February Update: Announcing the Creator Studio
about 4 years ago – Thu, Feb 13, 2020 at 12:39:46 AM

Ahoy ahoy, Cortex-Philes!

This has been a month full of book-keeping, admin, art wrangling, and getting our production team geared up for a big, big year ahead of us. As well, we’ve been finalizing some of our Cortex Prime plans and this month I want to talk about one of those: Cortex Creator Studio!

All along, it’s been my intent to make Cortex Prime something you can take and build your own games with, using your own original settings and stories. This creator-content approach was originally planned through OneBookShelf, but with Fandom’s acquisition of Cortex and their own impressive digital platform, it became clear that we could build this marketplace of ideas ourselves.

The Creator Studio is a place where you can:

• Create any game you like, any setting, any world, any genre
• Retain all rights to your own IP or share it with others
• Sell your game through our digital marketplace
   

Additionally, you’ll be able to take advantage of and integrate your products with the various digital tools as they become available on the Cortex platform.

We have big plans for the Creator Studio, not the least of which is to encourage independent content creators to come together, share their ideas, expand on rules and mods in Cortex Prime, and use the tools we provide to build a community. And we believe the platform makes your creations highly competitive in the broader tabletop market.

As of right now, we haven’t finalized any plans for foreign translations, printed books, or sales of books outside of our marketplace. Our goal is to create a strong and lively creative community as part of our initial offering and see where that takes us!

We're sharing this at a high level with the community this month in order to 1) confirm the answer to several questions we have received that “yes, we will have a platform for you to create, share, and sell your content using Cortex,” and 2) to allow you to get a head start on thinking through what you’re going to make using Cortex.

As the Cortex Prime Spotlights are completed, they too will go “live” within the Creator Studio. With such a great line-up of new and established designers, we can’t wait to see what the rest of you bring to the gaming table.

Peace,

Cam and the Cortex Production Crew

January Update: Iconic Character Concepts
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 01:48:30 AM

Ahoy ahoy, Cortex-Philes!

It’s a brand new year and a brand new update. This month, I’m sharing some of the concept art we’ve contracted to help set the tone and establish iconic characters for the Game Handbook. The key to maintaining some consistency in these characters is to first commission the concept art and then share it with all of our interior artists, so that they can draw on these characters or the motifs those characters embody to populate their images.

We wanted a wide variety of iconic characters for the book, covering the whole spectrum of experience and backgrounds. So, we’ve got a child, a sage, a hero, an engineer, a beast, and a companion. With these, we’re not necessarily worrying about a genre: any of them can be recast in whatever setting or world we want. Instead, our art director Tina Lam Collier asked artist Yangtian Li to provide us with six different individuals ready to live and breathe Cortex Prime. Here’s the result (click the image for a link to the PDF).

We’re also using these iconic characters as a way to explain and demonstrate how the various kinds of character generation work, and as a way to help us develop our online digital tool set. You can see some of that work in progress here, as mocked up by Cortex UX designer Travis Howell.

As you can see, even just with a handful of character designs we’re able to start expressing the broad scope of Cortex and provide some internal visual language to go with the page layouts and icons.

Expect to see an increase in updates (and even some live streaming) in the next couple of months as we ramp up towards release. I can’t wait to share more of this with you!

Peace,

Cam and the Cortex Prime Team

November Update: Graphic Design Preview
over 4 years ago – Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 01:56:49 AM

Ahoy ahoy, Cortex-Philes!

After spending a few days in the USA followed by a return to New Zealand and a house move across town, I’m back in the production chair and excited to share some of the work that’s coming together for the Cortex Prime Game Handbook.

Tina Lam Collier, who I introduced you to last time, has been working on dozens of graphic design concepts and mocking up things like splash pages, lists, chapter outlines, and stat blocks. Today I’m going to share some of this early work, as Tina explores various ways to build on from the Cortex logo designed by Travis Howell at Fandom, and use it to create design elements.

Tina calls this approach “Terminus” and it’s a blend of several ideas she shared with our team in order to really get at what the “look” of Cortex Prime will be. It works in themes such as fluidity, molecular construction, dynamic movement, and iteration.

As you can see, production is off the ground and we are getting more excited by the day to see the final version of the Game Handbook.

Next month (in a couple of weeks actually) I’ll be at PAX Unplugged with the rest of the Fandom crew. I hope to see some of you there!

