Quest Writers Weekly: The Latest Features and Inspiration

Adventurers!

With fall descending upon us, the time for the spooky and horrible is swiftly drawing near. There's just over one week left for you to submit your quests for the spooky quest challenge! Unlike most contests, there's no cap on the prizes here - so if you write two, or even three quests, you'll win two or three prizes!

And then, of course, there's the big one: The $500 November quest writing contest. Hopefully you've started brainstorming and outlining your quest - just remember that you can't start writing the quest itself until November 1st!

Writing inspiration

Excited to write, but not sure about what? Look no further than our weekly Quest Crafter series! Just in time for finishing up your Halloween quests, we have a double episode:

First, shudder in disgust with 20 revolting mortal remains that will haunt your players - or their foes.

Then, explore 20 curses in On Curses Most Foul for creative ways to hex your adventurers.

Feedback of the Week

We've seen a few quests do this really well, and would love to see more do it: Give the players a chance to roleplay and make backstories and motivations for their characters. Set the stage for your players with a few pages describing the world and conflict that they're about to take... and then take a step back as the writers and allow players to roleplay. Here's a great example from the start of the Goin' on a Bear Hunt quest:

New in the App & Quest Creator

We're making great progress on remote play, the music engine, and improved support for multi-chapter quests. And yet we still found time for some improvements!

• Added a whole new set of icons - Runes!
• Completed the switch from bracketed [icons] to :icons:, so that brackets can now be used to indicate large art. Try [hound_of_tindalos] and [hound_of_tindalos_full], and then look here for the full art list!
• Added a handy keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Enter automatically starts playing the quest from your current cursor position.
• Several improvements to the Quest Creator validator: if it crashes while validating, it now terminates properly instead of spinning forever. Plus, spellcheck and validator errors are now handled separately / persist properly, so that running a validation (which happens whenever you hit "Play from Cursor") or a spellcheck (which happens whenever you type something) doesn't delete the errors from the other one.
• Improved authentication system for Quest Creator. No longer gets blocked by pop-up blockers, and tries to pre-authenticate you so that the actual sign-in goes much faster.
• Added a FAQ to the Quest Creator homepage that talks about ownership and allowed genres. If you have any other questions you'd like answered, let me know at Todd@Fabricate.io!

Courtesy of WhispersOfTheWyrd

We're Hiring!

Love Expedition and board games in general? Hip on the latest social media trends? We're looking for a paid part time (2-5 hours/week), remote social media manager with an opportunity to also take on some customer support (if you're interested).

To apply, email Todd@Fabricate.io with:

1. Three of your most successful social media posts and why you think they were successful.
2. Three example posts you'd make for the board game of your choice (one each for Twitter, Instagram and Facebook).
3. A list of 5-10 hashtags you would tag the posts with, showing the research that you did on those keyword to make sure they're popular but not oversaturated.

We can't wait to play your next adventure!

Todd, Scott and Greg

Quest Writers: $500 Writing Contest, New Features and more!

Writers and adventure-crafters,

We have several exciting updates this week!

First off, we just announced two new ways to earn money and prizes for writing:

November Contest - $500 Grand Prize!

November is traditionally National Novel Writing Month, but why not write an interactive adventure instead? Write a 20,000 word adventure between November 1 and November 30th for a shot at $500! Click here for more information.

October - Double Loot Points for Spooky Quests!

This October, publish a Halloween-appropriate quest and earn two loot points! (Plus a bonus point if you're a first-time author!)

New Features and Fixes

Scott and I have deployed several upgrades to the Quest Creator to make your life easier, including:

• when the app encounters an error in the quest (specifically, with {{ops}}, such as invalid syntax), it'll show you the error to help you debug it
• streamlined example quest
• remove line numbers from side of text editor to make the page less cluttered; add current line number and word count to bottom right
• fix some bugs with * on round and roleplaying cards and GOTOs inside of on round
• fix bug where multiple of the same style in a single paragraph, such as italic text italic, would mistakenly be treated as a single group (italic text italic)
• fix bug where the text editor cursor would sometimes jump randomly (especially when searching with control + F)
• fix bug where style detection included ops contents, so you’d get weird behavior with things like italic {{.numAdventurers()}}_
• add several words to spellcheck dictionary that are uncommon in general English but common in roleplaying

Writing Inspiration

Looking for inspiration to get started, or take your writing to the next level? Check out the new Quest Crafter section of the Expedition website (https://expeditiongame.com/questcrafter) for weekly writing inspiration. This week's post covers 20 ideas on how to make more interesting and personal enemies - a great way to get your players more invested and spice up combat!

Adventure onwards,

Tod, Scott & Greg

Halloween & NaNoWriMo Contests: Over $500 in prizes!

