’re a good dog, Pan.

Reminder: The Gentleman Gamer is interviewing Eddy LIVE in less than five minutes
over 8 years ago – Sat, Feb 06, 2016 at 10:59:02 AM

Hi, Rose here. ^_^

The Gentleman Gamer's livestream with Eddy will start in a few minutes. Check it out here!

They'll be taking questions from the YouTube comments.

Preview: Magic
over 8 years ago – Fri, Feb 05, 2016 at 10:23:49 AM

Hi, Rose here. ^_^ I've got another excerpt for you, courtesy of Eddy.

Magic

Yosha: Man has given us many different kinds of magic. My friend Sister Picassa Collie, for example, is a devout shepherd. Once she finished her training within the Church of Man, she was injected with the Holy Elixir that transubstantiated her blood into the blessing of Man. Through that blessing, along with her deep and unshakable faith, she is able to do amazing things simply by praying to Old Ones for help.  

My magic is more academic. I have what is called a focus, one of the many masterworks that Man left behind for us. I’ve studied the spirit inside of it for a few years now, and through my research I’ve been able to unlock various spells within it. It looks like a small metal ball, but it can do so many wonderful things! And as I learn more spells and incantations from ruins and exploration, I apply that knowledge to master the spirits inside my focus and grow even more as an artisan.  

Pan: Now magic is something I can believe in, because I’ve seen it happen. Yosha once shot a demon-possessed dog with a beam of light, and Sister Collie has healed all of us more than once with just a touch and a prayer. Even my friend Rex Pyrenees has a magical sword, and I’ve met a few cats that dabble in forbidden arts. Faith isn’t for me, but I can’t deny that it has a very real effect for some dogs.

Interview

The Gentleman Gamer will be interviewing Eddy about Pugmire tomorrow (Saturday), starting at 19:00 GMT / 14:00 EST on his YouTube channel. He'll be taking questions from the comments there.

Cards unlocked! Up next: Artwork budget boost! Plus: Live interview Saturday!
over 8 years ago – Thu, Feb 04, 2016 at 07:53:55 PM

Hi, Rose here. ^_^ The subject line's a little crowded, but I didn't want to leave out anything. Especially not Eddy's interview Saturday with The Gentleman Gamer.

The Gentleman will be hosting Eddy starting at 19:00 GMT / 14:00 EST on his YouTube channel. He'll be taking questions from the comments there.

And now stretch goals! Having reached $115,000, we can create Spell, Trick, and Condition Cards and offer them as an Add-on to backers who pledge for a reward tier that includes a physical copy of Pugmire.

Up next, at $130,000, we will increase our art budget by 20%, for more art in the Pugmire main book.

I'll be posting another preview tomorrow, and we've got some other cool plans in the making. Thanks for your support!

Eddy on breeds
over 8 years ago – Wed, Feb 03, 2016 at 09:21:12 AM

Hi, Rose here. ^_^ We've gotten some questions on how breeds work in Pugmire, so Eddy picked out an excerpt from the Early Accessto elaborate.

---

Eddy:

There are so many dog breeds that there’s no way Pugmire could possibly address them all. So instead, I’ve created a number of “breed groups,” and I encourage players to put their favorite breeds in whichever group appeals to them. Here’s an excerpt from Pugmire Early Access to help explain:

Each dog belongs to a particular breed, a collection of dog families that have developed certain traits and reduced others over time. A dog’s calling is what she chooses to do with her life, but her breed is what innate qualities she was born with. Each family within a breed is distinct to the dogs of Pugmire — the Pomeranian family would never claim to have any connection to the Pug family, for example — but for purposes of the game, all breeds fall into one of six categories, with Mutts and other mixed-breed dogs acting as a seventh “breed.”  

If there’s a particular real-world breed of dog that you want to play that isn’t represented here, just pick a group that suits your dog best and use that. For example, if you want to play a Lundehund, you might decide that they’re a good fit as a herder. Just use the rules for herders, and you’re on your way!

You’ll notice that the family names for dogs don’t always look the same as the breeds we know today. Some of them are combined (like “Shibainu”), others are hyphenated (like “French-Bulldog”), and still others are truncated (like “Pyrenees”). This is intentional! The goal was to make the breed names we know look more like Western surnames. This fictionalized linguistic drift shows the spirit of the breeds while keeping name construction logical. It also opens up new perspectives on the world of Pugmire: for example, what is the relationship between the Bulldogs and the French-Bulldogs?  

Similarly, the six breeds only vaguely line up to modern official breed groups. Kennel club groupings for dogs vary widely by country and organization, and sometimes the same breed can fall into different breed groups. Rather than trying to reconcile all the real-world information, Pugmire goes for a more evocative approach, basing each group on a key ability instead of existing breed standards. If you think one of the dog families should have a different name or be in a different Pugmire breed, feel free to change it! Consider everything in this book a starting point for your own adventures.