November

I won't bury the lede - Blue Planet: Recontact has been seen in the wild! After years of hard work and delay, the game is finally landing in the hands of backers. Thank you all in equal measure for your support and patience. It may sound hackneyed and overstated, but Recontact would not have happened without both. 

Intrepid gamers braving the wilds of Poseidon to send in photos of the elusive Recontact in its natural habitat - the dining room table!

Some Shipping Nitty Gritty

Alan at Gallant Knight Games HQ, has the following details to share for those still waiting on their...well...long-awaited...books. 

US and Canada Shipments - The first pallet of US orders is out and en route. We’re about 45% shipped, but nearly all of the remaining 55% is packed and ready to be picked up in bulk by USPS on 11/5. We anticipate nearly all US and Canada packages being out the door with that shipment. There are 50 or so more complex packages remaining - those requiring additional Canadian customs paperwork or similar - though even these should be in transit by 11/10. After that we’ll post here about how to resolve any shipping issues or questions. 

EU/International Shipments - We have sorted payment for the RoW shipping and the process is ongoing. Essen Spiel slowed down communications a bit, and we are awaiting a progress status update from the fulfillment service. As soon as we have that, we’ll post the information here. Sorry for a lack of details at the moment, but the books are at the warehouse and will be on their way to you all shortly.  

October

Welcome to the October Blue Planet: Recontact update. The long trip to Poseidon is almost over. The orbital shuttles have made splashdown and been towed to the docks. The cargo has been offloaded and delivered by remote haulers to the shipping depot, and the freight-bots have begun packing the books for final overland shipment to newcomer and native alike.

Here’s the latest word from Alan at Gallant Knight Games on fulfillment:

“The books have arrived in the UK/EU fulfillment site, and are being inspected for  shipping damage. We’re confirming details such as tracking number generation and estimate shipping to backers will begin in the next week or two. We'll post an update here when that begins.

US fulfillment is imminent. We've sourced boxes and packing supplies - including those cool little protective foam corners - and we've begun preparing parcels. These are heavy books, and there's a limit to how many can go out the door at one time given both our capacity, and that of our small, rural-ish post office. It will take time to get them all on their way, but we should be shipping in earnest the first week of October. 

You will receive an email from Gallant Knight Games with a tracking number. Due to the afore-mentioned post office size, it can take up to a week for tracking  to show a package as moving, so please be patient.

We will post a specific email address here once books are inbound to help sort out missing shipments, shipping damage, etc.” 

I know you have been waiting a very long time for me to say this, but here it comes - Blue Planet is finally on its way. Thank you for your unfailing patience, support and enthusiasm. They have made all the difference.

A Liddle Plug

Ian Liddle does not know I am posting this, but I know that word of mouth is everything for games like ours. Ian is a longtime supporter of Blue Planet, and in fact he has even published an RPG adapting the V2 mechanics to a fantasy setting. He just launched a new setting for the Savage Worlds Adventure RPG that trips so many of my triggers I just had to add what band-width I could to the signal. If sci-fi space horror is your jam, be sure and check out Dust We Inherit.

September

Whew! Summer is drawing to a close, and it's already time for the September update. Let's go!

Landfall

The US Blue Planet shipment has finally arrived at the Gallant Knight Games warehouse! Alan is inspecting the books for any issues caused by the transit and prepping for individual shipping to begin. He is testing various packaging systems since he had to have the final product in hand to finalize sizes and materials. After all the time and care we have put into these books, we want to make sure we do everything we can to assure you get them in pristine condition. 

Alan will post an update here when the first books are shipped to backers. 

For  international shipments, we’re still waiting for the books to arrive at the UK fulfillment center. When they do, the center will inspect and catalog them, and we’ll offer another update when they begin to ship to final destinations.

GenCon

Just a quick update on GenCon and the backers-only game I ran there. We played a favorite old scenario of mine called Natural Law. The player characters include a couple of GEO law dogs and a crashed hopper full of hardened criminals bound for Hollenstrand penal colony. The characters had to work together to survive a dangerous confrontation with a monstrous super-soldier and the lethal Incorporate black ops team sent to eliminate it. 

We had a full table and a fantastic time. I've never had a whole convention group that already knew the setting of Blue Planet and gathered with pre-loaded enthusiasm for the game. The players were uniformly awesome and nailed their roles, leaning into the animosity and mistrust between the cops and the cons, while still making it fun for everyone. It was one of the best sessions of a scenario I have run dozens of times at this point - and definitely the highlight of my GenCon. 