Adventurers,

With the expansion Kickstarter over 900% funded... we are rendered speechless by your enthusiasm! (If you missed it, you can pre-order it here.)

To celebrate - and thank you - for your support, we're pulling out all the stops in making sure you have awesome adventures to play.

This October: Loot points!

We're rewarding anyone who publishes a spooky or horror-themed quest using the Quest Creator in time for Halloween!

Every spooky / horror quest you publish earns you 2 Loot Points.

If you're looking for writing inspiration, quests earn 1 additional Loot Point for incorporating the theme "The Monster with the Face of Man": Sometimes the most monstrous evil hides behind the banality of the mundane.

And, if you're a first-time author, you'll earn an additional loot point!

To qualify, quests must be at least 20 minutes in length, published publicly before midnight EST on October 31st, and follow Expedition community and quality standards.

Looking for more inspiration? Check out the new Quest Crafter section of the Expedition website: https://expeditiongame.com/questcrafter 

This November: $500!

We're holding a $500 quest writing contest. Yes, you read that correctly: $500!

November is traditionally National Novel Writing Month ("NaNoWriMo") - but instead of writing a novel, why not push yourself creatively and write an interactive story using the Expedition Quest Creator? This time around there are no theme constraints: write whatever story your heart desires, as long as you can fit it into the Expedition system.

To keep to the spirit of NaNoWriMo, qualifying quests must contain a minimum of 20,000 words. You cannot start writing your quest until November 1st (though you may work on an outline ahead of time), and your quests(s) must be published publicly by midnight EST on November 30th.

In preparation for this contest, we'll be releasing new tools for authors that allow you to define when quests are part of the same series - as well as upgrades for the app that will make it easier for players to discover and enjoy multi-part series. Instead of publishing your quest as a single 3+ hour adventure, you may also choose to publish it as a multi-part quest series.

At the end of November, the Expedition team will select 5 finalists and the winner will be selected by audience vote. The voting period will last two weeks after the submission deadline. At the end, whichever quest has the most votes wins! If there is a tie, the prize will be split among the winners.

September Winners

Without further ado, the winning quests and authors of September's adventure contest!

• Best Horror: Dark Castle Vol 1 by Grayons Prettyman
• Best Persona and Best Overall: The Girl (Z.E. #1) by Jackson Gaydon

Congratulations to Grayons and Jackson for their excellent quests!

New features

The app (v1.7.1) has gotten several upgrades, including:

• Settings are now saved across sessions!
• Added support for The Horror expansion, including expanded setup and combat rules and searching for / displaying Horror-enabled community quests.
• Several improvements to the settings interface
• Clarified that "Custom Combat" is GM Mode
• Clarified on surge card that some UNDEAD surges apply after they're knocked out
• Fixed several small bugs, including that some community quests' "The End" button did nothing

Also, Expedition is now on Instagram! (@ExpeditionRPG) - make sure to tag us in your Expedition photos :)

Until next month,

Todd, Scott and Greg

Four Days Remaining - And Remote Play!

Adventurers,

With less than a week left, The Horror is over 500% funded!

More importantly, thanks to the incredible support from the community, we unlocked the Remote Play stretch goal - and we're less than $10,000 away from unlocking a really cool research & development stretch goal to explore VR and Voice Assistant versions of Expedition. If you haven't yet, make sure to check it out!

Also, we're on Product Hunt today! Product Hunt is a site that hundreds of thousands of people use to discover interesting new products. If you want to help spread the word & help us reach that stretch goal, click here to check it out!

Remote Play

Imagine if you could enjoy Expedition with your friends... even if they weren't in the same room! That's right - coming soon, you'll be able to synchronize apps with other players and go on quests, no matter the distance.

In the coming months, we'll be rolling out this functionality to beta testers. If you want to be a beta tester, email Todd@Fabricate.io with the subject "Remote Play Beta Tester" and include if you'd like to beta test for the web app, Android or iOS.

Quest Writing Contest

In all the excitement, don't forget that we're still holding a quest writing contest! Publish a quest by September 14th at midnight EST in one of the following categories for a chance to win gold - I mean, cash:

• Best use of Persona ($50)

• Best Cthulhu or Horror genre story ($50)

• Best Overall ($100)

We also have a quick, 2 minute survey here. Whether you're a veteran writer or are intimidated by the thought of writing your own quests, we'd love to get your feedback so that we can make your experience better!

