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How I Heard It - Campfire Storytelling Game

Created by First Pancake Studios

Gather ‘round the campfire to tell the tale of a folk hero long past in this storytelling TTRPG inspired by framing narratives like Name of the Wind. Explore themes of power and history as the story is warped by the conflicting ideals of those telling it

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Surveys Sent, Production Delays
8 days ago – Tue, Nov 03, 2026 at 01:38:19 PM

Hi First Pancakes!

First things first, the Backerkit survey has been sent out to your emails. You must fill out the survey to receive your rewards. Do this as soon as you can, we will not lock them until we're closer to shipping so you'll still have time to adjust your shipment destination once you fill it out.

Second, I'm sad to say we've had some major production delays. I was hoping to get this project to you all before Christmas, but this timeline ended up not working alongside our artist's other commitments. I'll have some new art to show you all soon, Nala is fully committed to the next month for this project. They're really excited to show off what they have been working on.

  1. Run the campaign [DONE]
  2. Core book manuscript [DONE]
  3. Guest writing [DONE]
  4. Editing [DONE]
  5. Survey [DONE]
  6. Remaining Spot Art [End of November]
  7. Layout [End of December]
  8. Order Proofs [End of December]
  9. Begin Shipping [Early January]

In Flame and Smoke,
George Philbrick
First Pancake Studios

Summer Update -- Writing FInished, Guest Writing FInished, Edited
4 months ago – Thu, Jul 09, 2026 at 12:54:14 PM

Hi First Pancakes!


Long time no see! Apologies for the radio silence on my part. I've been hard at work on other projects at the studio while waiting for deliverables from the team.

So here's a quick progress update on where we are with How I Heard It:

  1. Run the campaign [DONE]
  2. Core book manuscript [DONE]
  3. Guest writing [DONE]
  4. Editing [DONE]
  5. Survey [End of August]
  6. Remaining Spot Art [End of August]
  7. Layout [End of October]
  8. Order Proofs [End of October]
  9. Begin Shipping [Early November]

Guest Writing

All of the guest writing funded by the campaign is complete and y'all these modules are awesome! Outlaw trains, Underwater Fighting Arenas, Clockwork Skies; these writers killed it. I got a chance to play a few of them at a convention last month and they were excellent! Get ready to tell some emotional stories about unions, royalty, and weird infinite bureaucracies. 

Editing

A complete editing pass has been done for the manuscript, and all the guest modules. It's getting real clean thanks to Eric's diligent work. One more pass will be done for copy errors at the end of layout, but the major editing is finished.

Other First Pancake News


In Flame and Smoke,
George Philbrick
First Pancake Studios

Preorder Open, Guest Writing Begun, More Art
8 months ago – Thu, Mar 19, 2026 at 09:47:43 AM

First Pancakes,

Thank you for your help in funding this campaign. I'm so excited to work with the guest writers and artists that your support has helped us hire.

Preorder Store Open

If you missed the end of the campaign, it's not too late to buy a physical copy. You can now preorder online here on Backerkit.

Progress Updates

Funds have been received from Backerkit, and payments have been sent to writers. Writing on guest world sheets has begun! Meanwhile, I have been working on revisions to the core game from the first editing round.

Nala has also begun work on art, including sketches of the deluxe linocut version of the cover, and illustrations for the worldsheets. Here's one for Bilgeroot, the festering bog of the undead featured in our actual play


Upcoming Conventions

I will be running games of How I Heard It at several upcoming conventions. If you're going to PAX East, I'll be there with Games on Demand March 26-29th. I'll also be helping out at the Goosepoop games booth, so come swing by to say hi to Jordan and myself!


And if you're in my home state of Massachusetts, I'll have my own booth at SomerCon, and will be running demo games. That's Sun. Apr. 26 all day in Somerville!


In Flame and Smoke,
George Philbrick
First Pancake Studios

How I Heard It Funded! Stream with Weird Place today!
9 months ago – Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 09:04:40 AM

First Pancakes!


We have Funded!

