Go beyond the boundaries of the fantastic, award-winning Numenera setting.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Character Sheets—and So Much More!
over 10 years ago
– Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 06:45:00 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
We’re getting close to the holidays, and we hope you’re looking forward to them as much as we are. We have a bit of news about your Into the Ninth World rewards that I thought I’d share before we take a little holiday time off—one more update to see the year out. I’ll keep it brief.
You unlocked form-fillable character sheets as one of the social achievements during the campaign, and we’ve made it happen! The standard Numenera character sheet is now form fillable—please download it and give it a try!
While we’re on the topic, you also unlocked a redesigned, Into the Ninth World-themed character sheet as well. It’s just about ready to go—we’re making a few minor tweaks, and then we’ll make it form-fillable too. It should be available in early January; here’s a sneak peek at the design:
Here are some other things in the works:
The Cypher Card Creator is in the final phases of testing—we’ve actually used it to generate real cards, and they look great!
Shanna is wrapping up work on the first chapter of The Poison Eater, which we’ll share with you soon.
Backers who are part of the Into the Deep playtest are now turning in their playtest comments.
And we’re currently gathering ideas from backers contributing Artifact Cards as well.
Into the Deep has entered the early editing phase. . .
. . . while Monte is hard at work writing Character Options 2.
We’ve had sample T-shirts printed by a couple of different vendors. We’re working with them to figure out which can give us the best quality and a good storefront experience.
And the Creature and Cypher Deck expansions are in the design phase!
Actual cards produced by the Cypher Card Creator. For test purposes, I duplicated the content of a couple of existing cards—but you'll be able to put any cyphers you want on yours!
Would You Like $5 for Free—Or To Donate?
While this isn’t directly related to the Into the Ninth World Kickstarter campaign, I wanted to share something we’re doing this holiday season: We call it the 2015 Holiday Gift. We give you $5, and you can either spend it on a gift for yourself (or a friend), or give it to charity.
Just go to the MCG store. Put a $5 donation to Doctors Without Borders, Heifer International, or the American Refugee Committee in your shopping cart. When you check out, simply use the coupon code 2015MCGHolidayGift, and your donation is on us! If you prefer, you can use the code to purchase a gift for yourself or a loved one—it gives you $5 off any purchase.
The Ninth World: A Skillbuilding Game for Numenera
We’re super-excited about a new tabletop game for Numenera from rockstar boardgame designers Paul Peterson, Mike Selinker, and Boyan Radakovich. In The Ninth World, players explore the nine kingdoms of The Steadfast. You seek to discover strange relics of the past, trying to discern which are powerful cyphers and which are just weird oddities. And you face creatures of all shapes, sizes, and limb arrangements. It’s one part deckbuilder, one part eurogame, and one part RPG. Some of the attendees at the Into the Ninth World launch party got a chance to play it, and had a blast. It’s now on Kickstarter, and is scheduled for release in 2016. Check it out!
Iadace, and happy holidays! —Charles
We Have Into the Night Wallpapers for You
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:29:24 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
One of the many rewards you made happen is now ready for you: We have a nifty set of Into the Night wallpapers available for download.
Early in the campaign, you unlocked an achievement goal for a set of six Into the Ninth World wallpapers. Into the Night is out and Into the Deep is well into the development process, but we don’t have all the art for that book yet, and almost none of the art for Into the Outside is complete. Why wait for all three titles, when we can deliver part of this reward right now? Even better, why limit ourselves to six wallpapers?
So: We’re releasing three wallpapers for Into the Night today. As we get a little closer to the release date for Into the Deep, we’ll release three more. And then three more for Into the Outside. Meaning we’ve upped the total to nine!
The three designs are offered in a wide range of sizes and aspect ratios—simply pick the ones that are best for your computers or devices, and download away!
The MCG Summer Flash Sale
In other news, we’re holding our Summer Flash Sale at the MCG store, starting tomorrow and running through the weekend. “But wait!” you’re saying. “It’s November. What makes this a summer flash sale?” That’s a good question.
We had a really great summer—we released some very cool stuff. Including a bunch of stuff that was strictly limited in quantity. Whenever we make a limited item—especially an item that’s produced to order, like a Kickstarter reward or special pre-order item—we always produce extras to cover shipping damage, losses, and other contingencies.
But if those issues arise in relatively low numbers, we often have a few extras. And after the exciting summer we had, we’re now left with a surplus of cool, hard-to-find items. That’s great news for you, because we’re about to make those extras available—but for a very limited time! We’ll have specials on select corebooks and adventures, as well as very limited quantities of:
The highly sought-after Exclusive Numenera Boxed Set Edition
The beautiful leatherbound deluxe edition of the Cypher System Rulebook
Autographed bookplates hand-signed by Monte
Posters, maps, and art prints
And more!
Into the Deep, the Party, and Other Rewards
Into the Deep is nearing the end of the design phase—in fact, the playtest materials are in the process of being distributed. If you backed at a level that includes playtesting (or added it as an add-on) and have submitted your NDA, materials are headed your way this week!