New App and Quest Creator features

Somehow while running a Kickstarter, Scott and I still found time to make several exciting improvements to the app and quest creator (who needs sleep, anyway?):

App v1.6.2

• Improved experience for going home from in the middle of a quest; now asks you "Are you sure?" in a nice, themed dialog

• Show more details on quest search details page so that you can pick out the perfect adventure

• Tune damage and loot

  • Slowly ramping damage if you're only down to 1 player or 1 enemy, so that infinite loops (like continuously dodging without dealing damage) don't drive the rest of the players insane

  • Providing slightly less loot for higher tier encounters

• Numerous style improvements for splash screen, menus and search

• Numerous small rules clarifications thanks to players' questions

• App version now visible at the bottom of the "Tools" page

• Engine improvements in preparation for supporting The Horror expansion

• Fixed a bug with "Retry combat?" button where it would show up even when you won combat

Quest Creator

• Private publishing: You can now privately publish quests so that only you can view them in the app (once logged in), perfect for playtesting your latest creation. Note that privately published quests are not eligible for contests!

• Improved errors + warnings UI: You can now click the warning / error icon for in-page help!

• Style guide: Added a new style guide for writers: https://github.com/ExpeditionRPG/expedition-quest-creator/blob/master/docs/style_guide.md

• Mid-Combat cards: Added support for showing cards in the middle of combat - check out the documentation: https://github.com/ExpeditionRPG/expedition-quest-creator/blob/master/docs/qdl_guide.md#combat-cards

• Ability to declare that your quest requires the Horror expansion on publish

• Fixed a bug where, if a quest was published privately, it could not be published publicly (or vis versa)

• Added several new errors and warnings to help catch common issues before they're published

Until next month,

Todd, Scott & Greg

Quest Crafter Weekly: Private Publishing and More!

Hello, quest creators! We've got a few juicy updates for you this week.

If you haven't yet, make sure to check out the first expansion on Kickstarter. It's now over 300% funded and close to unlocking a game-changing stretch goal: remote play functionality built into the app!

Private Publishing

It's finally here! You can select the "Publish privately" check box when publishing in the Quest Creator and the quest will only be visible to you in the app, through the Tools > Private Quests button. This is super convenient for playtesting unfinished quests without being tethered to a laptop or desktop.

Server Upgrades

In addition to adding private publishing, we made a number of changes to our core server code. Switching our database library to Sequelize let us add a number of additional unit tests that make sure the more complex data operations (such as updating quest ratings) continue to work as we improve the rest of the system and add new features for the upcoming expansion pack.

Free content for writers

The first post of our new Quest Crafter series is now live! In it, Greg gives you 20 different ideas on how to handle the common "your party enters a tavern" situation. Check it out at ExpeditionGame.com/questcrafter.

Let us know what you want to see next!

Greg Miller has been quickly ramping up as our community/content manager. He's made a quick, 2-minute survey that'll help us continue to improve your quest writing experience. Whether you've written five quests, or struggled to start your first one, your input here is incredibly valuable!

Thank you,

Todd, Scott & Greg

New Team Member & New Features

Adventurers and Adventure-Crafters,

First off, if you haven't already, make sure to check out the Kickstarter for the first expansion. It funded in just two days and is now unlocking all sorts of cool stretch goals. The top stretch goal - which we might reach with your help - is to build remote play capabilities into the app!

New Team Member

Scott and I are thrilled to announce that Expedition has hired its first employee - and from the Expedition community, no less! Greg Miller, one of our most prolific writers, is now Expedition's author community manager.

Welcome to the team, Greg!

As he gets up to speed in the next few weeks, expect more awesome content and tools for authors to make your lives easier and your quests even more awesome :)

New Features

Now that Scott and I have recovered from GenCon, we've been able to get back to coding and have added several hotly-requested features to the app:

• Add option to retry combat if failure results in the end of the quest... you no longer need to worry about coding this into your quests - the app will automatically insert it any time your combat's on lose event goes directly to an **end** or only has a single roleplaying card before **end**.
  • Speaking of time travel, I've been playing Life Is Strange this week, which features some pretty cool time travel / checkpoint mechanics. If you're interested in more features to encourage players to go back and forth in your quests to explore different possible outcomes, let us know!
• Add settings for timer speed and font size.
  • We now have a lot of settings in the app, so one of the next big things we're working on is the ability to save settings / have them persist across games.
• Add confirmation dialog before leaving a quest via menu -> Home.
• Fix several performance issues, including removing dependency on jQuery to reduce code size and memory consumption.
• Clarify that discarding an ability when leveling up is optional.

We got a lot of fantastic feedback in person at GenCon - much of which we deployed in this week's app update. If you have other ideas / suggestions / improvements, let us know! Yes, we do read our contact form :) You can also message us with the handy little "contact us" button on the bottom right of the Quest Creator.

Until next week,

Todd

The First Expansion: Live on Kickstarter!

