June 10, 2003: Delayed Products: A Status Report

Over the last couple of years, we have announced entirely too many items that then dropped off the schedule. Here's a status report and explanation on them all.

Note that none of these products is currently on the announced schedule. The ones in the first list, "Still On The Way," are actively moving forward, but not necessarily moving very fast. The others are moving slowly or not at all.

Still On the Way

1901 One Page Bulge
1902 Raid on Iran
These two wargames were shelved because of print buying problems. The problems are being solved for Target: Iraq, so we'll reannounce these games before too much longer.

2120 Cardboard Heroes Modern Characters
Some of the colored art was lost to computer problems . . . which should not have been as much of a problem as it was, but this came during a time when we had lots of art-direction difficulties. This product was simply ignored for many months. It is no longer being ignored, and we hope to announce it soon.

2150 Cardboard Heroes Castles: Walls and Towers
2151 Cardboard Heroes Castles - The Keep
Moving forward quickly. Any day now we'll get another test shot from the die-cutters, and this one might be the one where we say "Go!". Feedback on our samples at GAMA was very good. We know we have the potential for a hugely cool line here, but only if the first release is as near perfect as we can get it.

40-3005 Car Wars Vehicle Design System
We put the whole Car Wars line on hold for as long as it took to get this vital part of the 5th Edition system exactly right. Scott Haring is working on the project now. It will happen.

40-3001 Car Wars: Road Wolves
40-3002 Car Wars: Fortress Town
40-3003 Car Wars: Dueltrack
40-3004 Car Wars: Interceptor
40-3006 Chassis & Crossbow
Once the Vehicle Design System is under control, we'll revisit the other announced Car Wars books. Our current thinking is that all the ideas are still good, but we'll give people some time to look at the Vehicle Design System first.

6419 GURPS Dark Places
This was Phil Reed's baby, and we occupied his time with other things. So the Dark Places book languished. A new author is now working with his notes; this book will appear.

6719 GURPS Vorkosigan
The manuscript is complete; the pages are laid out. What is lacking is art. The art on this book is very important to both us and to the author of the novels, Lois McMaster Bujold, because it will represent "official" images of the characters . . . and it has not gone well. After the first artist had passed his deadline to turn in all art, he told us he didn't want to do the project at all. The second artist had to drop out due to medical problems. Can you hear our art director tearing his hair?

It's a wonderful book, and when we get wonderful art to go with it, we'll release it.

Indefinitely Delayed but Definitely NOT Dead

These products are now off the schedule, but some work is being done on them.

6091 GURPS India
The manuscript we received was not satisfactory. We'll eventually do this book, but right now we don't have an author. We're looking for one.

3203 Ogrethulhu
3205 Ogre Scenario Book 2
7204 Ogre Miniatures Second Edition
Further Ogre support will have to wait for some free spaces in Steve's schedule, but he's not going to abandon the very first game he ever did . . . So these will happen, but who knows when?

Indefinitely Delayed and Probably Dead

That is, we're not ready to bury them, but they are off the schedule and no work is being done on them.

1328 Tabloids
As playtesting wound down, we discovered that a very similar concept had been used in a similarly-themed mass market game several years ago. Steve would like to rethink and revive it, but has his hands full with other projects right now.

10-2108 Ogre Miniatures: Combine Set 8
10-2208 Ogre Miniatures: Paneuropean Set 8
10-2113 Ogre Miniatures: Combine Set 13
As previously announced, all new Ogre Miniatures box sets are on hold.

6625 Best of JTAS
It currently appears that demand for this book doesn't justify a minimum print run.

6626 GURPS Traveller: Starship Forms
This will appear in SOME form when "Starships" comes out.

Definitely Dead

6544 GURPS Assassins
This product will never appear . . . but the subject matter and much of the content was rolled into the upcoming GURPS Covert Ops.

6881 GURPS Traveller: Heroes 2 - Fighter Jocks
The first "Traveller Heroes" character book, to our disappointment, didn't sell well, so we canceled the series.

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