S&S: Why did it take so long, part 2

I think we really started off well. I had the idea for the Showdowns & Shootouts contest in December 2006 and when I ran it by Murphy and Paul, they loved the idea. I then set about getting the prize support for it and together we worked up the rules and came up with the general guidelines of what we were looking for: Class adventure ideas that would be easy to play with 1-4 teams and didn't require strange miniatures or terrain. We also weren't looking for someone to write high-quality prose that fit our house style; we wanted basic ideas, character names and game set-up (maps, objectives, and other cool stuff). We wrote this up on our Website and opened it up to both the Gutshot community and the general public.

Our goal was always to collect at least 12 high-quality adventures and put them online where they would always be available as a free download as a PDF. The idea was twofold:

1. It's a reward for the people who have already shelled out their cash to buy our book.
2. Potential customers might read these adventures and think they were cool enough to invest in buying a copy of Gutshot. (Yes, we're nice guys, but we ain't averse to capitalism!)

When we started, we had no idea what kind of reception we would get. We needed at least 12 good adventures to complete the contest... and in the end, we hand danged near 50 submissions, and there wasn't a stinker among them! Every single person who submitted an idea took our guidelines to heart and wrote something that -- with some level of editing -- could be published as a quality game that would be fun to play. To put it mildly, the only hard part for us was agreeing on which adventure to print next.

The S&S Timeline

The contest opened on Jan. 31, 2007. Our goal was to have all of the adventures published by the end of that year and then wrap the contest up by the first quarter of 2008. As you can see, that did not happen. Here's a breakdown of the timeline, as culled from the Hawgleg Website's news archives:

• Showdows & Shootouts writing contest offers more than $500 in prizes , Jan. 31, 2007
• First Showdowns & Shootouts adventure ready for download, April 26, 2007
• Bullets for Breakfast -- New Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure Online, May 25, 2007
• Sawbones release Mitchell from Hospital, June 26, 2007
• 1,000 Horses for Helen -- New 'Showdowns & Shootouts' adventure now online!, July 20, 2007
• Fourth Showdowns & Shootouts adventure released, Aug. 15, 2007
• Holed Up: New S&S adventure ready for download!, Oct. 4, 2007
• 6th S&S Adventure: Stand-off at Muckhole!, Oct. 14, 2007
• 7th Showdowns & Shootouts adventure ready for download, Jan. 8, 2008
• New S&S Adventure Released, Feb. 25, 2008
• Hawgleg Publishing acquires Arnica Montana Real Estate, April 28, 2008
• Klaus needs a Holiday New Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure online!, June 8, 2008
• Ike Strike -- Hawgleg suspends operations due to hurricane, Sept. 22, 2008
• Hawgleg reopens after Hurricane Ike, Oct. 22, 2008
• I Hit a Vein 10th Showdowns & Shootouts adventure released, Nov. 12, 2008
• Hawgleg announces Draw! RPG, Feb. 5, 2009
• 11th Showddowns & Shootouts Adventure ready for download, May 4, 2009
• Arnica Pre-Release Bonanza Sale!, Aug. 12, 2009
• Pre-Release Sale Closes, Sept. 12, 2009
• Final Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure published!, July 13, 2010
• Showdowns & Shootouts winner announced, June 19, 2011
• Vote now in the Showdowns & Shootouts Contest, March 1, 2012

I've highlighted the 12 adventures' release dates in red.

As you can see, we did really well up until the sixth adventure, and even the seventh & eighth weren't too far off schedule, especially when you consider I spent about a week in the hospital in early 2007 and had a few subsequent relapses of a health issue that kept me bed ridden during that year. No, in spite of that, we were doing okay.

And then we bought Arnica Montana from Mike McGraw. Honest to gosh, we had no idea how much of our time and resources that would take up. This was new territory for us and we don't regret it at all, but it was something new and the learning curve was tougher than we expected. Being honest again, I don't think we're masters of this technology or business model even to this day. But that's another story.

By the Ninth Adventure -- Klaus Needs a Holiday! -- we were almost back on track, and then Hurricane Ike hit. My home was severely damaged and we were without power for 16 days. We left town for part of it (my folks up in the hill country had power and my brother was getting married, so what the heck, we rode out part of the aftermath with my kinfolk). And there was some serious aftermath. 

Hurricane Ike Damage

Yes, that is a tree on the side of our house. If you look closely, you can see the other tree that smashed the corner of our garage... tapping our cars inside (fortunately, our other cars were at my wife's folks' house, so we got a ride over there and were able to drive around the devastated city while Houston limped back to life.

