Chill RPG 3rd Edition Coming.... for real this time....

[Lord Blackstone]

PRESS RELEASE: GROWLING DOOR GAMES TO PUBLISH NEW EDITION OF CHILL[/h]June 14, 2014

For Immediate Release: 6-13-2014
Growling Door Games Acquires License For Chill RPG
US Roleplaying Game Publisher Brings Back Classic Horror Game
Cleveland, OH: Today, Growling Door Games, Inc. is proud to announce that they have entered into a licensing agreement with Martin Caron, the owner of the Chill RPG. The agreement gives Growling Door Games the English-language rights to publish the Chill RPG core book and supplementary materials for that game, setting the stage for a new release of a classic property that helped make horror gaming a staple of the RPG landscape.
Matthew McFarland, President of Growling Door Games, said, “We’re thrilled to bring such a classic of horror gaming back to print. Chill has a great history of success in the market. There’s been a lot of enthusiasm for the game even during its long stint out of print, and we hope both those fans and new ones will enjoy our revival of Chill.”
Growling Door Games is planning on releasing the new core book for Chill, 3rd Edition in August 2015, with a Kickstarter in late summer 2014 to launch the project. The initial release of the core book will be as a full-sized hardcover, available in both print and PDF.
About Growling Door Games, Inc.: Growling Door Games is a roleplaying game publisher based in Cleveland, OH. Founded in 2012, Growling Door has published two successful games, curse the darkness (which received an ENnie nomination in 2012) and A Tragedy in Five Acts (named “one of the best storytelling games” on io9). Growling Door Games is made up of Michelle Lyons-McFarland and Matthew McFarland, both of whom have over a decade of experience in the game publishing industry.


This gets me very excited.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

It will be interesting to see what new things they do with it.

 

[BlackHat_Matt]

We're Kickstarting now, in fact. I'm happy to answer any questions y'all might have about the project, but I'm not on this site often, so it might be better to ask at the KS page or on the Growling Door Games Facebook page.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

At $50 for a print edition, that's a little too high for me. I'll wait until it hits the secondary market.

 

[Celebrim]

The second edition would make my top 5 best RPGs of all time. That's going to be a really tough act to follow.

 

[trancejeremy]

There's also Cryptworld, which is basically the Chill rules minus the setting.

http://www.goblinoidgames.com/cryptworld.html

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

It's a strange press release that doesn't mention anything about the product except the phrase "classic of horror gaming." I guess Growling Door Games isn't interested in attracting new customers?

 

[Sir Brennen]

There's also Cryptworld, which is basically the Chill rules minus the setting.

http://www.goblinoidgames.com/cryptworld.html

Note, however, those rules are basically the 1E edition (aka the Pacesetter edition), which has some marked differences from the 2E rules. There's also, some fans would say, a difference in tone between the two. Growling Door Games is licensed to do an update of the 2E rules, which what I've seen in the Kickstarter Quick Start rules and heard from Black Hat Matt - the licensee and one of the authors of the new edition - 3E simplifies and adds a couple of more modern mechanics (apparently you can't create a new game since 2009 without some kind of tokens players use somehow.) It looks good so far, though, and the production values on even just the somewhat-in-flux QS rules are pretty professional.

It's a strange press release that doesn't mention anything about the product except the phrase "classic of horror gaming." I guess Growling Door Games isn't interested in attracting new customers?

Do new game customers look at press releases? It's just an announcement, an initial bit of fanfare, more of an FYI to the gaming industry than an customer sales pitch. And even so, if a gamer likes horror, I certainly think that release is plenty to peak some interest.

Things are already rolling ahead beyond the initial press release, anyway, like the Kickstarter. I think if the KS is successful (likely), then there'll be plenty of info and marketing push to get new players interested when the game comes out later next year. There's already some social media activity on Facebook and Twitter, and [MENTION=35465]BlackHat_Matt[/MENTION] did a Q&A last week over at RPG.net.

Disclaimer: I'm a fan of the CHILL setting game ever since it first came out, of both 1E and 2E, and was a playtester in the ill-fated attempt at a 3rd Edition from Other World Creations a couple of years back. So count established fan-base enthusiasm leading to forum posting another marketing tool

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Do new game customers look at press releases? It's just an announcement, an initial bit of fanfare, more of an FYI to the gaming industry than an customer sales pitch. And even so, if a gamer likes horror, I certainly think that release is plenty to peak some interest.

Journalists look at press releases: that's what press releases are all about, hence the "press" in "press release", and if a publisher can't be bothered to say anything more about his own product than "classic of horror gaming", journalists, who are as lazy as the rest of the human species, usually don't feel compelled to look for any more information

 

[Sir Brennen]

Journalists look at press releases: that's what press releases are all about, hence the "press" in "press release", and if a publisher can't be bothered to say anything more about his own product than "classic of horror gaming", journalists, who are as lazy as the rest of the human species, usually don't feel compelled to look for any more information

I know what a press release is, but you didn't mention journalists, you said "new customers". That's what I was commenting on. True, if you include that middle step of journalists who report on the press release (or more typically, simply pass it along to their audience), then that might be reaching readers who could potentially become new customers.

But to imply that this particular release somehow indicates the company isn't interested in new customers just struck me as an oddly negative and unrealistic comment. It's not a primary marketing tool. It's was release after a very preliminary step had been taken, and there wasn't much more info to give at that time. Now, there is, and the word is getting out about the project, on forums, Twitter, Facebook, Kickstarter, interviews on blogs and podcasts... and it's still almost a year before the book is ready to be sold to the potential new customers.

I would also argue that a journalist that is "as lazy as the rest of the human species" with regard to looking for more information isn't very good at his job.