The Official Role-Playing Game of the PLANET OF THE APES

GAMEHOLE report and QuickStart books
about 1 month ago – Sat, Oct 19, 2024 at 11:46:21 AM

Hello everyone!

We hope you are all doing well and enjoying the season change (wicked storms notwithstanding … hopefully none of you have been negatively affected).

We’re spending this weekend at GAMEHOLE CON in Madison, Wisconsin, marking not only our first Gaming Event as an exhibitor but also the debut designer-run demo sessions of PLANET OF THE APES (and CARBON GREY). We’re three days into the four day show, and the player response has been FANTASTIC. Players are going ape for it (sorry). Co-designer E.L. THOMAS is running multiple (sold out) sessions of both games, and everyone is having a blast. I’m manning the booth and having a lot of fun — not a bad way to spend a birthday weekend! 🥳

GAMEHOLE isn’t a huge show like GenCon or Origins, but it is filled with passionate, knowledgeable role-playing gamers, popular authors, and award-winning designers with decades of history - a real who’s who of Role Playing. Lead writer-designer ANDREW E.C. GASKA is a guest of the show, and he ran the first streamed session of APES last night on Twich - check it out!

GameHoleCon Game 5! Planet of the Apes FIRST LIVE PLAY w/ Andrew Gaska - gameholecon on Twitch

Andrew will also be running a ticketed APES session for charity tonight (which will not be streamed). Andrew, JAMES LOWDER, and I will also participate in a panel this afternoon to talk about creating games based on existing and popular IP. (I don’t think it will be recorded, but I’m not sure…)

Printed QuickStart Books

One thing we wanted to mention: we printed a limited run of QuickStart Guides for sale at the show. Supplies are limited, but we wanted to make them available to you as well!

This is the same QuickStart available digitally on DriveThru , but in physical print. They turned out really nice, and are moving quickly during the convention.

If you are interested, you can order one here:

PLANET OF THE APES RPG QuickStart Guide – Magnetic Press LLC

Since these are primarily a (playable) preview of the full Core Rulebook coming in Spring, we don’t plan on printing or selling these once this print run is gone. So if you are interested in a copy, you may want to act fast! I’ll do my best to get them in the mail to you within the next 2 weeks once I’m back from the show.

Now that mass production is well under way, we expect to have some preview proofs and photos to share soon! Stay tuned as we shore up our dates for fulfillment. The Post-campaign pre-order pledge manager will stay open until December 4th, so help us spread the word until then!

Thanks, everyone!

Lock date extended. Plus: Gamehole Con!
about 2 months ago – Sat, Oct 05, 2024 at 01:14:00 PM

Hi everyone!

We wanted to give you a status update: things are rolling forward, and both the printer and manufacturing plant are proceeding towards sample proofs next! We hope to have some work-in-progress samples to share with you soon!

We're getting an updated production schedule from them as well, and assuming no complications in manufacturing, it looks like it will put items in the warehouse in late January or early February. (Hopefully, the recent port strikes will be cleared up by then...)

To that end, since we won't need to finalize orders for fulfillment as early as we originally thought, we have decided to leave the Backerkit Surveys open until December 6th. This gives you a little more time to consider your order and plan for the shipment just after the new year. We will initiate charges to your credit cards the following Monday, December 9th. 

With that schedule in mind, we aim to distribute all digital items on CHRISTMAS DAY! 🥳 Santa-ape will leave something very cool under your virtual tree this year. 😉

GAMEHOLE CON 2024 - Madison, WI

For those of you in the midwest or the Madison, WI area on October 17th-20th, come see us at our first convention appearance: GAMEHOLE CON 11! 

Lead designers Andrew E.C. Gaska and E.L. Thomas will be running multiple sessions of the PLANET OF THE APES game (as well as a couple of sessions of CARBON GREY, our first RPG). There are still a few seats open, but they're filling up fast! We will also have an exhibitors booth where we will be showing off CARBON GREY, KLAW: WERE-WARS, and as much APES stuff that will be available by then! 

