SLA Industries - Development Diary

27/09/2019

Don't forget, our 2nd Edition Kickstarter is live!

The long awaited 2nd Edition for SLA Industries is here. Featuring a new rules system, new playable races and beautiful art.

04/03/2019

Hi, this is a quick reminder to go check the Nightfall Games and SLA Industries pages for updates now we are in the final stretch. Development updates will be posted there until SLA:CS1 is complete.

04/10/2018

Hi, it's Jared here again, just to show you more of the behind the scenes stuff that we're up to.

Here's a sneak peek at the A5 version of the *SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1* skirmish rules. The PDF version will be ready within a week, all going well, with the print version following on as soon as we can get it sorted.

As per the earlier version, it's not supposed to have art in it, but where there are gaps, how could I not put art in?

09/04/2018

Hi, Jared here again.

This diagram is Dave's art progress chart. Orange squares, the largest portion of the map, are all pieces of art that have been produced for the "SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1" kickstarter, including card art and, mostly, interior art for the big book. The remaining stuff to do is as follows:

Grey: Environments
Blue: Combat scenes
Red: Chapter headers
White: Cover

The cover and chapter headers are referred internally at Nightfall as "The Nine Bastards" and they won't be started until the writing is finished. The writing? I'd say we're almost complete on rough text and well past the halfway mark of finished text. It's looking good.

The art was, of course, the biggest piece of this project and has all been done in-house by Dave Allsop, working almost every day since before the project was announced.

Yes, this is taking a lot longer than anticipated because, as a miniatures game, everything needs to be designed. Everything. No longer could we get away without having even a full body picture of a Shaktar in the big book, because you can't make miniatures without full pictures. Or, as Dave put it amusingly one day, "everything has to have an ass. I've been designing asses."

So, with every gun needing designing, every armour type needing putting together, every creature miniature ready, and a lot of aforementioned asses, this has been a massive project. Adding to the workload was the fact that every picture had to be full-colour, which takes a lot longer than our usual monochrome art as you need colour so you can see how to paint the miniatures. Still, we're on it and it'll get finished, but don't expect it this week.

As this took longer than anticipated, this impacted our other careers, with rent/mortgages still needing to be paid, but luckily, we're committed enough to this project here at Nightfall Towers[1] that we're still filling every spare hour doing this.

While the Kickstarter is obviously our main focus, we can hopefully release something RPG-related to keep fans of the RPG happy before the year is out. If nothing else, take solace in the fact that the vast amount of art serves as a style-guide for future SLA books and that there will be a lot of RPG stuff in this massive new miniatures rulebook, even if the A5 "no fluff, just rules" book is miniatures-only.

[1] If you imagine a bat-filled tower, with cackling witches and lightning strikes, you'd be … well, let's be honest, it's nothing like that - more like a Glasgow flat and Scottish village bungalow, but they're not as romantic-sounding.

14/02/2018

Hi, it's Jared again, with another update on the design work that's going into SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1. This is a bit different, though. After hammering out the design for the A5 booklet (coming soon, nearly ready), we realised that the design we used for legibility at the reduced size of the A5 rules would transfer to the full-sized core rulebook for Cannibal Sector 1.

So, we gave it a go.

We've included a two-page PDF so you can see what it'll look like if you print it out. The cover is just for fun, of course, but there you go. One critter with revised RPG rules (The SLA logo instead of the CS1 logo shows that those are RPG stats, not skirmish stats) and one of the hundreds of illustrations that will be in the finalised book.

Grab the PDF here:https://cdn.23x.me/nightfall/Puddle%20Hermit.pdf

03/02/2018

Hi, Jared here to show you a work-in-progress. As part of the SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 kickstarter, we offered an A5 book with just the rules in it as a reference. As this amuse bouche of a book nears completion, I thought I’d share some early images of the interior.

As this is a smaller book than the huge monster that Dave and I are still writing, there are a few design decisions that are dictated by the size. In that respect, you can expect the final SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 rulebook to be vastly different, even if you’l recognise some of the flavour in this smaller book.

Originally, the A5 book was specced out to be black and white with no art, just to get the rules into the hands of the players, but as I started laying it out, I couldn’t get away from the fact we had all this beautiful Dave Allsop art just lying around, over two hundred and fifty pieces, and, apart from making books look nicer, art makes books so much easier to navigate. You’ll remember the rules for shooting things in the face are near the picture of the FEN AR, or that the section on Patrols has a Shiver in it.

So, I’m sorry we’re not going to deliver a boring quick reference guide, but instead, we’ll let you enjoy some lovely art with your crunch. And maybe a bit of fluff …

09/12/2017

A weekend retreat for Dave and Jared to nail down all the bits of the SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 book that still need writing. Lots of productive stuff that gets the huge book nearer to completion.

After this, they will return to their respective caves and get back to writing.

23/06/2017

FISH MOOEYS

Hi, Jared here. We're busy here with CS1 with nothing we can share yet, so here's another "Tales of Nightfall" trip to the past to fill the time.

In August 1993, or there abouts, SLA Industries came back from the printers and at the release party (we even had a famous 2000AD comic artist turn up. Lit AF) in Glasgow's west end, I claimed the very first copy as my "production proof" and asked people to sign it. Everyone who worked at Nightfall signed it and I've shared their messages below.

The spilled liquid is some red wine we were drinking used to christen the book. We might not have been 100% sober at that point and Chippy signed his art with those splashes while Jim and Morton filled out BPNs. Anne found a blank bit, Dave did a doodle while Beel changed the cover text.

Anyway, here's hoping that next time we can share some CS1 development tales.

26/04/2017

Just thought I'd nip by and make a quick update. The Cannibal Sector One Skirmish Game is going to have an updated background the the most hostile region on Mort, with lots of new background info and colour art. It's also going to have a fully illustrated weapons and equipment guide covering all your old favourites (and quite a few new ones). The art list alone for this section has 89 separate items, and that list is growing.
This is going to be a big book.

Here are a few new samples I have to show you. I'll be back again soon with another update.

Dave

08/04/2017

"Everything we did, however terrible it may seem – was worth it to see The Root Dogs die”

As you probably know, "Hunter Sheets: Issue 2" will soon be heading off to the printers and will then wind its merry way to your local game shop (although you might want to mention this to your lovely nearby retailer, in case they don't know this) and end up in your clamouring mitts.

Part of the process for this is taking the old PDF-only version and resizing it for print, with CMYK-converted images and other tweaks here and there that you just don't need to think about when doing PDF-only layout, and that's the bit I'm slogging through right now. It's great to revisit the work at a much less frenzied pace than the original non-print release, and I'm noticing little gems and moments that I'm genuinely happy those of the "print only" bent will finally get to enjoy.

There are some ugly moments of overkill and creepiness that will draw the players deeper into their worlds and leave them a little less clean and happy than when they arrived, but a lot more experienced and informed about what it is that makes an operative's life. You owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.

- Jared.

04/03/2017

And so it continues. The next six.

03/03/2017

Jared here,

Dave is visiting for a creative weekend and, while he doesn't have his computer to paint, he still has to fill the spare hours with art. These are pieces for cards in CS1 done in the Headshots style, traditionally pencilled and inked and coloured in photoshop later.

Can you tell what they are?