Here, as promised, is the first progress report and contact email for Blood Royal.

Firstly, admin: can I ask if you would all respond to the receipt of this email; I can then check I've got everyone's correct email address, and chase up on those I've got wrong. Also, if you change your email address in the next few months, please let me know and I'll keep my files up to date. Please also note that I will not pass on your email addresses or other details to any other person or organisation - for the moment, that will include the other potential playtesters. At some point closer to the start of the test game(s) I may ask everyone if they would be willing to fill in a small demographic questionnaire - where are you from, age, gender, etc. - on a voluntary basis so I can see who I'm dealing with.

Now, down to business.

I have been delighted by the initial response to my website. There have been just over 300 visits to the site in the past 18 days, and 47 people - that's you! - have expressed an interest in taking part in the playtest. As I had had some responses before I put a counter on the site, it's probably around a 10-12% response rate, which I am very happy with. Many of you have responded very positively, which has done my ego no end of good, and there have been a number of detailed critiques to various aspects of the game/site, which I shall bear in mind as the development continues.

On the subject of suggestions and criticisms, please feel free to send me any ideas you may have, suggestions for improving the readability of the documentation, etc.; but don't expect me to respond in detail. I will read and consider everything, but as I have set myself a tight timescale for getting this up and running, I think my time would be better spent on development rather than discussion.

For those of you who would like to contribute during the coming month, I would be particularly grateful for any proof-reading for simple spelling and grammatical errors - I pride myself on my language skills, but it's easy to miss something. Also, for those of you with any knowledge of heraldry, please check my blazons in the section on arms. And for those of you with relevant background (e.g. those volunteers from Finland, Sweden, Italy, etc.), could you confirm names from your area from Appendix 1: as I mention, transliteration is vexatious, and if I have used an English equivalent of a local name, I'd prefer to list the real version. Finally, I'd be grateful if people could take a long hard look at the Commodities section: is there anything obvious from a medieval trade list which has been omitted?

As I indicated above, 47 people are on the list for playtesting. Even allowing for losing some over the next few months, I am confident that this will grow to 60, sufficient for a full game, by the time we begin the playtest game. That's no reason to be complacent, however, so if any of you feel you know people who might be interested, I'd be grateful if you'd email them with the website address and encourage them to take a look and get in touch. It would be nice to be able to run two concurrent games (with different players!) to try varying things between the games and measuring the consequences.

I publicised this game through the newsgroup rec.games.pbm, and through the following games portals: www.pbem.com; www.pbem-portal.com; www.britwar.co.uk; www.pbm.com. It will be on pbmcube.com as soon as the webmaster sorts out a little problem, and will be mentioned in Flagship early next year thanks to Carol Mulholland. I'm also waiting for Google and other search engines to recognise my submission of the site. Is there any other site or newsgroup people think I should contact?

Now, what are the upcoming plans? As you may have noticed if you've popped back to the site, there hasn't been much in the way of change since publication. This has been due to my being assistant director and acting in a production of 'The Merchant of Venice' (went very well, thank you, very good audiences, had a lot of fun, made some new friends - even the theatre catching fire on opening night couldn't spoil it), and my traditional post-play holiday (a week in a little village in Normandy; very enjoyable, good company, lots of good food and drink, played Magic: The Gathering every day, and good weather too!), but the decks are now clear for a lot of intensive work.

My first target for the next month is to add a number of commands (incidentally: commands? tasks? orders? actions? I think I use them all in various places; any preferences?). At the moment there are around 100, and within a week or two this should be up to around 150.

Secondly, I want to complete the mapping. I know this may not seem important to getting the game running, but I consider it a foundation for the game. The most complicated and time-consuming map - the relief map - is done; I am planning a physical map, which adds rivers, forests and deserts; a map showing the boundaries of the eight realms; a map showing the provinces within each kingdom, as well as towns, roads and castles; and a language ap. I think that's it.

Thirdly, I shall be implementing some of your suggestions for cleaning up and enhancing the website.

Once that's out of the way, I shall be finishing up work on the front-end program. Once that's ready, I shall let people have it to play with, as it will keep you interested while I do the boring but vital backend stuff.

Anyway, that covers everything for now. Expect another update around the end of December. Thanks again for your interest