Creator Diary


Weave's success was incredible, sudden, and unexpected. It's humbling that we struck a chord with so many people. In 2018, we got an incredible show from our friends at Geek & Sundry and demonstrated that we could update Weave with new rules and mechanics with the same deck of cards and dice. After taking time to reflect on feedback from the community, we're happy to announce our plans for Weave in 2019.


While we have a vibrant community and more free playsets than we ever promised, we still have a lot more promises to fulfill. We could have just jumped right in and fired off the missing features that we all want to see, but without a stronger foundation we would have painted ourselves into a real corner–rules and all. So, in building our foundation, we started with the rules.

In tabletop games, it usually works out that the more rules there are to a game, the harder it becomes to learn. When it comes to hybrid tabletop games however, that doesn't always hold true. Looking at Weave's standard and advanced rules, there seemed to be a split over which one was easier to learn. Some found that talents and backstories were too similar in standard, which created confusion on how to use them. Meanwhile in advanced, the simplicity of the combat system created more confusion than clarity.

However, when you look at more complex rules, a lot of things became easier to understand. For instance, Weave advanced's strike track and wound system made more sense to players in understanding how to apply strikes from challenge rolls. Even character creation is a complex affair, but when you put the process through a guided app experience, it seems almost too easy.

On the other hand, there were several new mechanics in Weave advanced that simply weren't being used (such as strike healing or players challenging storytellers). These mechanics confused players, and because the app didn't help guide users on how to use them, they simply got ignored.


So if simple rules were complex and complex rules clarified the game to players, why wasn't there something in the app to make sense of it all? It boils down to a simple fear: we thought players may not like using their devices to make the game easier. Looking back at that thought, it's a pretty dorky thing for a hybrid game to be afraid of. If we want technology to be treated as a first-class citizen in tabletop, then we need to embrace it's advantages and not fear technology that makes our lives easier on a daily basis.

So in 2019, we're going to do just that. We're leaning into the app to make it easier for players to learn by adding features that streamline the rules. Our goal is to unite Weave players no matter their skill level, so we are all on equal ground.

Moving forward, we're going to consolidate Weave standard and advanced into a single edition.

We'll take the best of both editions, clear up any cruft, and add some new features that will take Weave even further. There are so many stories that we want to tell, and in order to tell them, we need to get back to a single rule set that expands on what made Weave so unique. This is going to take several revisions to get it right, and lucky for us, Weave was designed for this exact purpose.


The good news: we have a plan. We've been working towards it since the beginning of the year. Monocle needed to focus on itself for a bit to get on track, including getting the right people on board to make it happen.

So we moved our studio back to our old stomping grounds of Ballard in Seattle. We wanted to build a space that would hold our new team, but also leave room for the public to come in to test out our new ideas. (More on that later, but let's just say that if you want to make the trek to our spot in Seattle, there's a place for you to experience everything as we're making it.)

Speaking of making things, we need to talk about the playset creator. The biggest dream that we all share is one where anybody can create a world of their own design and fill it with stories from the community. This is huge for us–we only get one shot for a first impression, and we wanted to make sure that everything else was in place to support it. Well, we're happy to report that we're ready for it's release. It will be released in the coming weeks. We'll be sharing more about it and its release in the coming days. Get your ideas ready, because it's coming in hot.


I'm going to speak as myself for a bit. It's easy for me to get caught up in every detail and forget that there are so many who are right there with us building what is one of the coolest things I've ever been lucky enough to work on. I get to wake up every day and build this future, and it's humbling to see so many others share this vision with me.

Thank you for your support and for your encouragement. You're all a part of this, and we're going to be including you more in this journey. Gina, dressage us out...

Thank you, Gina.