If you are interested in running your own session of Natural Law, you can find all the necessary resources here - the scenario, maps, introduction and pre-generated Recontact characters. 

Blue Planet Actual Play

If you don't have the time or group to run your own Blue Planet game at the moment, check out the crew at Role Playing Public Radio. During a recent visit, I ran them through a session of a newish scenario called A Day at the Beach. If you like the Poseidon frontier, annoying NPCs and Incorporate comeuppance, then you'll love this adventure. We had a blast!

August

I am posting the August Blue Planet update a few days early since I am leaving for GenCon in the morning and will be...a bit distracted...for the next few days. I am super-excited to play BP with some of you while there!

Oceangoing

The books are afloat - literally! Blue Planet: Recontact is finally printed, loaded on ships, and on the first leg of the journey to backers. The books are on two freighters - one to the US and one to the UK. In a cool use of marine technologies that seems particularly apropos given the nature of the game, we can even track the positions of the ships in realtime. 

US BOAT: OOCL VIOLET (https://www.vesselfinder.com/vessels/details/9949778

With Poseidon's blessing, the books will soon be making landfall. The shipping company will then need some time to get the books offloaded and delivered to our fulfillment centers, but as soon as we have a firmer timeline, we will update you here. 

Final Address Confirmations

Our publisher Alan is working with PledgeBox to finalize the process, but we will shortly open the system for any final change-of-address requests. When it goes live, we will announce that here as well, providing instructions and plenty of time for anyone who needs to make a last-minute change.  

Christmas in July Sale

I told Alan that I would share a reminder that DriveThru.RPG is running its "Christmas in July Sale" but that there are only a couple of days left to get some great deals on PDFs from Gallant Knight Games' catalog. If you are looking for some great titles to tide you over (tide - get it?) until Blue Planet finally arrives, GKG has you covered. 

July

The truth is that I could mostly crib last month's update word for word and not be too far off. Printing is wrapping up, we are finalizing shipping arrangements with our three fulfillment locations, and the books should be on their way across the Pacific later this month.

I find the pending Pacific convergence interesting, if not actually symbolic. The Blue Planet books - all about the Pacifica Archipelago - should be sailing across the actual Pacific any day now, as I myself post this update from the coastal waters of the Pacific Northwest. Until they arrive, I'll just pretend every container ship I see might be carrying our long-awaited cargo...

GenCon

As mentioned in previous updates, I'll be at GenCon at the end of the month, and I'm excited to run a special backers-only game of Blue Planet. It looks like the session will be 6p on Friday night, with the location still TBD. A handful of folks have already signed up pending their schedules matching, but if you are interested in playing, send me a note via the Kickstarter message system. I will confirm with everyone on a first-come-first-served basis and let you all know by mid-July if you made the roster. 

Excited to meet some of you and play some Blue Planet!

Mahalo

Thanks, everyone, for your ongoing support and patience. Recontact's voyage has been an incredibly long one, and at times, it's only been your enthusiasm that has kept the ship on course. You are heroes all, and I sincerely appreciate every generous pledge, thoughtful suggestion, creative contribution and kind word we have received as part of the project.


June

Happy Pride!

To all those who deserve a safe, just and accepting world - we see you and we love you.

Boat Ride

The offset books are rolling off the presses, and all appears to be going well. They should be loaded and leaving port by mid-June and on their way to our fulfillment partners in the US, UK and the EU. At that time, we'll finalize logistics with them and put out a last call for address changes. We'll provide a viable time window as we work with PledgeBox to get those changes sorted. 

Blue Planet at GenCon

As I shared in last month's update, Biohazard Games will be at GenCon this summer, and though we are not running any official events, I'm excited to offer a game (or two) for backers who will be attending.

If you will be at the con and are interested in playing Blue Planet with me, send me a note via the KS messenger function, and I’ll add your name to the list. One game will be Friday night at 6p. I'll take 6 players on a first-to-email-first-to-play basis. If there is enough interest, I'll find a spot for a second session, TBD.

Excited to have Blue Planet back at GenCon!

Bottoms Up

After too many real life delays, we finally finished the custom mini-campaign for our top Recontact backer - a story about a found family of deep water salvage technicians just trying to get by. 

Once the ReFound crew discovered the salvage they had just recovered was 1.5bn scrip worth of hijacked Long John and that the people who had hired them to get it off the seafloor were not actually its rightful owners, and when that mysterious faction's ship was destroyed by NIS mercenaries, things started to get interesting. 

