[illustration courtesy of Colorfiction and 0°N 0°W]
I was hoping to be able to announce the final list of the atlas entries in this update (and was thus postponing it), but am still working with a couple of our super-generous 'Name A City'-level backers on the cities they did like to see featured in Virtual Cities; we are thus not there just yet. Happily though, after dozens of hours of researching, playing and trying things out, 43 out of the 45 entries have been decided upon, and I will soon be able to present you with the final list.
Of the selected cities thirteen have already been completed, and four more are being worked on at the time of writing. The book thus --despite hitting its stretch goal-- is on schedule to be submitted to Unbound (for editing and other publisher things) in the first quarter of 2019. Hopefully in the first months of the quarter too.
Now, I do realize that thirteen out of forty-five doesn't sound too good, but please keep in mind that we had to create a proper pipeline, as well as a system to schedule / keep track of our work, which ended up involving detailed, auto-updating spreadsheets, and a thoroughly researched folder hierarchy. We also had to rework two pre-existing entries, redo the City 17 maps, and actually trash three almost completed cities due to reasons the more observant may have already guessed. Also, deciding on the complete list of the included game cities proved way more time consuming than I expected it to be.
Good news is all this is behind us. We have now hit our stride, and both Maria Kallikaki and I are coming up with words and pictures much faster than before. What's more, I have finally managed to clear my schedule as much as possible, giving myself three months without any extra work on games (or their settlements), lectures, interviews or conferences.
Oh, and do please expect updates on the progress of Virtual Cities every 2-3 weeks.
Thanks again for the wonderful support; we hope to reward you all with a wonderful book!
- Konstantinos