cyberpunkmaps
Shareholder Report 02/2024
Published: February 8th 2024, 11:42:45 am
Hi everyone,
It's time for another Shareholder report. I gotta say that this might get a bit long as I have a lot of smaller and bigger news, but I'll do my best to keep things short and to the point.
January Releases
Let's start by recapping last month's new releases. There were four new map packs.
February Maps
For February, I have planned four more maps.
- Neon Alley - An encounter map featuring a neon-lit back alley and some side-alleys.
- Rooftop Garden - A rooftop greenhouse with a small balcony
- Skybridge Hub - Walkways and platforms hogh above the street-level connecting two or more buildings.
- Executive Restaurant - A fancy and luxurious restaurant for the rich and influential.
Back to Roots
For me, this is probably the biggest news in this post.
Last year Miska's Maps grew into a three-person company. I hired one full-time artist and another part-time assistant. We moved into a tiny office space in the summer and a few months later into a four-times larger office space. Sure, this resulted in more releases, but also to increased expenses and clogged up our Foundry VTT support process.
To cover the expenses I had to take some commission work and this ended up being a huge distraction for me. Also, much of my time went to guiding and directing the new artists.
As a result, I felt I was losing my touch with the community and my freedom to create maps on my own terms and in my own style. This was not what I wanted in the first place.
These changes were not planned for the most part. At first it felt like things were progressing nicely, but in hindsight, I was not ready to scale up the business yet. In January I decided to downscale my business and focus on building a better foundation for future growth. For now, I want to focus on creating and developing map art, assets, and more.
Two of my team members will continue to support my work, but as freelancers with a different focus than previously.
Inkarnate Sci-Fi vs. Miska's Maps Style
Around six months ago, I got early access to Inkarnate's upcoming sci-fi style. This has been an interesting collaboration and experiment. Personally, I like Inkarnate as a map-making tool, and their aesthetic in textures and assets is quite nice.
However, this was not supposed to replace Miska's Maps' style, but lately many of the releases have been created with Inkarnate's style. I’m considering shifting back to using my own assets and style, and I'll return to this matter in detail in a separate post soon.
Tweaking the Releases Schedule
Because of my overloaded schedule the release schedule has tilted towards the end of the month. I'm working towards a more regular release schedule, but I still have a few loose ends to tie up, and then I can fully commit to more regular releases and updates.
State of Foundry
Foundry modules have a huuuge delay at the moment. I'm painfully aware of this, and I apologize for the situation (again). This is totally my fault, and I should have made bigger decisions about this sooner and not been too optimistic about my available time to take care of this. One of my team members gave a shot at this earlier, but that did not work out after all.
Now, I have outsourced the module creation, and the first modules are done. I expect new modules to drop on a weekly basis from now on, starting this week. I’ll be releasing some older modules with cyberpunk maps as a bonus also.
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That’s all for now. More updates and polls coming later this week. Stay tuned!
Thanks!
- Miska