I'd anticipated the crew fleeing the numerous forces arrayed against them to hide out in an insurgent camp somewhere in the nearby Wall region of the Styx. Instead, they took a literal left turn and fled to Nomad, Poseidon's own hive of scum and villainy. There, with me having to improvise like mad, they negotiated a bunch of risky deals with the NIS, Mr. Reason, and Cousin Tiny. In a reverse sort of Seven Samurai plot, the crew parlayed their xenosilicate leverage and distant family connections into a Blue Planet fiasco worthy of the Coen Brothers. It was awesome.

May

No burying the lede here - we’re diving right in! The proofs are in, and we have a delivery date (sort of)! 

Proofs

The physical proof copies of the offset books have arrived from our printer, and man-oh-man do they look prettier than a sunset on a tropical Poseidon island! The construction quality is high, the colors are rich and balanced, the heft could stop a greater white attack, and that slipcase – holy crap that slip case! The design came out so well that all the other RPGs on your shelf are going to be blue (Planet) with envy. Check it out…

There are a number of cool features to point out that you won't catch in the images. The endpapers have maps for days and look fantastic. There is spot UV varnish on the book titles, and though hard to see in the pictures, they shine in person. There is an oh-so-fancy bookmark ribbon for those – like me – who prefer jumping around in their RPG books. It feels so posh.

Delivery Date (Sort of)

The books are due to be finished and prepped for shipment to fulfillment hubs in the next 21-35 days. When they leave the printer, we will call for final address changes and post instructions for how to submit those. Please do not send emails before we share that process.

Since we moved production to China, we are assessing the impact of tariffs on the project. For non-US backers, since we are doing EU and UK friendly fulfillment, all non-US shipments will come from one of those regions. Regarding pending US tariffs on Chinese produced goods, we’re not making any final decisions on the delivery process yet - the situation is too fluid. We do have multiple contingencies however, if books are ultimately shifted to the higher tariff rates.

Blue Planet at GenCon

Biohazard Games has not been at GenCon since 2019, but over the last week I pulled the trigger and will be attending in 2025. Though I will not be running any Blue Planet games on the official events schedule, there are two options  I know of if you want to get into a BP game.

The first is that a good friend and contributor to the new edition has a couple of BP games on the official schedule, so you should be able to register for one of those when the events sign-ups go live. The second is that I would love to run a couple of off-the-books Backers-Only games. If you will be at GenCon, and are interested in playing Blue Planet with me, send me a note via the KS messenger function and I’ll add your name to the secret list. Once I have my own schedule worked out, I'll offer some session times. Excited to have Recontact at GenCon!

April

Hello Natives and Newcomers alike! I am so excited for this month's update as we have a huge announcement to share... 

New Cover

We have decided to ditch the covers we had originally planned for the Recontact edition and instead commission a more serious, realistic and forbidding take on the Blue Planet universe. One that evokes the true conflict, pathos and hopelessness inherent in the setting. 

In the grim darkness of the far future there is only water!

Slipcase

More seriously, I am excited to share the layout for the slipcase for the Recontact book set. I love the clean and evocative design and am confident it will stand out on any RPG bookshelf.  (And yes, I notice as I post this that the key graphic is taking a bite out of the edge of the map. No worries - we'll fix that.)

Production Update

Alan, our publishing partner at Gallant Knight Games, has some even more exciting news. The blanks are done, and the first test book should be coming off the press as we post this update. There was a brief delay sorting out the spot UV on the title, but unless something else unusual happens, we should be set. The printer is sending us a review video of the test book, but if that's all good, we'll be ready to print!

March

Final PDFs

Depending on how you use the platform, you may have noticed that we recently updated the Blue Planet: Recontact PDFs on DriveThruRPG. The updates are small but essential and represent the final digital versions of the books. The updates include the actual page two of the character sheet and the addition of the global homolosine and full Pacifica Archipelago maps that will be the end papers in the offset books. We also made a couple of section header corrections that we had missed in the original files.

Goode Homolosine Projection of Poseidon

If you've already downloaded your copies, you can re-download the updated versions now at DriveThru. If you have yet to download your PDFs, what're you waiting for? 

Physical Books

The Lunar New Year's holiday is over, and our printer is back at it. We are anticipating the arrival of digital proofs imminently, followed shortly thereafter by unbound physical proof pages. The printer is also mocking up a proof of the slip case, but that will take a bit longer as they have to determine the final dimensions of the actual books before they can finalize the case. 

