As of this update, all three versions of Chapter 3 of Lords of Infinity are now finished, which means I’ve started working on the two versions of Chapter 4.
Both iterations of Chapter 4 are relatively large. Although I’m certainly going to try to get Chapter 4A done by this time next month, it may take somewhat longer than that.
As usual, September’s installments of A Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea and An Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms are now up.
As of this update, the second version of Chapter 3 of Lords of Infinity is now complete, which means I’m devoting my efforts to finishing the final version.
This third branch (Chapter 3C) is perhaps the most interesting of the three, at least, from a design standpoint. It’s going to be the rarest, since accessing it relies on the player making a series of very specific decisions in Guns of Infinity, and then importing that file over. My optimistic estimate is that maybe 5-10% of players will end up seeing it, or even knowing of its existence at all, unless they find out through forum posts or word of mouth (or this blog, for that matter).
However, this does not mean that this chapter is going to be any shorter or less fully featured than 3A or 3B. Nor does it mean that someone coming into the series fresh won’t be able to have a good time with the two chapters they will have access to (though the existence of the third version offers another incentive for newcomers to buy the whole series). It does mean that I’ll be able to essentially create what is going be a more or less “secret” storyline, full of unique content which will not only be a full chapter, but serve as a goal in itself, just like certain chapters of Guns of Infinity were.
In the meantime, August’s installments of A Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea and An Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms are now up.
This is just a quick heads-up that the March updates for A Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea and An Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms are now up.
In the meantime, I am still busy working on (one of the iterations of) Chapter 2 of Lords of Infinity.
Those of you who check the Patreon Content page today may find a new addition. As promised, exceeding $300 a month in patron pledges means I will be writing not one, but two monthly worldbuilding columns. In addition to the regular Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea, I’ll also writing monthly installments of An Adventurer’s Guide to the Fledgling Realms, articles about the setting of The Hero of Kendrickstone and The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford.
If you have any interest in supporting more of this sort of worldbuilding work, consider backing my Patreon. Topics for these columns are suggested by and voted on by patrons at the $10 a month and $2 a month tiers respectively. In addition, $1 a month backers get access a week in advance.
So, about two weeks ago, I submitted the text-complete version of The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford for review by Choice of Games. Since then, I’ve been receiving and incorporating feedback notes from both CoG and my regular beta testing group. Once the current cycle finishes (tomorrow or thereabouts), I’ll be doing one last round of revisions (which will involve mostly cutting or streamlining repetitive text and testing the import system) before doing the remaining art, the reference materials, and finally sending it in for copyediting, hopefully, sometime before the end of the month.
With luck, I should be able to get a release date sometime in December or January.
In other news, the latest installment of The Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea is now up. As usual, you can support future articles by donating to my Patreon. Anyone contributing more than $1 a month gets access to new installments a week before they come out here.
The September installment of The Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea is up. This segment covers the last part of the Wars of Unification, the birth of the Tierran state, and the circumstances that led an implacable enemy of the Unified Kingdom like Leoniscourt to end up joining it.
As usual, this worldbuilding content was funded by my Patreon. If you’d like to see more, then feel free to donate. $1-a-month Patrons get access to articles a week in advance, while Patrons at the $2-a-month tier get to vote on what topic I tackle for the next month.
In other news, I’ve finished the last chapter of The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford this week. There’s only the epilogues to wrap up before we go into post-production. Hopefully, we’ll be releasing at the end of this year, or the beginning of the next.
I’ve been keeping quite busy over the last month. There’s a lot of new work I’ve been throwing myself into, including The Cryptkeepers of Hallowford, the sequel to The Hero of Kendrickstone (expect a page for that to pop up sometime in the next few months). There’s also another new project which I am very excited about, but I’m not supposed to give away anything about that one quite yet.
Rest assured though, this month’s update for A Soldier’s Guide to the Infinite Sea hasn’t been delayed. This latest installment of Countess Welles’ report focuses on the first few hours of the Battle of Blogia itself, from the initial artillery barrage to the infantry engagement, all the way up to just moments before the fateful point when Mikhail of Khorobirit commits his Church Hussars.
As always, if you’re interested in seeing more world building and setting articles, feel free to donate to my Patreon. Not only would you be supporting further installments, but you’ll also get access to updates a week early!
Some of you may have already noticed that Steam is currently having their annual Summer Sale.
What you may not know is that Choice of Games has put up its entire catalogue on sale at a 25% discount. On top of that, they’ve put all of my currently published work up in a series of bundles, which are discounted even further.
That means you can get a bundle consisting of Mecha Ace and The Hero of Kendrickstone or one made up of Sabres of Infinity, and its sequel, Guns of Infinity for a total of 44% off!
If you haven’t had a chance to pick up any of those titles, now would probably be the best chance to nab them.
Over the past few months, I’ve been coming to the realisation that the sort of in-depth world-building I do for works like Sabres of Infinity aren’t particularly financially sustainable. By spending months and months tweaking cultural biases and orders of battle, I’m able to make my stories take place in richer, fuller worlds. Skimping on the process leads occasionally to works which could have ended up being better. However, spending all that time on it also slows down my writing process appreciably, to the point where I’m not really doing paying work at the rate that I’d really want to. Guns of Infinity has proven to be a pretty good example of that: taking the time to build up the political and cultural forces that drive the story have made it a better one, but it has also taken the better part of eighteen months, and releasing one title every year and a half isn’t really anything I can live off of by itself.
So, I’ve decided to fuel my “extracurricular” worldbuilding with a Patreon page. In exchange for the funding provided by generous patrons, I intend to make publish a series of articles on the settings of my two ongoing series (The Infinite Sea of Sabres/Guns of Infinity, and The Concordat of The Hero of Kendrickstone). These articles will deliver in-depth explanations and examinations of the culture, politics, and minutiae of these settings, and will be made publicly available here on this website, in the hopes that you will enjoy reading about the details of my worlds as much as I enjoy creating them.
You can find my Patreon page here.
Secondly, some great news: barring any sort of major emergency, Guns of Infinity will be releasing tomorrow. It bears repeating that due to the way that Choice of Games has to juggle a release on six separate platforms with six different approval processes that this is not guaranteed. However, if nothing horrible happens, then everyone should be able to get their hands on a release copy sometime in the next twenty-four hours.
As of today, The Hero of Kendrickstone is out on all platforms.
Continuing the trend of being bigger and more ambitious than anything I’ve ever done, Kendrickstone is 245 000 words of high-fantasy adventure, with a level of freedom-of-choice which I’ve never even attempted before. As struggling adventurer in the Great City of Kendrickstone, will you make your name through great feats of arms and powerful spellcraft, or will you eschew violence for a reputation as a silver-tongued negotiator? Buy armour that might save your life, or eat something more extravagant than stale bread this month? Will you save the city from the vengeful wizard who seeks its destruction, or will you die a failure like so many before you?
You can get The Hero of Kendrickstone on Google Play, the Chrome Web Store, Amazon, the iOS AppStore, or Steam.
Paul Wang 