Ike took a lot of wind out of sails and scuttled us for months (hmmm, maybe I should stick to Western lingo and say, this really put us off our feed). There was so much to deal with in the aftermath that we didn't even think about the contest for a while. Hawgleg actually closed for an entire month, and we didn't get our next adventure out until a month after that.

I wrap it all up next Tuesday in Part 3

Showdowns & Shootouts: Vote Now to Pick a Winner

As I said Tuesday, the time has finally come, mi amigos. We have finally opened the voting for the second-place prize in our long-running and much-delayed Showdowns & Shootouts Adventure Writing Contest. The details are all over on our Website, so you really should mosey over there and read it in detail.

Here's a relatively short version of what's going on:

• Back in 2007 we started a contest where people would send us ideas for adventures suitable for use with Gutshot. Some were real short (set-up and some loose ideas), others were real detailed with character names, stats, and detailed maps and game objectives. The contest is, of course, called Showdowns & Shootouts.
• We selected 12 of them, rewrote them into a standard format and posted them online as free PDFs for people to download for free.
• We got some of our gaming buddies to help sponsor the contest: Arnica Montana, Hotz Game Mats, Whitewash City, Knuckleduster Productions, and Scale Creep Miniatures all donated prizes... in fact, all told we've got more than $500 in prizes! Again, check out the main site for a list of all the goodies.
• Back in last summer (yup, summer 2010) we finally printed the last adventure. Yeah... there was a HUGE delay, which I'm gonna talk about shortly. Then in Summer 2011 we finally got around to decided who won the Grand Prize (we call it the Judge's Prize). It was awarded to Tom Reed for his adventure, "The Great Dry Gulch Bank Robbery!"
• Now it's time to select the second prize, which we call the Jury's Prize. This one will be selected by the general public at the Hawgleg Website. It's a contest that's open to anyone who will (hopefully) take the time to read the adventures and pick the best of the group (not counting Tom's two entries -- he's already earned one prize). You can get the adventures for free here:  http://www.hawgleg.com/2007_contest_winner.asp
• The author who receives the most votes will win the Jury's Prize and get more goodies than he can fit in his saddle bags (again, hit the main site for a full list).
• Now, here's the cool part, everyone who votes in this contest is eligible to win a $60 prize package. Yup, just for taking the time to vote, you could cash in on some cool stuff!

Everyone who casts a vote in this contest will be eligible for a special Voter’s Prize package valued at about $60. The Voter’s Prize includes: Whitewash City Starter CD ($15 value) One item from the Gutshot General Store (T-shirt, mug, etc. approx. $20 value) One copy of the collected S&S paperback book (approx. $20 value) Gutshot miniature: ($5 value)

Not bad, eh? To vote in the contest, just head on over to the Hawgleg Website, kick back and read some great adventures, and then cast your vote for the one you like best.

You know, what, folks? It's late, I'm more than a little tuckered out from getting things ready (wrote the news story at the Website, created that graphic you see above, and even cleaned up a few coding errors I found in the back-end software that tracks your votes). So, I'm gonna sit back and finish my beer and we can palaver about the contest and why it took so danged long to finish during the next blog update on Tuesday.

Thanks fer yer patience, I'm beholdin' to ya. See ya Tuesday.

Showdowns & Shootouts: Get ready to vote!

As ya'll know, the Showdowns & Shootouts adventure writing contest took a LOT longer than anyone ever thought it would. You know, we had the usual delays... work, family, hospitalizations and hurricanes. But even still, we had no idea we'd lollygag so long on this contest.

Still, in spite of the long delay, it's actually been a big success in that it did exactly what we wanted it to do: We got some great ideas for Gutshot adventures. We collected about 50 submissions that are all fantastic. Honestly, there isn't a dud in the bunch. We had no problems at all selecting 12 adventures to develop into complete, printable material. You can find them here on the Winners page at our Website.

We finally printed the last adventure and selected the winner last summer. It was Tom Reed who won by penning The Great Drygulch Bank Robbery! It was a classic blend of cowhands, outlaws and a sheriff desperate to keep the peace. All in all, just the sort of thing that -- if it had been a classic Western movie -- might have starred Gary Cooper as the man with the tin badge. As the Judge's Prize Winner, Tom won a whole slew of goodies:

• Whitewash City 6 x 4 feet felt game mat (approx. $40 value)
• $60 Gift Certificate to Scale Creep Miniatures
• 25mm painted stagecoach with team from Knuckleduster ($80 value)
• Arnica, Montana resin Main Street Starter (5 buildings: $40 value)
• Whitewash City Starter CD ($15 value)
• One item from the Gutshot General Store (approx. $20 value)
• One copy of the Showdowns & Shootouts collected book (approx. $20 value)
• Gutshot miniature: ($5 value)

With the adventure finished, the last thing we had to do to finally put a bow on this thing was to have the readers vote on which was their favorite adventure. But there was one thing that had been holding us back. The survey software. I know this sounds minor, but we just couldn't find the right software. As sad as it sounds, we just didn't find the right software to collect the info we wanted. Okay, that's not true. For $25 a month (minimum) we could do it. But... we're cheap. Um, scratch that... we're frugal. We just didn't think it was a good time to dump a bunch of money into something that, in the long run, isn't going to be used that often.