The Into the Ninth World party is just over a week away. The entire MCG staff will be in Seattle for our summit next week, and the party will cap it off Friday night! We’re really looking forward to it, as is the staff of AFK Elixirs and Eatery, with whom we’ve worked closely to make this a great event. We’ll hold the online party concurrently, so put it on your calendar: 7:30PM PST on Friday, November 20. It’s a chance to chat and hang out with Monte, Bruce, Shanna, and the rest of the team, get a sneak peek at a few upcoming items, and enjoy an evening of festivity. Look forward to receiving the link in the week to come!
Iadace, and hope to see you there! —Charles
Into the Night Is Out, and Other Coolness!
over 10 years ago
– Thu, Oct 22, 2015 at 07:45:11 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
We normally like to get updates out every time we release a Kickstarted product or have other cool news to share. Almost immediately after the Into the Ninth World campaign ended, though, we rushed right into delivering product, and in all that work I frankly forgot to send out a timely update. Sorry about that! Fortunately, we’ve been putting our time to other good uses—like producing your Kickstarter rewards!
Have You Ventured Into the Night?
Into the Night was almost finished when we launched the Into the Ninth World Kickstarter, and we sent it to press before the campaign was even over. As you probably know, the book is now out—most backers already have theirs along with the exclusive, Kickstarter-only poster map. (If you don't have it, see the bottom of this update.)
How About Those Other Rewards?
We’re already hard at work on Into the Deep, and have scheduled out work on Into the Outside, Numenera Character Options 2, and all the other books you helped make real. But this campaign is delivering a lot more than just those books! Here’s where we are on just the rewards you’ll be seeing in the next few months:
The Nightcraft (Into the Night PDF supplement) is out now! If this is a reward for you, you should already have it. (If not, scroll on down to the bottom of this update.)
Into the Night bookplates: If you’re getting bookplates, we’ll generally deliver yours with each applicable book. We didn’t have time to do that for Into the Night, though, so this bookplate will ship separately. The bookplates have already been produced, and Bruce and Monte are just about done signing them. If you’re getting this reward, look for it soon!
Every backer at the JUST A PDF and higher level is entitled to a $5 coupon for the MCG store. We’re sending those out ASAP, so watch your email!
The online Cypher Card designer has been getting a lot of love from our friends at DriveThruRPG. In fact, we’re already testing a beta version—and it’s pretty darn cool. Expect it to roll out to the public in another month or two.
The Into the Ninth World launch party will be held at the AFK Elixirs and Eatery in Renton, WA on the evening of Friday, 20 November. If you backed at the NINTH WORLD PARTIER or higher level, look for an official invitation in the next few days!
We decided to make the online party a part of the Ninth World Party festivities! So it will also be held the evening of Friday, 20 November. If you backed at the JUST A PDF or higher level, we’ll have a link for you closer to the party date. We’re going to have the entire MCG team there (we’re normally spread out all over the place, and only all get together a few times a year) along with many of our friends, and we plan for it to be a real interactive experience. Mark your calendars!
If you’re backing at a level that includes playtesting, expect playtest documents for Into the Deep in a month or so. We’ll contact you beforehand to get NDA paperwork out of the way.
Shanna’s been super busy lately getting No Thank You, Evil!, our RPG for families with kids of all ages, off to press. But that hasn’t stopped her from getting into the writing for The Poison Eater! No promises, but we currently expect to have the sample chapter for you before the end of the year.
Speaking of which, we’ll also start reaching out to contributors to the Artifact Deck around the end of the year.
Whew! That's a lot of stuff! It's not everything, though—not by a long shot—but that’s what’s in the pipeline for the next few months. You’ll be hearing about other rewards in the months to come!
BackerKit Is Closing Next Week!
We’re closing BackerKit at the end of the day Saturday, 31 October. Well over 90% of you have filled out your BackerKit survey, but if you haven’t, please do so ASAP. [[link]] And even if you have, this is the last chance to get Kickstarter-exclusive add-ons or to upgrade your rewards. So check back in with BackerKit and make sure you’ve got all the rewards you want. After Halloween, it’ll be too late!
Have You Checked Out The Strange?
Have you played our other RPG, The Strange? If not, it’s a great time to give it a try: The Strange is featured on Bundle of Holding. For about $20 (the normal price for the corebook PDF alone), you can get the corebook, the Player’s Guide, the Bestiary, the mammoth Worlds Numberless and Strange, The Dark Spiral, In Translation: The Strange Character Options, and a bunch of smaller PDF titles. Even if you already have the corebook, it’s an incredible deal on the supplements alone. And The Strange is compatible with Numenera, so even if you just want to cherry-pick, say, The Strange Bestiary or In Translation for stuff you can use in your Ninth World campaign, it’s a bargain. But don’t dawdle: the Bundle of Holding deal closes in just a few days!
Missing Anything?
As mentioned above, Into the Night and The Nightcraft have already been fulfilled. If you’re entitled to these products but don’t have your redemption codes yet, follow these steps:
Make sure you are receiving email from us. Please add [email protected] to your contact list so email from us doesn't go to your spam folder. (We also use a platform called ConstantContact to reach our thousands of backers. If you have blocked or unsubscribed from ConstantContact, it is quite possible that our emails to you are being rejected by your server. This makes it difficult to contact you. There is a solution, but it isn’t an easy one, because ConstantContact wants to protect the privacy of anyone who has unsubscribed from a list. If you have unsubscribed to our list, but would like to re-subscribe, please email us at [email protected] and ask for the instructions to re-subscribe to our list on ConstantContact.)