A brief update today to say thank you so much for your help. We're only able to do this thanks to you supporting us. I'm so excited to have the funds to be able to hire and work with great guest writers and artists.

Also wanted to let you know that we have just over 48 hours left in the campaign. If you haven't backed yet, this is your last chance to get the game for a reduced price, and to get the exclusive hand printed linocut zine if you want to really support us.

Stream Today

I'll be Joining Weird Place's end of Zine Month wrap up showcase and launch party for their new game. Come join us and hang out at 2PM EST! https://www.youtube.com/live/sDalXw_IDfU

Actual Play Live Now

The actual play is now on YouTube. We had a lot of fun making this, and Declan did a brilliant job doing all the technical work and editing to bring it together. If you've been holding out to see how the game plays, now's the time to check it out!



Thank YOU Backer, and let's cruise towards those stretch goals so we can feature even more cool writers!

George Philbrick
First Pancake Studios

Mostly There, Art, and Live Stream
9 months ago – Thu, Feb 19, 2026 at 10:33:44 AM

Hello First Pancakes!

We are 85% of the way there; That's so close! With a week remaining, I know we've got this. I'll need help from all of you to fund and to hit our stretch goal. If we get to $6000 we'll get to feature some truly cool stretch goal writers!

I wanted to spend a little time today to share the process of our wonderful cover artist, who will also be doing some fantastic interior pieces that I can't wait to share with you. So without further ado, here's some words from Nala J. Wu on how they created the cover design.

How I Heard It Cover - by Nala

My cover design for “How I Heard It” went through a long ideation process. George and I talked at length about what we wanted on the cover, and how to balance our ideas with ensuring the game has shelf presence (being able to stand out on a shelf from all the other products around it) and a unique branding identity (how easily can people see this cover and get an idea of what the game might be about, what vibes playing it might bring, etc.? as well as being a unique image that can be used for marketing) 



He was a fantastic client because he had an idea of what he was looking for already, AND had an ashcan layout already so I could read the game and get more context. The game is centered on the oral tradition of telling stories around a campfire and so we agreed some sort of illustration showing people around a fire was the general direction to go in. The second thing we agreed on was the use of my digital linocut art style—a process that mimics a traditional linocut print, which are created with sharp tools to carve a linoleum (or rubber, or foam, or other material) block that you then make prints of. My art style mimics the look and process of traditional linocuts (also called block printing) while being done using a digital art program (no generative AI was used in the making of this art, or any of my art). 

I'm really happy with the thumbnail we decided to go with. The stylized smoke allowed me to get some REALLY fun shapes in the composition to help with flow, and I really enjoyed the direction I took the 'stick figures' around the fire because they feel personalized and 'different' but still ambiguous enough. I decided on orange and a desaturated teal (plus black) for the color palette to keep it simple while also being a unique color scheme that is more visually interesting to look at than just a black and white cover. 

I also used the same orange for the title and the accent details.I specialize in hand drawn title design and was very excited to get to flex those skills here as well. I can't wait to come up with a completely different design for the special cover, which, unlike this one, will be an actual traditionally-carved linocut print with hand drawn ink details on top, making each print a one of a kind!

Project Recommendation: The Wanderer's Bookshop


My literary heart is happy to recommend yet another book-inspired project, and one that Nala is working on at that! If you want to play the role of a rare book collector, while getting to actually READ books, then this is the game for you! They recently reached the stretch goal at which Nala will be doing the layout for the whole book. Nala's unique digital collage style looks super rad and will be perfect for an eclectic book collecting game like this.

The Wanderer’s Bookshop is a solo* journaling bookshop simulator, guided by tarot cards; you collect stories, read books and find your “white whale”.

Upcoming Live Stream

We'll be streaming a real actual play filmed around a campfire at 8PM EST on February 23rd! Declan has done an excellent job with the production and I'm excited to share a video that is equal parts roleplaying game and chill campfire video to put on your TV. Stay tuned here on Backerkit for that livestream.

In flame and word,

George Philbrick
First Pancake Studios