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Monday, August 31, 2020

Our Heroes Make Progress in a Cruel, Unforgiving Land

Adventurer's Log

Day 20: We bid farewell to our companion, the dwarf fighter Grognard. He fell to the swamp dwellers, pulled down to a watery grave. We'll bring his axe and shield to Ghrodwir, the mountainous home of the dwarves of Wynmar. We heard they make better ale than even the Captain's Quarters pub, so we'll raise a toast to our friend as well. (In addition to being an awesome pub in Nox Archaist, Captains Quarter's is a fun BBS run on an Apple II computer, accessible by telnet)


Swamp Dweller (Robert Gomez)                                                          Swamp Dweller (Robert Gomez)


Later that evening: After resting and regaining some of our strength and magic, we continued our journey. To save time, we took the coast road. Alas, that proved to be a mistake. The pretty brig that sailed up alongside turned out to be a pirate ship! Poor Thomas - his leather helm was no match for the cannon fire. Another companion gone. We'll bring his body with us, in the hopes of finding a healer.


Day 21: We reached Bayport a little after midnight. The guards glared at us as we approached. Fortunately our writ from Queen Isa made quite an impression and we were permitted entry to this busting port city. We discretely asked around the docks to find out what is going on with the pirates. It turns out that loitering around the docks of Bayport at midnight is not a good idea. Down went Phyrra with a knife in her back. More gold to the healer. Our porters are starting to grumble from carrying the bodies.


Pirates! (Gordon Mackay)


Day 22: Good news! Thomas, Phyrra, and even Grognard are back, as good as new! The healer in Bayport was most kind, although she declined to give us a group discount on resurrection. After a day of rest we'll head back out. We have heard tell of a Haunted Pass through the mountains that promises to be a shortcut to our next destination.


Tester's Log

Earlier this month, Nox Archaist entered the playtesting phase. An intrepid team of sixteen volunteers from our community answered the call, and are working hard to put the game through its paces. So far most of the identified bugs have been minor, such as text corrections and user interface changes. The team also uncovered a few significant hidden bugs as well which we are glad to have behind us!


While we're making excellent progress, there's quite a lot of content to test in Nox Archaist. Our initial estimates are that Nox will have available up to 100+ hours of quests and side quests!  Performing a thorough test is quite an epic undertaking! We expect to need at least one more month of testing to make sure the remaining game content is carefully evaluated for issues.


We know how excited everyone is to finally get their hands on Nox Archaist, and we're happy to announce that we are definitely in the home stretch. By the end of September when we do our next update, we will have a much better idea of the timeline for finally releasing the game to you all! There's a lot of logistics involved in the physical release. For example, we want to wait to print the physical game manual until testing is done, since the content or screenshots might change based on what happens during the testing phase. Plus of course there's the nearly four thousand floppy disk sides that we can't start copying until we know the bugs are squashed. (In case you were wondering, as excited as we are about releasing the game, the team is not exactly on the edge of our seats with joyful anticipation as we near the floppy disk copying phase of this project)  ;-)





Hundreds of boxes and thousands of floppies...




More Testers Wanted

Are you interested in helping us test Nox Archaist? We are recruiting additional testers now. If you are interested and can dedicate the time, please email mark<at>6502workshop.com.

Virtual KansasFest Recap

If you missed our Nox Archaist talk at Virtual KansasFest 2020, you can watch the live stream on the KansasFest YouTube channel.

Moved and Changed Addresses?

If you have moved in the past year and are getting a boxed set, be sure to confirm your address is correct in the Backer Survey:

For changes within the same country: Log into Kickstarter, click on your name in the upper right and navigate to the Nox Archaist kickstarter page. Click "View Survey" and then "Edit Address". You can also change your address in your Kickstarter profile and select "Apply to all" projects.

If you have moved to a different country: You must send us your new address "manually" (changing your main Kickstarter profile address will not update your Nox address). You can send a message by clicking on the "Messages" tab in the "View Survey" window.
As always, we'd love to hear your comments and thoughts!



-Mark, Chris, Jarrod, and the 6502 Workshop team

Website - http://www.6502workshop.com
Discord - http://discord.noxarchaist.com
Twitter - @6502Workshop
Forums - http://forums.noxarchaist.com
Facebook - http://facebook.noxarchaist.com
Kickstarter - http://kickstarter.noxarchaist.com










6 comments:

  1. Such a labor of love, so looking forward to this!

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  2. Nox Archaist shipping is what's gonna turn 2020 around for us! :) Great job, truly unique nowadays and epic in scope. Really looking forward to it in our household. Keep up the great work you're doing for the entire II/old school RPG community worldwide!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks so much for your kind words! We'll keep at it!

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  3. Ive got my apple spruced up and ready to go! I cant wait.

    ReplyDelete