By now, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the cover of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. If not, here it is:

Today we’re going to talk a little about how it came to look like that. Near the end of July 2012, the core group of Shadowrun developers/authors/management met up in Seattle to talk about a new edition of the game. At that time we had a good idea of what was on the table as far as rules tweaks and changes to game mechanics, so we spent a lot of time talking about presentation of the books themselves. How would it look on your shelf? How would it be presented in a store? How do we stay true to the Shadowrun look?

Everything was up for discussion, but we needed to do some research to make an informed decision. After all, the decision we were going to make would impact the line for years to come. Talk about pressure!

First, we looted eBook developer Peter M. Andrew Jr.’s massive Shadowrun collection and covered every available horizontal surface with books. It was like a bomb went off, but instead of damage and carnage, it left only Sixth World awesomeness. We then chose aspects of the books we liked, pointed out things we didn’t like, and made suggestions on what could change. We noted everything down and then went to Step 2, a retail excursion.

The folks at Olympic Cards & Comics (http://www.olympiccardsandcomics.com) let us take over their RPG section (it’s huge—stop at their store if you’re ever in the area, it’s absolutely worth your time) for a few hours to study the presentation of RPG books in general. Not only could we see directly what works and what doesn’t work in a retail environment, but the staff were also happy to tell us what worked from their perspective. This was great, because a lot of their points were things most people might not think about and are used in a different way by retailers than they are by players: location and size of the product number, orientation of text on the spine and even the type of binding they like to see on books.

Once the research was done we started making notes and drawing sketches. We came up with a list of ideas:

1. Logo needs to be big and up top. It gives the book pop, and many retailers show off books in a “waterfall orientation” where the upper portion of the book will be showing.

2. The spine needs to identify the game immediately and be easily readable.

3. We should have a framing element for the cover. The SR4 line of books nearly all used full-bleed art for the covers. This was cool and gave flexibility to the designer, but over time lead to a disparate look to the books. A frame would allow us to keep the look concise and consistent, at least for the first year or so of books.

4. We could do away with the regular Catalyst branding elements: the black bar across the bottom and white text identifying the type of book. When CGL was young, it helps immediately identify a Catalyst book and help establish the company, but wasn’t necessary any more. The CGL logo would stay on the cover, but we could now move on from that standard branding.

5. It’s all about characters. Focus the covers on characters as much as you can, at least on the core line of books. Don’t get me wrong, cityscapes and gear illustrations are awesome, but when it comes down to it, it’s the characters that matter, acting as a proxy for the players.

6. The back cover copy needs to be concise and to the point. You hear it all the time—attention spans are getting shorter. Don’t go on and on about what’s in the book. You should be able to both summarize the book and draw a player in with only a few short paragraphs.

So, with those notes I immediately went to work. That night in my hotel room I started putting together ideas. And they sucked! They sucked so hard I’m not even going to post samples here. But, that’s all part of the process—very few projects are perfect on the first attempt.

Over the next few weeks and months, I went back and forth on the design, streamlining and tweaking it until we had what we wanted. I’m very, very happy with the final product and think it stands up strong against the covers of the previous edition core rulebook covers (I went through and applied the SR5 cover art to the different editions because why not?).

Cheers!

Matt Heerdt
“I’m Not Sure What My Actual Title Is So Let’s Go With ‘Media Design & Production Guy'”

Last year around this time I wrote a post about Origins entitled “A Somewhat Personal  Origins Report, or Holy Crap Was That Awesome.” And it was. Runner’s Toolkit won an Origins Award, we had Felicia Day in a special session of Shadowrun, and nearly 300 people played SR at the con. It was great.

This year–The Year of Shadowrun–left it in the dust.

This con had everything, from a power outage during setup that evacuated the conference center briefly and eventually had us setting up for a while in very dim light, to the stress of wondering if Shadowrun, Fifth Edition would get there on time, to the happiness when it did, to the stunning speed at which it sold out. And on top of that, I had to sing in public, which everyone now recognizes is not a good thing.

This was about the only time at the con where we had a good supply of SR5 books.

Here’s how that happened: I spent much of Thursday answering people’s questions about when SR5 would arrive. The follow-up question normally was how many copies we would have, and if it would be enough. I knew we were bringing a good supply of books–more than twice as many of the top sales of any title I can remember–so I felt confident that we would have plenty. I expressed that confidence by telling people that if we somehow sold out, I would sing the description of the street samurai to the tune of “Sweet Caroline.” I underestimated the passion and energy of Shadowrun fans. I was wrong. (Here’s a video of the resulting debacle event; I’m told we’ll be posting a high-def version later, so I’ll link to that when it comes. If you really feel you must see this in as much detail as possible.)