Peace, Cam

Update: New Editor and Art Director!
over 4 years ago – Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 03:05:54 AM

Ahoy ahoy, Cortex-Philes!

We’ve been busy ramping up production now under the new Fandom umbrella and engaging in a lot of discussion on the Cortex RPG Discord. If you haven’t already joined us there, please stop in and see what’s new in Cortex chatter. I chime in when I can, but there’s a healthy conversation going on about hacks, rules questions, and resolutions that’s insightful and enlightening.

I’d like to formally introduce you to the newest members of the Cortex Prime production team: Amanda Valentine and Tina Lam Collier!

Amanda has worked on almost every Cortex product with me since I started as a developer, and even before that on Dragonlance at Sovereign Press. You might also have seen her name in the credits of Evil Hat Productions, Magpie Games, Greater Than Games, and many others. Based out of Pennsylvania, she’s a kick-ass editor and knows Cortex and its weird quirks (or rather, mine) better than anyone else at this point. We’re thrilled she’s agreed to join us in managing editorial process on the Cortex Prime Game Handbook and System Reference.

Tina is a stellar graphic designer and concept producer from New York whose past projects included work with HeroClix, Power Rangers, and the Expanse property, as well as commercial and advertising gigs. She’s been working hard on designing the look and feel of Cortex Prime for the past few weeks and I hope to share some of those concept sketches and mock-ups with you soon.

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying running several Cortex Prime sessions with the folks at Fandom via online hangouts and working on our direction ahead. I can’t wait to be able to talk more about what we’ve got planned for you soon.

Peace,

Cam

CORTEX PRIME STEPS UP TO d12 WITH FANDOM
over 4 years ago – Thu, Sep 19, 2019 at 02:58:13 AM

Ahoy ahoy, Cortex-Philes!

First up, my apologies for the recent radio silence. I know it’s frustrating, but this update is one I’m excited to share as it allows me to not only fulfill every commitment I’ve made to you as backers, but provide even more cool options for all after the Kickstarter is fulfilled. The game will be elevated to a whole new level with online digital tools, a worldwide community and ongoing support. How am I going to do that? I’m glad you asked.

Fandom (the folks behind D&D Beyond) has acquired the Cortex rules system from Margaret Weis Productions—you can read the full announcement at https://www.cortexrpg.com/. I’m also pleased to announce Fandom has brought me on board as the Creative Director for Cortex going forward. This means I’ll be working full time bringing Cortex not only to your tabletop but to tablets and screens with the help of Fandom’s amazing team. If you’ve seen what D&D Beyond has already been able to do with fifth edition D&D, you’ve seen only the tip of the iceberg for what’s coming with Cortex.

So what does this mean for all of you? Firstly, everyone who has backed this Kickstarter or joined in with BackerKit will still be getting all of the books I promised at the very beginning. The difference is that with Fandom’s additional resources, I am able to transform what was a 6x9 black and white interior Game Handbook and System Reference into full-color, full-size books of even higher quality, at no additional cost or investment from you.

We’re going to bring the digital product entirely within Fandom’s platform and give everyone access to their books in a digital format. Everyone who backed at the digital reward tier and above gets access once this launches. You’ll also be able to use a digital toolset that will grow more and more over time at your game table or online.

If you’re a Cortex community creator, we’re hoping to bring you on board as well. Together with the Cortex Prime Spotlights, we plan to provide a platform for your creations that takes a creator-first approach. Anyone who purchases your stuff will be able to use it with the Cortex Prime digital toolset.

I know this is a pretty big deal, and I hope you’re as excited by this as I am. If you’re familiar with Adam Bradford—our General Manager over at Fandom—you know that he would never allow me to share a target launch date, but I assure you we have more resources dedicated to this than ever before. In the meantime we’re bringing on board an Art Director, Managing Editor, and other folks to hustle the Game Handbook’s upgrades and production along. That means new, high-quality top-notch artwork for the Game Handbook and Spotlights. It also means I’ll reach out within the next week or two to top-level backer tiers to get their art order requests, character notes, and other rewards locked in.

More information is going out soon to the rest of the world, but I felt you have all waited long enough for this project and deserved to be given the skinny before anyone else. Thank you, and stay tuned for regular updates going forward. In the meantime, you can join us for further discussion on the new Cortex Roleplaying Discord server.

Peace,

Cam