Introducing an all new introduction to the story! The latest BrowserQuests™ update involves a whole new story beginning, where the player first learns a little about the game and creates an initial hero before diving into new content that was never part of the story before. For players who have already played the game, this initial story takes place BEFORE the player is sent to the merchant's to equip their new hero. So, if you already have a party in the game, you won't be able to see the new content--you'll need to create a NEW hero and start over to play through the beginning story.
Why a new introductory story? Admittedly, the very beginning of the campaign was a little dull and, for some players, not intriguing enough to keep playing. The new story starts out simply enough but things devolve quickly, hopefully providing enough intrigue to keep new players interested before reaching the initial rat quest in the merchant's cellar. Note that the new story does get a little intense and takes about an hour to complete.
Unfortunately, development on module #9 ("Gemcore") has been put on hold and likely won't be released until late in 2024. First, I had a personal tragedy in the death of my wife Susan, who died from cancer in November 2023. Nine days later, I broke my right ankle playing basketball and had many challenges recovering from that. In addition to the new introductory module, I've also introduced highlighted text within the prose to visually indicate key words; those highlights are in place for the new story but I need to now go through all eight existing modules and inject the highlighting there as well. Finally, I need to go back to the novel element of the website, build a new introductory episode to match the game's introductory module and then build all the new episodes to catch-up to the story within the game. And if that wasn't enough, I recently started a new photo booth company (Kindred Spirits Photo Booth Services) here in the Wisconsin area in memory of my wife Susan and her amazing career as a local DJ and entertainer. So, a LOT going on!
In other news, BrowserQuests™ will be demoed at the upcoming Gamehole Convention here in Madison, Wisconsin October 17-20! Billed as "the largest majority RPG gaming convention in the world" I was recently accepted and will be there all four days to demo the game, make contact with players, authors, marketers and developers and help spread the word. So, if you're able to attend the convention in Madison this October, be sure to stop by my table in the "demo row" and check me out!
As always, we thank our players for their continued support of BrowserQuests,™ their willingness to report bugs and other issues as they play and for their kind donations to the platform. We're also continuing to solicit marketers, advertisers and organizations looking to leverage our banner ad system to raise awareness of their own brands and generally support what we're doing (see our "Call for Marketers" page for all the details).