Adventurers,

Scott and I are thrilled to share that The Horror is now live on Kickstarter - and will be shipping in time to arrive for Christmas! Copies are just $10, with flat rate $5 shipping.

The Horror includes a new "Persona" mechanic that adds roleplaying, storytelling and strategic depth. It's inspired by the Cthulhu mythos, and will be used in a wide range of quests - everything from family-friendly adventures to horror-enthusiast mysteries.

If you're at GenCon, come check it out at booth #2962!

We've only gotten this far through your support and feedback. A special thank you to all of you who've provided feedback, shared Expedition with friends and written quests.

If you'd like to help support the Kickstarter, please consider sharing it on social media today. Here are some example posts:

Expedition: The Roleplaying Card Game just launched its first expansion! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toddmedema/expedition-the-horror @ExpeditionRPG #GetYourAdventureOn

Check out this RPG... it's half board game, half video game: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toddmedema/expedition-the-horror @ExpeditionRPG #GetYourAdventureOn

I just backed a family-friendly tabletop RPG that's fun for all ages: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/toddmedema/expedition-the-horror @ExpeditionRPG #GetYourAdventureOn

Thank you for your support! And here's to many more adventures!

Todd & Scott

Expedition: An Exciting August

Adventurers,

Things are getting exciting at the Expedition Castle.

Last month, we saw several new features launching and new quests published (and winning prizes)

This month, we're launching the first expansion (August 17th) and going to GenCon! Read on for more:

The Expansion

Expedition: The Horror is coming along perfectly in time for its launch on August 17th. We've finalized all of the art with the artist, including this awesome logo. In an Expedition first, all of the enemy cards will have custom artwork on them!

What all will be available in the Kickstarter? Copies of the expansion, as well as base game + expansion bundles. They'll both be available with discounts, so it'll be a great chance to pick up a spare copy for a friend or birthday present! There will also be 6-packs of the expansion and base + expansion bundles.

Parents: Note that even though the expansion is horror / Cthulhu themed, it's still the same level of age appropriateness as the original game. Expedition is a game of imagination and storytelling, and it can be as fun - or as terrifying - as you and individual quests make it.

You can download a free beta copy of the expansion here. If you're considering backing the Kickstarter, backing and sharing on launch day (August 17th) would be a huge help! Kickstarters that are able to fund within 24 hours get a lot of extra attention that will help us unlock more awesome stretch goals :)

App updates

This month's app updates include:

• Improved setup rules for 1 and 2 player games
• Improved the appearance of icons in the app
• New server architecture for the quest creator, reducing load times by as much as 50%
• Fixed several bugs

Quest contest winners

As a reminder, July's categories:

• Best Mystery: Who dunnit? The suspense is killing us!
• Best Family-Friendly: The funnest quest with an "Everyone" rating takes the cake here.
• Best Romance: Whether it's a rom-com romp through the forest or a dramatic political romance, one thing's for sure: it's going to be an adventure!
• Grand Prize

Each winner will get a signed pre-release copy of the expansion. The Grand Prize winner also earns $100!

Without further ado:

• Best Mystery: Azure Agents Chapter 2 by GraphiteHelix. Why are the undead attacking Faeyvre, and how will you stop them?
• Best Family-Friendly: Fishin' with Dad by Cory Smith. A timeless father-son fishing tale, and a great parent-kid adventure :)
• Best Romance: This one's proven to be a challenge for quest writers! Nobody was able to claim the romance prize - so if you're looking for writing inspiration, this would be a great opportunity to try your hand at a new type of story.
• Grand Prize: Dark Gifts (Part 2 of the World Breaker series) - Greg Miller has done it again, with another literary and adventure masterpiece set in the World Breaker world. Congratulations, Greg!

Expansion quest contest

To celebrate the launch of Expedition: The Horror, we're holding a quest writing contest that's all about the new Persona mechanic. There'll be two $50 prizes: one for the best use of Persona in a quest, and one for the best Cthulhu or horror story. The contest starts now and ends two days before the Kickstarter - September 14th at midnight, EST. We can't wait to see what you write!

If you haven't checked out the expansion beta yet, the rules and cards are available here.

If you haven't tried the quest creator before - or haven't used it in a while - make sure to check out the quest writing tool. We've made a lot of upgrades to it in the past few months, including spellchecking, collaborative editing, and a "notes" section.

GenCon

Expedition will be at GenCon booth #2962!

Besides copies of the game and t-shirts, we'll also have unique, free promo cards available each day in limited quantities. We expect them to run out quickly, so make sure to swing by early in the day if you want them! Even if we run out, we'd love to meet you, our fellow adventurers, in person.

Adventure onwards,

Todd & Scott