Thank you for your continued patience and support.

February

Time for the February update, though truth be told, we are in that stage of production where there is not much to share. Accordingly, I pass on these brief words from Alan...

From Gallant Knight Games

"At the moment, the printer is on their Lunar New Year holiday, so progress is quiet. But we’ve received all the final templates, so we’re using the downtime to verify and review the bleeds, ink coverages, and all the other little details that go into making books. As soon as the printer is back at the presses, we’ll be off and running. At that point, we'll have some details to share on shipping schedule estimates to GKG HQ for the splitting of shipments for fulfillment."

Red City

Unfortunately, work schedules have kept us from continuing the backer mini-campaign I teased in January's update, but I hope to be able to share more of their Coen Brothers-style adventures in the next update. 

I can, however, share about another Blue Planet-adjacent one-shot I have run a couple of times now as proof of concept, exploring both an expanded setting idea and a new core game mechanic.

The setting is a future history version of Mars in the Blue Planet universe. The tropes and tone are inspired by Bladerunner, Cowboy Bebop and Detective Miller from The Expanse, and they are intended to tell gritty, sci-fi noir stories. The mechanics are my attempt to apply 'bag-building" from board games to roleplaying, where the bag is your character sheet and its contents are all you need to mechanize your character. 

I'll admit that the mechanics are not quite there yet, and I have sort of stalled in refining them. The setting, however, still excites me, so for those who might actually be interested, I offer the introduction from the one-shot I've been running as a sort of primer...

Mangala Landing. The Martian capital. Most just call it Red City because of all the dust. Or the blood. I guess it used to be something. Now it’s a just another Martian shithole, slowly choking to death on bad air, corruption and fear. Two million stories on its dusty streets and none likely to end well.

Terraforming’s slow, so the planet’s still arid, cold and red. Don’t go outside without a respirator. Under the leaking domes, if it’s not depressurized, obsolete or broken down, it soon will be. The mostly abandoned Perimeter rings the city. The subterranean warrens of the Old Colony are haunted by the ghosts of the desperate. Sand Gate, Scour, Crimson and Noctis Hives separate the Perimeter from the Core and the Haves from the Have-No-Certificates. The farther in or out you go, the higher the risk of running into one kind of crazy or the other. The farther out, the more likely you get caught out by Remnant. The farther in, the heavier the Directorate’s boot on your throat. 

Martians used to have hope. They were proud. Believed the terraforming was making a new world for humanity. Sure, the Families were arrogant, decadent pricks, but they mostly kept things running. Then came the nano and everything changed. Nanotech gutted the Belters’ economy overnight. Mars orbit emptied out, and terraforming became self-sustaining - at least until the tech went feral. The Meltdown killed a quarter of the population before the Public Authority’s counter swarms fought it to a standstill. The Remnant still kill thousands every year, but I guess that’s a price we just have to keep paying.

When the off-worlders put up the Blockade and shut – or shot – down all travel to orbit, that’s when things went from bad to worse. I was just a kid, but I remember the riots over food, water and fucking printer access. The Families expanded their militias and abandoned all pretense of being Mars’ benevolent caretakers, desperate to keep control over vital resources in what could have been a post-scarcity world.

The Martian Directorate is just more Family bullshit – an executive arm, used to legitimize their control over every aspect of life on the planet. The Martian Senate, their political puppet, is all but powerless. The People’s Authority – the Directorate’s municipal services branch – has become just another corrupt extension of their control. PA departments, like Sanitation, care less about feeding people and protecting them from feral nano and more about enforcing printer certificates and raiding unlicensed fabricators.

And then there’s me. Just another tool of the PA. I thought becoming a Public Attendant would mean I could make a difference. Help some people. Sort the right from the wrong and maybe get those who needed it some of that post-scarcity promise. I was an idiot. Still am, I guess…

January

I don’t know if you all prefer the good news first or the bad, but I’d rather just get the bad out of the way.

Unhappy New Year

As excited as I was last month to announce that we were working with Sheridan Printing here in the US, I am equally bummed now to share that we have been forced to go elsewhere to print Blue Planet. Sheridan just informed us their current production schedule would mean that the books would not actually go to press until July! Apparently small press orders are deprioritized when bigger orders come in, and given the threat of increased import tariffs and the resulting increase in demand for domestic printing, Blue Planet was bumped down the queue.