So, I finally sat down and wrote it myself. I finally got it finished (well, except for one or two cosmetic things I may or may not address at this time). And I need to write a reporting module to tabulate the results. But, again, that's a back-end piece that I can do later, or just tabulate the results by hand.

So, at long last, the Voting is open to the public. The voting will open Thursday on March 1, 2012. At that time, I will add a link to this blog, and to the regularly scheduled update on Thursday.

You can cast your vote until midnight March 31, 2012. Oh, and did I mention that there is a prize being given to everyone who votes in this? We'll talk about that on Thursday.

Deadwood: Working on the new logo

When I was prepping for OwlCon (wow, was it only two weekends ago?), I found myself scrambling to create some new materials for the Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood game I was running. I had the evening's adventure mostly worked out (it was a simple event called "Last Thing Standing!" -- I set up half the players as humans and half as Zombies and had them go at it to eliminate each other), but I needed some new character sheets for the new Revenant zombies.In our game, this type of Zombie is also called a "Character Zombie" because it's a dead man who retains his memories and skills... and can now only be killed if you manage to blow his brains out (and trust me, folks, these tough sons-of-guns ain't killed by a single bullet to the head -- they're tough).

Anyway, we'll tell more about these bad boys later. Back to my rambling story...

I was working on the character sheets and it hit me that I just didn't like the logo I had created (in haste, I might add) a few years back. It was always intended to serve as a temporary logo, and here I was still using it. You can see it on our Website on the Deadwood miniatures packages (for sale at our Website -- you know I never miss a chance to plug our stuff). For those of you who don't feel like taking a mosey over there, here ya go.

It ain't bad, but it ain't great, either. And it definitely was worth the short amount of time I spent on it. The top font is Algerian (one of my personal favorite Western fonts because it's classy and easy to read). The name of the bottom font eludes me, although I could look it up if anyone really wants to know. So, in a hurry, I modified the logo and came up with this new version:

The logo isn't 100% complete (I need to tweak a few things and consider how much blood we want dripping from it), but I definitely like it more than the first logo. The top has remained the same (Algerian, which has been customized with a black "shadow line") and Bleeding Cowboy. Now, even though Bleeding Cowboy font is a bit overused these days (just go searching for any Weird West stuff and you'll find more than you can shake a sexton's shovel at), I do like the way it looks here. Nevertheless, I suspect this will be another "interim" logo for our upcoming game. Nevertheless, you should probably expect to see this (or at least a version of it) on the Website until we finalize it for print.

By the way, if you're interested in getting this font for yourselves, you can grab it for free over at DaFont.com.

Started working on new material...

I, for one, am very excited that my "day job" schedule has changed enough that I will be able to shift energy back to the various Hawgleg projects we've had sitting on the back burner.

Upcoming work includes:

• Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood
• Showdowns & Shootouts
• Draw RPG

Coupled with some upcoming changes to our back-end practices (scheduling, accounting, etc.), things are definitely looking up to make 2012 a very exciting year for us. Keep checking here, and at our website, for more updates.

www.hawgleg.com

Getting ready for OwlCon...

Here it is on Tuesday night and I'm starting to gear up for OwlCon this weekend. Has it really been 13 years that I've attended?  Well... at least 12. I think I missed on year because I was ill. However, I'm not 100% sure about that.

Last night I worked on cleaning up my "craft room" so I could sit down and start painting again. I've got about 10-15 minis primed, based and partially painted, just waiting for me to finish painting them. I'd like to bring a few new women characters this year, along with some more "character zombies." The latter are definitely necessary, as I will be running a new game this year: Last THING Standing.

I'm looking forward to giving this a shake-down -- it's a variation of the old "Last Man Standing" game where everyone tries to shoot everyone else. Only this time, half of the players will be running zombies! I hope this is a fun change of pace for everyone (and me).

My game will be at 8 pm, Friday Feb. 3, 2012 at Rice University.

Even though my game says it's filled up, I always leave room for 2-3 "walk-ins," so feel free to swing by and see if I can fit you in.

http://owlcon.com/2012/events_minis.php#Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood