COLONY Update: March 2026

Hey hey lovelies! We’re back again for March’s Colony update, and Muir is once again in the driver’s seat for this one. Before we get too into the updates, it should be noted that March was something of a rough month for a few of us on the team, between the loss of loved ones and several of us falling ill. We’re all on the mend, but between the travel and the illness, it’s been a little slow this month, with most of the progress on the project occurring at the beginning and end of the month. As a post I once read online said, “The horrors persist, but so do I.” Let’s get into it.

State of the Game

As reported last month, we ran a first-time playtest of our GM mechanics at Deuces Wild game shop in Show Low AZ on the 7th! It was, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve had playing my own game, and that is saying something. We had five brand new players to the system join us, and they seemed enthusiastic about trying out the game.

Now three of our players had initially come to the game shop to play something else, which their friend had convinced them to come and give the game a try. After they had arrived at the trading post, I offered all three of them an out if they wanted to return to playing the game they had originally come to play. But to my surprise and elation, all three of them said they liked Colony and wanted to finish out the one-shot I had prepared, as well as learn more about the insane lore and world-building.

The players all were very complimentary and gave some wonderful feedback for us to implement in the next iteration, and I caught a few values that I need to tweak in my GM mechanics, but overall, it was a very fun, slightly janky, and absolutely insane first Adventure Format session, and I cannot wait for the next one. Again, if you’re the White Mountains are of Arizona and would like to be a part of the playtesting process, we hold a session on the first Saturday of every month, and all are welcome to join in and hang out (although I’m still on the mend and may have to reschedule this month).

As far as progress toward the public Adventure Demo goes, this playtest was our testing ground for a number of new mechanics and materials, including a prototype GM Deck, NPC mechanics (including PVE) using our new Creature Sheets, dungeon crawling mechanics, and party travel mechanics. Having all that initial playtest data at the front end of the month has helped me tremendously in iterating and refining the Creature Sheets, as well as correcting some assumptions about how some of these mechanics would operate in practice. While the GM Deck has a ways to go still, it’s at least in a usable state with lots of room to expand on.

Song of Origins

Between some of us being out sick and traveling, as well as more pressing obligations to other creative projects Charles is involved in, progress on the Song of Origins artwork has been slow this month, but he was able to work on the foundations of one of the next pieces, the perspective of which looks awesome, and we can’t wait to see it in full.

And I think that’s all for this month! We’ll hopefully have lots of news and updates for you about April’s progress, and we can’t wait to share it! As always, we are so grateful for your continued interest and support in our creative endeavors, and we hope you have a productive, safe, and happy April.

Cheers,

Isaac Muir