Shadowrun players and gamemasters made their passion known throughout the con. Last year, I was very pleased that we had nearly 300 players; we broke that mark this year at about the halfway point. We ended up with nearly 700 players. That was astounding, and a true testament to the Shadowrun gamemasters’ dedication to never turning away anyone who wants to play a game. Ray Rigel and the entire crew hit this one out of the park, then circled the bases, then hit the next several ones out of the park too. They were astounding. (We may, however, have to convince them that sleep is not just for the weak.)

Shadowrun was unavoidable at the con. The artwork for the Fifth Edition cover was on the cover of the event guide; the Catalyst booth was front and center in the exhibit hall; and we had glorious images from Storm Front and cityscapes from SR5 on the doors leading to the convention center.

It was a daily struggle to remember to keep moving instead of stopping and staring.

We also had posters in the Hyatt next to the convention center, including one of my favorite pieces from SR5, the occult investigator, in the Big Bar on 2.

I’m just trying to make myself cooler by hanging out with her.

On top of all this Shadowrun magic, we had a demo of the upcoming cooperative deck-building game, Shadowrun: Crossfire. It does an amazing job of capturing the Shadowrun teamwork dynamic in a card game, while also presenting opportunities for character advancement. I can’t wait to design specialized missions with the obstacle cards and gear it contains. Kudos to the designers of the game, and extra thanks to Rob Watkins, who hung in at the demo table like a champ and took on all comers.

I had to work hard to find an angle where you could actually see Rob Watkins in the crowd. He’s the bald one in back.

The strongest impression I’ll take from this con is the wonderful enthusiasm for Shadowrun. I loved to see people playing it, exploring it in new ways, and just plain having fun. It’s one of the great fictional settings of all time, and I’m thrilled people are diving into it.

Now on to GenCon in eight weeks and more Shadowrun awesomeness!

UPDATE: We just heard from the printer they cannot guarantee the book will be avaiable for sell by Thursday. So while it might be on sale on Thursday, it might not…it will be on sale Friday (provided the printer’s guarantee comes through!). Finally, because it’s been asked, the price of the Origins 2013 Special Edition softcover is $49.99.

On December 21st, 2012, Catalyst Game Labs announced the Year of Shadowrun, the most ambitious release of games for Shadowrun in its almost twenty-five year history. With convention season set to begin, it is time to start getting these games to the players and fans.

The cornerstone of the Year of Shadowrun is the release of the Fifth Edition of the tabletop roleplaying game. While the planned spring release for Fifth Edition has become a summer release, Catalyst Game Labs wants to offer a special opportunity for the convention-going Shadowrun fans that have supported this seminal universe for decades.

As the Origins Game Fair kicks off the convention season during the Year of Shadowrun, Catalyst will release limited quantities of a Origins 2013 Special Edition printing of the soon-to-be-published Shadowrun, Fifth Edition. This softcover version exactly mirrors the final hardcover printing, with the exception of not featuring the two foldout sections of artwork nor the Shadowrun Online marketing code.

Come to the Catalyst Game Labs booth 601 at the Origins Game Fair and be the first to purchase the best edition yet of the brilliant Shadowrun RPG.

Check out www.catalystgamelabs.com, www.shadowrun.com and www.shadowruntabletop.com in the future for details on when the hardback/digital versions of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition will be generally available!

Catalyst Game Labs
Catalyst Game Labs is dedicated to producing high-quality games and fiction that mesh sophisticated game mechanics with dynamic universes, all presented in a form that allows beginning players and long-time veterans to easily jump into our games, while helping fiction readers enjoy our stories even if they don’t know the games.

Catalyst Game Labs is an imprint of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which specializes in electronic publishing of professional fiction. This allows Catalyst to participate in a synergy that melds printed gaming material and fiction with all the benefits of electronic interfaces and online communities, creating a whole-package experience for any type of player or reader. Find Catalyst Game Labs online at www.catalystgamelabs.com.

The third free preview of Shadowrun, Fifth Edition is now available! To review, the first preview had fiction and flavor text to help convey the look and feel of the game, while the second preview contained the Game Concepts chapter, giving the basic structure of the game. The third preview gets a little flavor and a little mechanics–it has the short story (written by Patrick Goodman, author of Another Rainy Night) leading into the Character Creation chapter, along with the first few pages of that chapter, giving you a taste of how character creation works in Fifth Edition. It’s available at the Battleshop or DriveThruRPG. Enjoy!