Dev log 19. Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

August 30, 2023

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since my last update, so let me start by wishing you all:

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

In the last 2 months or so, we've had a very eventful period:

Launching PMs, making shipments of the Simplified Chinese version, attending a model exhibition in Beijing, making two trips to Dongguan to push production forward, setting up the QR database, batching pre-assembled models, pushing forward with subsequent rules, developing new products, and restarting the ruler version rules ...... Hoo!

It's still stumbling, but I can feel the studio getting on track, and it's all happening with the support of you, the loveliest of Ember players!

Next, let's talk about the progress of each section in separate chapters:

- PM is coming to an end and the pre-order store will be closed!

Although the original plan was for PM to end by May 30, 2023, due to several factors (mainly related to production), we have revised the sequencing of some jobs, which has caused us to delay production payments to the factory, so that delays the closing of PM at the same time.

However, we are basically coming to the end of our wrangling with these trivial matters, and on the current schedule we need to make subsequent payments to the factory in July, so we hope to close PM on 30 June BST.

We very much understand that many players want the PM opening to continue for a longer period of time, but the studio also really needs the PM funds to be able to continue with this batch. For Chinese players, the Taobao purchase channel will also be closed at the same time. Anyone who has not yet completed Survey, or who still wishes to add Add On, please complete the PM process before June 30th. Your support is greatly appreciated.

In addition, there are still some players who have participated in the KS crowdfunding campaign who have not yet completed the PM Survey.

Although players have chosen a slot during the crowdfunding process, we still need you to complete the receipt information in the PM before we can ship you the product, so we cannot ship you the product without your response to the PM Survey.

We have sent a new Survey email to all players who have not completed the Survey, which contains a link to the PM:

Here you can select the region you want to ship to or switch your pledge level.

You will then need to select the language version for all the items you are purchasing.

Once you have selected your language, you can either add new Add Ons or go directly to the shipping and address checkout page.

If you do not receive your survey mail, or if you experience any difficulties with your PM, please contact us at

queti-studio@hotmail.com

We haven't been able to process all of the previous messages, both from Backerkit and directly to us, as well as through Kickstarter, but we will focus on them over the next few days and again I apologise for the speed of processing emails.

Along with PMs, the pre-order store will also be closed. As the RDL faction will be sent out shortly (RDL Core, Cavalry, Heavy Metal), this means that the crowdfunded versions of these three will no longer be available for purchase, while the status of the other crowdfunded versions is TBD and there are no plans to re-shelve them at this time.

-The simple Chinese version has been shipped, thanks for returning the picture!

The CHS version has been shipped since May, and the majority of players have already received their first shipments, many of whom have already posted their artwork on social media platforms.

Note: The above is not all the player display pictures we have collected, only some of them are taken.

Note: The last one is our booth photo at the model show~

I should say that seeing the players receiving the products, making them into beautiful pieces and playing with them gives me a feeling of "it's finally happened, it was all worth it".

At the same time, we had a lot of problems with this shipment. I'm glad we shipped first to the players in mainland China, it made it possible for all the omissions to be fed back to the players as quickly as possible and for us to remedy them as quickly as possible without being too costly.

Once again: if you have received your product, please feedback on any problems and we will do our best to resolve them for you.

- Preparation for the next shipping batch

The next shipping batch, which will include the RDL contents of the English, Japanese, Germany, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese products confirmed and added during this PM (RDL Core, Heavy Metal, Cavalry), will call this batch Block1B.

For Block1B, we have fixed some issues from Block1A, such as text errors on the paper goods, errors in the package contents, and a few minor issues with the moulds, which will make Block1B slightly different from 1A.

The plastic parts for this batch are currently in production, but due to over-stretched machine schedules at the factory, another supplier will be taking on some of the injection moulding work, with a combined delivery date expected in mid-July.

On the paper side, the Traditional Chinese version of Block1B has been proofread and entered and is ready for submission.

The first proofreading for the English version has been completed and we will do the entry and then the second proofreading after the Dragon Boat Festival, and we expect to be ready for submission in early July.

This is a photo taken for me when the molds were handed over and they are going to the new factory.

The Japanese version is a little behind schedule, as our plan was to finish the 0.9.94 rules and discuss them in depth with the translation team before we started translating Block1B content, but we have added a lot of new work to the 0.9.94 rules process and have only recently almost finished, so we will continue to move forward with this work after the Dragon Boat Festival.

Thankfully, the trial passages for the Japanese rules have been approved by the players with the help of the translation team and player ωistar! α and Soichiro Oizumi, so presumably the subsequent work will not take too much time, and ideally proofreading and submission will start in mid-July.

The German and other languages have been delayed by our belated 0.9.94 rule for the same reasons as the Japanese version, so sorry again! At the time of writing this update, I haven't figured out how to make this part more efficient, and the only way I can think of at the moment is to rush the English version of the 0.9.94 rules first so that we can move forward.

