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EXILES + CRESCENT MOON ☾ 2e. Feelings-delving role-playing.

Created by Pocket Compass Co.

Join a band of outcasts clawing their way out of a grim world of nightmare in EXILES. https://ema-acosta.itch.io/exiles Go on a strange journey into a patchwork world of daydream in CRESCENT MOON ☾. https://ema-acosta.itch.io/crescentmoon These twin fantasy games center around exploring your characters' psyches, feelings, and relationships as they traverse a strange world shaped by their own dreams. Crescent is all-ages, tender, and whimsical. EXILES is dramatic, action-packed, and violent. Crescent Moon was published first as a physical release, and is getting a rules update on this new edition. EXILES expands on the themes of the original and benefits from familiarity with the system, but can be played standalone. Projected shipping date is sometime in late 2023 or early 2024. Development updates are posted to Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spookymeal/the-exiles-a-dark-fantasy-rpg

Latest Updates from Our Project:

🐎🪕🪃 Crescent almost finished + 🩸 Exile 1.1 Update
21 days ago – Thu, Oct 31, 2024 at 06:20:24 AM

Hello everyone!

I am very pleased to tell you Crescent is almost done :-) All big illustrations have been finished, and all that remains are a couple of spots at the back of the book. Here are some of the most recent pieces!

🩸 Exile 1.1 Update

The new digital play template for Figma, available now

ICYMI, Exile got a quality of life update at the start of the month! It includes:

  • All new playsheets! Both the player sheets and the GM sheets have been reworked for clarity and ease of use.
  • A Digital Play Template for Figma, so you can easily kickstart online games.
  • A small update to The Moon section, featuring tweaks to the 'Setbacks' and 'Delve Moves' rules.
  • Typo, pagination, and layout revisions.
  • Clarity tweaks to the Table of Contents.
The new player reference sheet

I hope you enjoy the update—I think the playsheets combined with the new template makes it easier than ever to get started with the game. 🌜

Looking beyond the PDFs

With Crescent's digital release looming in the near future, the time to gear up for physical manufacturing is nigh. That includes preparing the games for print, communicating with suppliers, and so on. I'm starting to move the pieces to make this a reality, and will share a more concrete timeline once Crescent is released.

Anyway, that's it for today. You can expect to hear back from me before the year's end—hopefully alongside Crescent's release. Thank you for your continued support, and have a happy halloween! 🎃🦇

warmly,

em

🥚🥬💫 Crescent art + Exile patch in the works
2 months ago – Mon, Sep 16, 2024 at 10:23:17 AM

Hey all! I hope the transition into Autumn is treating you well :-) Over here, the Summer has decided to give us one last heat wave...just as I also fished a seasonal cold. Bit of weird combination! Anyway, here is some of the newest Crescent progress.

You may have picked up on the fact that I have run out of ways to say "I'm working on it". Luckily for me, there's not much else left to do, so I only have to squeeze out 2-3 more inventive variations of the phrase. The GM chapter is now fully illustrated, which leaves all but the starting the game / supplemental material sections ready for publishing. Just writing this out makes me really excited for what's to come. 😊

🩸💀 Exile is getting a 1.1 patch

I'm really busy, but on the odd couple of hours I can spare every week, I've been chipping away at a 1.1 patch for Exile. This includes quality-of-life updates like a more granular TOC, typo fixes, some rules clarifications, and the like. Most importantly, I decided to redesign the play sheets to be more detailed and useful during play (As in retrospect, I realized the 1.0 sheets leaned a bit too abstract). As Hedgemaze patrons know, this may or may not have been kickstarted by the fact I'm gearing up to write and subsequently run some adventures. Fun times!

Here are the new sheets for The Moon. Sometime in October I should be dropping the patch proper, including also the player sheets, and a Miro template for digital play.

If you've followed development closely, you may notice these are much closer to the spirit of the Beta sheets, which were really popular among playtesters.

Signing off

Thank you so much for following along. I'll be in touch in October with—yet another!—fun way to say I'm working on the game and, hopefully, an announcement that the 1.1 patch is out. Onwards and upwards!

waving across the screen,

-em

🏰🌙 Crescent art midway through!
4 months ago – Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 02:16:10 PM

Hey all! Much like last month, not a lot going on this month other than the fact I'm still illustrating Crescent. :-) Slowly but surely! Here's a couple of the most recent pieces.

In terms of raw amount of art, I'm about halfway through. That said, as I move into the second half of the book, more of the pieces become simpler and looser, so I should be able to pencil through a bit faster. So far, I'm really happy with how everything is shaping out. I hope you are too!

Given that I've gone so ridiculously over the timeline (my god, just typing it out makes me want to crawl into a burrow), at this point I'm gonna spare you of any predictions of when the book will be ready. Instead I'll focus on keeping up the weekly progress and distributing the PDF as soon as I'm done—with print and shipping to follow thereafter. Stay tuned!

I'll spend half of next month on vacation and the other half catching up with life (I'm moving onto a studio space what!?) so you can expect to hear back from me come September 🌝

P.S. The new Crescent tees are in the wild!

The Print Social run from back in May has successfully wrapped up. Thank you to everyone who got one! Have loved seeing the pics 🖤 Here's some detail shots featuring none other t-shirt than the one belonging to my Mom (legend). 

(Should I do an Exile tee in the future? Like one of those intelligible metal font ones? Have heard some interest so I may go for it. Eye emoji eye emoji wink)

vibrating from the other side,
-em

🐍✨ More Crescent art!
6 months ago – Mon, Jun 03, 2024 at 04:44:57 AM

Hey all! Not a lot to report this month. Slowly but surely I'm chipping away at the Crescent art :-) 

When I started the illustration phase, I was presented with two choices: Either I could make ink-only or grasycale illustrations (similar to Exile), or I could go full color like in the original. After experimenting with both, I stuck to the later. It's significantly more time consuming and as result I can only make 1-3 illustrations a week, but I think it fits Crescent to be all colorful—and I'm really loving the pieces so far! I'd say I'm about a third of the way done. 🌞

I'll check back in in July with more art. May also work on a wee game on the side! 

Happy pride 🌈

em

🐊🌙 Huzzah ! Crescent in the making!
7 months ago – Thu, May 02, 2024 at 02:15:48 AM

Hey all! Thank you for the warm reception on Exile's digital release. Here's a quick update on how things are going:

Crescent's script is done

Down to the last period and comma, Crescent 2e is written. This morning I just received a very last round of editing notes from Michael, after which all words are officially locked in.

Art!

I have also begun illustrating now that the script and design are out of the way!

Tees!

Last thing: In case you missed it, a couple days ago I launched some new tee designs to celebrate 2e's coming release. It features art in the new style and comes as a t-shirt and crewneck.

The pre-sale campaign is hosted on Print Social and will wrap up next Monday, May 6th—at which point all orders will be processed and shipped by them! Here's a link if you want to check it out.

Next update I should have at least some more pieces done, work allowing. Catch you around!

em