Pre-show badge sales are closed, but you can buy a badge on-site once the show opens, starting at 7:00 am on Thursday, October 17th!

We'd love to meet you if you can make it!

We'll be back with more news and info soon! Stay frosty!

In the meantime...
about 2 months ago – Tue, Sep 24, 2024 at 11:14:55 AM

Hi everyone!

We hope you're doing well and getting ready for a nice weather change in the weeks ahead. My wife and I spent a few days at Disney World earlier in the month, and it was SOOO HOT AND HUMID. But a fun vacation nonetheless. 😊

Production continues to make its way through the paces, and we hope to have some test prints of the various slipcase covers soon. We'll be sure to share pix as soon and as often as we can!

In the meantime, we have added a few items to the Backerkit pre-order store: aside from making extra Gridgen coins available for purchase, we have also added a number of CARBON GREY items for those of you who might be interested in our first published (and ENnie nominated) RPG also using the D6MV system, which was also written and led by Andrew Gaska and EL Thomas. You will find the Core Rulebook, dice, GM screen, solo module, and an assortment of various Carbon Grey miniatures available to add to your order, or you can simply add the Deluxe Boxed Set, which includes the hardcover book, miniatures, and just about everything listed above (not counting the Solo Module, which is the only thing not included in the box). It's a weighty package, but it contains everything you need to play the game at its most immersive.

For more information about CARBON GREY, please visit www.carbon-grey.com.

You'll find these new items at the bottom of the ADD-ONS section of your survey or the pre-order store. If you would like to amend your order on Backerkit, simply go to your pledge (at https://planetoftheapes-rpg.backerkit.com/) and click "Edit Your Order" at the top right of the page. You'll be taken back to your order settings, where you can "Edit Add-ons" at the bottom of the order. That should take you back to the Add-ons section of the survey, and you should now see the new CARBON GREY section at the bottom of the Add-ons list.

Let us know if you have any questions or problems finding it!

We'll be back soon with more news as it comes in!

Humming along...
2 months ago – Wed, Sep 11, 2024 at 12:23:38 PM

Hi everyone,

We don't have much news to share, but a few of you have requested an update:

Things are moving right along as anticipated!

All of the content is complete and going through final approval with Disney/20 Century Studios. The various manufacturers are standing by for that greenlight, and are ready to start mass production once it is switched on. As this is our first project with the Mouse House, we may have been somewhat overly eager about how long that approval might take when we set initial target fulfillment dates on the campaign, but we're pushing for the best window possible. We're still hoping to beat Christmas, but depending on how things go, it may land in January. We shall see, and we'll be sure to keep you updated along the way! As mentioned, we've lined up our part, but there are necessary steps to ensure this project measures up as the truly official, canonical reference RPG.

Once we have some proofs and items to share, we'll be sure to let you in on the process!

Thanks, everyone!

A whirlwind GenCon
4 months ago – Mon, Aug 05, 2024 at 02:08:08 PM

Hi everybody!

Hope you had a great weekend - ours was pretty packed with navigating the crowds at GenCon... lots of meetings, lots of awesome stuff on display to soak in, and lots of good times with creative people. While we weren't exhibiting or demoing any games (yet), it was a good show setting us up for an even better 2025...!

One of the most exciting things for us had to be APES Lead Designer/Writer Andrew E.C. Gaska's gold medal ENnie award for BEST SUPPLEMENT for ALIEN RPG: BUILDING BETTER WORLDS!

This is Andrew's third ENnie win (all for ALIEN RPG so far), but we doubt it'll be his last... Add that to previous nominations (including our first nomination last year for CARBON GREY for Best Production Values) and you can get a sense of the quality you can expect from the POTARPG when it arrives!

Aside from that, we had some great conversations with a variety of different folks discussing many different expansions and support as we grow into next year... I'm excited! (Exhausted, but excited!)

We've been doing our best to answer as many comments and messages as we can and hopefully you've all been able to navigate the Backerkit surveys. If you have any questions or need any help, please don't hesitate to ask!