In summary, we hope to have Block1B out in late August, which is later than originally planned for late July, but does not affect Block2 which is already in the process of being reworked.

The terrain blanket and dice will also be sent out with the additions.

- Follow-up development: United Network

As the mainstay of Block2, We used to show a test model of the UN before, and when we went to the factory the other day, the moulds had just been pulled from inside the warehouse to start modifications, so there's nothing new to see at the moment, so no pictures today~

However, our artist DK has completed the artwork for all of the UN's elite pilots for this season, I hope you like it!

Some of these characters have gone through multiple rounds of revisions, with the possibility of further tweaks in the future.

- Follow-up development: Argo

The latest news we released at the Beijing Model Exhibition was a new project for the Ember series: Argo.

This is a cooperative PVE game within the Ember worldview, where players will take on the role of an elite team aboard the Argo, a research vessel belonging to the Seed Vault, and travel to several new battlefields in the solar system to fight new enemies.

In this mode, players will have to face a complex and varied enemy whose behaviour matches the timing mechanism of the Obsidian Protocol, so units from the Obsidian Protocol will also be available for use in Argo's gameplay.

While this use may not be completely free given the level structure and balance, we are keen to make the two games as "seamless" and "equivalent" as possible, meaning that members of Argo's squad will also be able to play in Obsidian Protocol. The renderings of the mechanical monsters in these renders are very good.

As for the mechanical monsters in these renders, most of them are "runaway cores", and to explain their origins, we have to go back 40 years to the main Obsidian Protocol timeline - these automaton clusters were the main characters in "The Great War". They were the protagonists of the Great War, bringing "automated warfare" to life through rapidly updating and iterating self-organising algorithms. But when the "War Key" of the warring parties failed because of the principle of mistrust, the runaway core of the war took all available capacity, including the humans in it, hostage and kept the wheels of war rolling.

The hard-won truce cannot really be enforced, the former superpower is on the verge of collapse, and the High Orbit Alliance is the last to win. By assisting the ground states in building up their defences, the HOA gradually freed the planet from its stranglehold and seized key benefits.

And it was not only the surface armies that were brought under the control of the war core; the terraforming facilities of Mars and the deep exploration vessels of Jupiter II all became cogs of war, and as the decades passed, not only did they not perish on their own, but they designed forms more adapted to their environment in order to complete the great task of victory engraved in the underlying logic.

In this context, the Seed Vault sent the Argo, employing an elite group of soldiers from the High Orbit Alliance, to prepare for a trip to Mars, their mission is to visit the pre-war data centre "Hippocampus" and, if possible, to examine the development of the runaway core on the Martian surface... developments...

Note that so far the Argo project is in its early stages and all the styling, rules, story, etc. may be substantially modified in the future.

- Follow-up development: ruler version

Another piece of news worth reporting is that, with the main rules largely complete, we have started work on rewriting the 'ruler' version of the rules.

Thanks to suggestions from players, the ruler rules will be very different from the grid version and our current direction is that the ruler version will have the following features:

A simplified data structure, allowing for more units to be fielded, which will support larger battles (from 3-6 to 8-15 mechs) and allow for a more macro focus for players;

The linking of pilots to configuration cards, with more emphasis on the combination of pilots and "careers" in the process of organising troops;

Part destruction mechanics are retained but simplified, and mechs will have a resource similar to HP.

Again, this is a very early design and we have tested and validated some of the content, but there is still the possibility of significant changes to follow. The only thing we can be sure of at the moment is that, as both the ruler ver and Argo are completely new rules, many of the lessons we have learned in the past will be well applied.

As well as our usual credo: we will only present a game to players if we love it ourselves and find it fun to play.

- QR database

And finally, a word of caution.

Remember the QR code on the back of our cards? That's a database that you can scan to see the rules for each card, some brief descriptions and other information.

The structure of this database was actually set up in May this year, but we were completely busy with post-sales work on shipments and all sorts of other things during that time, so we never got around to starting to enter information into it.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, we'll start entering information into this section, so we'll have the first batch of swipeable part cards in July, and players will be able to give us feedback on how well it works and what needs to be optimized~

I like it!

That's the main content of this update!

Finally, I'll post some review videos about this product, they are all from players or self-publishers, thanks to all those who are interested in Obsidian Protocol, your praise, criticism, and suggestions, are all support for us, and we'll keep working hard!

雀替工作室

模切组装说明

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fg4y1T7RH/?vd_source=0d7d39a16f92d2824bfd59712450e2f4

腿部改造

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ls4y1N7a6/?vd_source=0d7d39a16f92d2824bfd59712450e2f4

躯干改造

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1tg4y1M74p/?vd_source=0d7d39a16f92d2824bfd59712450e2f4

规则概览

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1sM41157vp/?vd_source=0d7d39a16f92d2824bfd59712450e2f4

河狸先生战棋工作室

开箱

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Xo4y1L7qB/?vd_source=0d7d39a16f92d2824bfd59712450e2f4