My creative partnership with Skerples goes back to 2017, when I took their free introductory adventure Tomb of the Serpent Kings and redesigned it to make it easier to read and run at the table. I sent them what I had made, and I’ve been a part of every project they’ve done ever since. 

Magical Industrial Revolution was a much larger project in scale than any that we had worked on before, and it was decided that the best way to produce it would be via crowdfunding. The campaign launched on August 13th, 2019, and concluded a mere eleven days later with a total funding of $20,512 against a $4,000 goal. This was, at the time, a profound success, and it helped pave the way for the even more resounding success of The Monster Overhaul four years later. 

The book is an attempt at depicting a city perched on the precipice of ruin due to one of several runaway technologies. The keywords were “density of information” and “readability” and so the entire book is set in Franklin Gothic, a profoundly versatile typeface that pulls double duty as a strong display face and a serviceable body copy. This template proved extremely successful, and was fundamentally unchanged when we re-used it for The Monster Overhaul. 

This book was printed by Mixam on 80lb white uncoated paper with a matte laminate cover, and was shipped alongside three pamphlets for in-world products and services and an art card. It sold well and was very well-received by critics, with particular praise being levied at the design for facilitating ease-of-use for Game Masters at the table. It is also notable for being the last thing I did in Affinity before moving my entire workload over into the Adobe ecosystem.