We send you a fulfillment coupon when a reward becomes available. If you haven’t received yours for these titles, check your spam filter. The email was sent to the address you provided in BackerKit for your MCG Shop account.
If those steps don’t help, contact us at [email protected]. BUT NOTE: Every time we send out an update, about 300 people say, “Oh, yeah, I forgot about my Kickstarter reward,” and immediately send us a customer service note. That creates a brief backlog, so please don’t panic if you don’t get a response from us right away. Give us a few days to respond, and please DO NOT send a second email—it only makes the traffic jam worse! We have your back, and we will respond to your email even if it takes a few days.
It’s been really exciting working on all these rewards! Thanks again for making this campaign a success, and we’re really looking forward to bringing all these products to you over the next year and beyond!
Iadace! —Charles
We’ve Passed the Checkered Flag!
over 10 years ago
– Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 12:35:45 AM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
The Numenera: Into the Ninth World Kickstarter campaign has just come to an end. Thanks to you, and about 3200 or so folk like you, we’ve been able to turn an idea for a series of three game books into an incredible range of titles and new products.
We hit no fewer than twenty-eight stretch goals—and unlocked ten community achievements. (You hit a final achievement goal in just the last couple of hours, unlocking the form-fillable character sheets!) Most backers are getting nine books instead of the original three. And those books have been improved, supplemented, and lengthened along the way.
Think about that: It was your support, and your help spreading the word, that allowed this to be. We literally could not have made these products without your contribution.
So I’d like to thank you for that personally—for your support, your enthusiasm, and your help in telling other gamers about this campaign.
I’d also like to call out the hard work of the entire Monte Cook Games staff: Monte, Bruce, Tammie, Shanna, and Bear (our Art Director, who has kept these updates packed with great new art, and helped keep the Kickstarter plates spinning throughout). Each of them has put in a lot of long days not only to make this campaign a success, but also to keep MCG rolling through Gen Con, KC Comic Con, PAX, the release of the Cypher System Rulebook, and getting Into the Night off to press—all those things happened while this campaign was going on, or during the final prep for it.
The final count at closing was $417,560. We hit our final stretch goal, expanding the Ninth World Bestiary 2 by 32 pages, in the last few minutes of the campaign!
You made all of this happen. Personally, and from the whole team here at MCG, thanks.
Iadace! —Charles
Looking Ahead—and What to Expect
over 10 years ago
– Wed, Sep 09, 2015 at 11:07:08 PM
Hello, Ninth World Kickstarter backers—
As I’m writing this, we’re closing in on the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign—and the $415,000 stretch goal. What a great campaign it’s been! Thanks so much for your support!
I want to talk a bit about what will happen over the weeks and months to come. But before you read that, please read my last update—it talks about important steps you need to take before the campaign ends.
Back? Super. Here’s what lies ahead:
1. When Things Wrap Up (8PM EDT tonight): As fun as this campaign has been, it’s also been brutally hectic. We’ve been doing our regular day jobs without interruption—we even got Into the Night off to press (and the first-off-the-press approval copy just reached us today!), including a double-sided poster map that we hadn’t even started on before the campaign launched! If you don’t hear from us for a few days, don’t panic. In fact, MCG—our entire staff—is taking the day off tomorrow. This is a project of many months, and there’s nothing going on that can’t wait a couple of days.
2. In the Next Few Weeks: Kickstarter will begin collecting pledges as soon as the campaign closes. It can take up to two weeks to complete this process, and recently Kickstarter has been using that entire two-week period.
Once that process is complete, we’ll contact you to gather critical information needed to fulfill your rewards—name, address, email, and so on. (Important note: Kickstarter does NOT provide this to us—we have to get it from you! So please look out for this survey and respond quickly when you get it!) If you’ve chosen any add-ons, that’s where we’ll establish which ones you’re getting.
If you’re getting Into the Night in PDF or print (and the vast majority of you are), we will fulfill that as soon as we have that survey data. So please fill out your survey as soon as possible to avoid any delay in getting your copy of Into the Night!
3. Later in the Year: After that, things quiet down a bit. You may not hear much from us for weeks or even months at a time. At least, not through Kickstarter channels. But if you haven’t done so already, like us on Facebook. We’re really active there, and it’s a great way to keep up with cool Numenera and MCG news. Either way, rest assured we’re working hard on creating the books and products you funded.
4. When the Books Ship:Into the Night ships later this month. Other books will follow over the course of the next year or two. In the weeks before each release, we’ll contact you again to ensure we have your correct shipping information. If you’re an overseas backer or want upgraded shipping, you’ll pay for it at that time. Make sure you’re paying attention to communications from us—don’t let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you’ll miss out on some of your rewards!
It’s been a great campaign, and we really appreciate your support! Thanks again for helping us build such a great range of products for Numenera. We can’t wait to bring them to you!