Given the already considerable delays, we are unwilling to wait and have ordered samples from an alternative printer – one back in China. Alan at Gallant Knight Games has been working overtime through the holidays to sort out the new printer, and though we cannot say at this stage in the switchover exactly what the new timeline will be, I’ll post it here as soon as we know it.

No one is more bummed about this turn of events than me, and all I can do is ask for your continued patience. If you’d told me ten years ago that political posturing would someday impact the publishing of something as trivial as RPGs, I’d have been incredulous. Now it’s just ridiculous.  

Good News Second

There is a thin silver lining in this bummer of a dark cloud, however. The new printer is able to produce the slip cases in-house, which will greatly simplify the process, providing a much better product and a more accurate fit. Additionally, it’s the same company that prints books for Free League Publishing, and if you are familiar with their products you will know that they are arguably the prettiest books in the industry.

And there’s more good news. Last month I posted a couple of pics Alan shared of the proof copies we got from DriveThru RPG’s print-on-demand service. I have since gotten those copies into my own hands, and it is gratifying to finally hold physical books after all this time. Despite being PoD products, they look every bit as good as many offset RPG books. They lack the HD printing, paper quality, richer colors, end paper maps and place-marking ribbons that will be featured in our reward books, but they make me excited for how phenomenal those final books will be with all the enhancements and production upgrades.

The combined thickness is 2.5in (6.3cm), and together they weigh in at 5.1lbs (2.6kg). I’m not sure those measurements are relevant to anyone but the shipping company, but they at least provide some context to the pictures. Though our intention is not to release access to PoD BP until the offset books are delivered, it nonetheless feels good to have such a tangible proof of progress.

It's a Game After All

Even in the face of frustrating setbacks, it is good to remember that Blue Planet is a game after all and that with the delivery of the PDFs, it is one you can play! As you may recall, some of the higher pledge levels included some online BP with yours truly. The swankiest of these as a five-session mini-campaign. The backer and their family started this game last week, and so far we are having a blast. They are a found family running a native/newcomer underwater salvage company - ReFound Salvage. Incorporate intrigue, criminal conspiracy, rival malfeasance, hungry wildlife and a bunch of other stuff I have to redact since he reads these updates are all swirling together provide a Coen Brothers-esque story. The kind characters hate and players love. I'm calling it Bottoms Up.

And speaking of playing games, I'll be attending OrcaCon at its new location in Sea-Tac, WA, on January 10-12. I’ll be running both Blue Planet and Upwind sessions and hosting a Gaslands race. If you are local to the Seattle-Tacoma area and want meet up or play some games, reach out. Last I checked, there were still seats available for both RPG sessions, and I’d love to run a game for you.

December

Some exciting news for the November Update…

Off-Set Printing

We have been quiet about a change of plans because we wanted to make sure all the details had been worked out before announcing anything, but now I’m super-excited to share!

These days, most US-produced RPG books are printed in China. The cost is always cheaper, but there are lots of complicating issues – language barriers, asynchronous communication, long lead times, production interruptions for Lunar New Year observances, higher environmental costs, loooonng shipping times, not to mention potential, pending political impacts on both tariffs and customs.

Accordingly, we’ve been working to move production to the US, specifically to Sheridan Printing. Not only will this help us avoid - or at least mitigate - the potential issues I noted above, but there’s also a fun bonus! Bang Printing (who produced first edition Blue Planet) is now part of Sheridan, so in a way the game has come full circle. Bang was amazingly generous and helpful back in the day as we raced to make a deadline with the 1st edition, so it makes me really happy to have the project back with them.

Slipcases

November progress was limited by, of all things, the slipcases. Slipcases have to be precisely fitted to the size of the specific books, so most printers outsource them after the books are done, adding up to eight weeks to the overall production times. Sheridan can produce the cases simultaneously, saving us up to two months! 

Print-On-Demand

Through our partners at Drive Thru RPG, customers are able to purchase Print-On-Demand versions of the PDFs they sell there. For those unfamiliar with POD, the process basically uses industrial copiers to print one-off, hard-bound, full-color books. While they are great quality for what they are, the typical POD book does not have the image fidelity, color matching and physical quality of off-set printing. Still, for some applications, it's a viable option. It's particularly valuable for small printing houses such as Biohazard, allowing some to provide the only physical versions of their PDFs or to extend the tail on the physical existence of a game line as off-set print runs sell out.

Accordingly, we have been testing the process for Recontact, and though it won’t be going live until we deliver the core rewards, I thought it would be fun to share some images of extant (albeit POD) versions of Blue Planet: Recontact!