Worldographer 2025

Hi All,

I promised updates every two weeks, so here's the first! 

Hopefully some of you saw there was a new release to the software the other day.  (We posted a video about it and if you're using the 2025 version you likely saw an "Update Available" button in the menu bar.) Get it here.

The key changes vs. the prior release are:

I hope to finish some of the export options (UVTT and/or another format) in the next update.

I expect to be getting licenses & icon sets out to you all by mid November, but I am also spending a good chunk of time standardizing all the past icon sets.  (Setting them all up in similar folder structures, fixing some names, etc.) These will update the files on DriveThruRPG & our website, so if you've already got them, you'll get the benefit of this work too! We'll have the pledge manager running in mid-November as well.

So what's next for Inkwell Ideas?  Honestly, I'm usually putting my time into several things at once. Prior to launching the Worldographer 2025 crowdfunding I had been working with writer Andrew Shields on a few new card decks with a new concept: Hexploration Decks! Andrew has taken the lead with writing these after we worked out the format and initial samples. We've got over 1/3 of the three planned decks written and the rest spec-ed out.  He's leading the remaining work--I just enjoy/read/critique/test what he creates.

In a nutshell, over 2/3 of the cards are "Location" cards with intriguing art of a fantasy location on one side and the back has a few charts of ideas to bring it to life in different ways for your campaign.  About 5 cards are guidance for making a hex crawl or sandbox and rules for running a player-driven campaign. The remaining cards (about 10) have a theme on each side with charts centering on that theme which can be applied to most Locations for even more variety.  For example: interesting ways to make the location haunted, have historical significance, be involved with fey, etc.

We've got a large 54 card sample linked from the campaign teaser page. It won't launch until next year, giving us plenty of time to finish the features promised in Worldographer and a few rounds of further bug fixes.

Thanks again for your support!  
Joe

 hank you for your support to help create the next major version of Worldographer!  We've spent years (as many of you know) refining it and adding new features to make it a great tool for all worldbuilders. This crowdfunding ensures it will be available for a long time to come.

As with most crowdfunding, BackerKit will be charging cards and allowing folks to fix any failed charges over the course of the next two weeks.  

Meanwhile if anyone is seeing this project late, we do have a post-crowdfunding store set up here on BackerKit as well.

I'll post at least bi-weekly updates & demo releases until we get all the promised features added into Worldographer.  We added several feature ideas during the crowdfunding campaign through the polls (BTW, poll #6's winner was to add 50+ extra icons to the software) and even implemented a few during the campaign.  But there is still a lot of work to do!

I can't give a firm date yet for the full 1.0 release, but I do expect it in a few weeks as well as the icon collections. My plan is to go back through the icons and standardize them as much as possible--mostly fixing names and folders for consistency.  As I said, I'll have bi-weekly updates.  Meanwhile the 2025 demo is available for you to use.

The first or second update will have a link to fill out your BackerKit survey.  That will be pretty simple--just a place for you to pick which of our 4 icon collections you want (if you picked them) and a chance to add on more.

Finally, I am looking for an experienced game/application tester to help with this.  If you've done testing professionally and you're looking for some extra paid work, send me a message at support at inkwellideas dot com.

Thanks again!

Joe

Thank you for your interest & supporting this project!  If you're still on the fence, this video has a good summary as well as a list of related videos below it. 

We've only got about two and a half days left, so we're into the home stretch.  If you see a post or ad about the project, please comment/like/share it if possible, depending on the platform.

Our 5th poll winner was "Import & export data in other formats (maybe markdown, csv, json, etc."  Because that's pretty closely tied to the UVTT export we're working on, we'll be working on those together over the coming weeks.

So time for poll #6.  Backers should see a link in an "Exclusive Content for Backers" section below to a new poll where we carried over the prior results and added a couple more as I scoured comments to our last poll's update and elsewhere.

And if you're curious about what other options were close to winning the poll, those within 10% were: Easy way to add unusual room shapes, Auto-generate more town types (elf, dwarf, Egypt, Norse, etc) if those icons are installed); More Battlemat Room Generator Types; and Have the nation generator use other icons if installed (elves, dwarves, Egypt, Japan, etc.)

Thanks again!
Joe

We now have less than a week to go!  If you've been on the fence, give the demo or videos a look!  I'd highlight this video which is an overview of the world/kingdom mapping changes. But we have similar videos there for battlemats or towns.  And some of the other Worldographer 2025 videos might address a question or interest of yours.

We've just released another new update to Worldographer with the feature that won our 4th poll: a color picker that lets you select a color by clicking on the map.  You can download it here and see a video of it via this link.  In short, most of our previous color pickers now have a little medicine dropper button next to them.  Toggle that button on, then click elsewhere on the map and that spot's color will fill the color picker.

So let's keep the features going!  Backers will find a link to the new poll in a special area below.  If you have other suggestions (for a likely poll #6) please post them as comments here or email support at inkwellideas dot com. (Because Backerkit's comment system isn't great--maybe to both!) 

In case you're wondering about the last poll's runners up, they were: import/export data in more formats such as json/csv/etc.; and easy way to add other/odd shapes to the map (ex: pentagon shaped room). The other options had over 10% fewer points than these.

Thanks again for your interest/support!
Joe