Natural Pengu's page

Natural Pengu Mobile VTT - early access - is live...

pengustudios.com

See you there!

Guilty as (not) charged. Definitely makes it go from a “hmm, will check it out” to “probably not, thanks”. I’m basically all for using free tools, and while that isn’t a business model many (any?) businesses can absorb, I’m not really in the habit of signing up to too many subscriptions. Those for are will likely see this as a value proposition - they either think it will be good value among all their other subscriptions, or they won’t. But the thing is, they are already in the subscription mode and are much more likely to…buy in.

The easiest way to get me to…buy in…is to ease me in as much as possible. I’m definitely not signing up, for a free tool, by giving the makers my credit card details. I’m clearly not the target market, but I might be…

Hello OceanshieldwolPF 2.5

Thank you for responding to our post!

The business model is the really hard and important question. I know, subs are not ideal. It is true. I personally feel I have too many subs, from everywhere. And somehow I think maybe there is another way. So as we are making the platform better, I would also like to improve the business model.

I would really like to hear your thoughts. What kind of business model would work for you? Send me a PM or something, if you have the time and would like to chat about it.

Cheers!

...My one issue that immediately stands out would be that even the free $0 subscription requires a credit cards info be entered to "buy" it, that's going to significantly cut down on the user base, most directly amongst those who don't have PCs and are the best audience I suspect, if that could be fixed I think it'd add a world of new players.

Hi Richard! This is great stuff.

You make a really good point again. So, I'll prioritize fixing the $0 sub for sure, so no credit card info is needed. There are some foundational mechanics we need to change to make it possible. But from what you are saying, that will totally be worth it. It will take a bit of time, but I'm on it...

I think you messaged me about this before, right? Sorry it has taken some time for the penny to fully drop on this one!

Cheers!

I have been very critical in the first blog, and I have the opportunity to balance it out, so here:

This blog and the teaser video do a MUCH better job selling it, it looks much more professional, and explaining that the mobile version is teh "main" focus help a lot too! (I don't even remember if it was mentioned in the initial announcement!)
From what I see, everything is clearer here.
Good job.

Great to hear from you again Elfteiroh!

I must say that the first blog response, even though it was admittedly hard to read, helped us a lot. You gave us a clear idea for what was wrong. With that kind of clarity, it is simple for us to start taking steps to fix things.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give us feedback here as well!

Cheers!

Hello everyone! Markku from Natural Pengu here.

Here is a quick teaser video of our Pathfinder Mobile VTT!

We are so excited to get people using it!

With your help we can find and squash all the bugs...

Cheers!

@Richard Lowe @OceanshieldwolPF 2.5 @Elfteiroh @redeux @OmegaRogue @SheepishEidolon @Robotic Janitor @Amethyst Tiefling @Ectar @Ragni @Grankless @LordZeev

Hi! Thanks again, all of you, for your feedback. This has been SUPER valuable. I honestly mean that!

Sometimes you are too deep in... WHATEVER... to see what really is important. You all have helped us shift our focus on things that matter most.

My absence here recently has been because we really rolled up our sleeves and started working on addressing all the issues that you took time to point out. Hopefully very soon you will see the results of that.

Cheers and a great day/morning/evening/night to you all!

(and if the language above seems a bit fuzzy, it is because it is getting close to midnight and my brain is shutting down... :) )

Markku
Natural Pengu

LordZeev wrote:

Alright so...another VTT? I just dont know why Paizo keeps casting this wide net for VTTs when they have one of the best, if not the best VTT integrations on the market with Foundry VTT. There are players I play with that generally HATE playing online, but are willing to because the foundry integration is as good as it is. So why isnt Paizo using it as a major marketing tour. Instead we get almost illegible posts like this about a product I am going to dismiss out of hand because I have something that does this already.

While I am certainly in Foundry's corner (community dev), mobile options lack official support and are not the greatest experience currently. Natural Pengu claims to be mobile friendly, which is neat....but I do certainly question the mobile accessibility of the VTT when Natural Pengu's blog is not mobile friendly. I am eager to see what they bring to the market, as competition is a good thing.

---------------

Entirely unrelated, while I am glad that questions are being answered in this blog, I do hope that the website will document all of this information more clearly and concisely. I looked at the website last night and was left thoroughly confused, and the sad reality is that these blogs often get lost in time so they shouldn't be the primary way to learn more about a product.

Thanks for all the great feedback LordZeev!

The blog should look a bit better now, even on mobile. :)

Cheers!

Markku
Natural Pengu

Anyone else think it’s weird that Natural Pengu’s blog has 2 posts in a March and then… nothing until today?

Hi!

YES! I thought it looked very weird that there was nothing there since March, so we fixed it by posting yesterday... Maybe it made it even more weird!!! :D

Thanks for noticing.

Markku
Natural Pengu

I think the most frustrating thing that happens with the blog is that there is sometimes no follow up, either by the partner being showcased, or Paizo. The Mirrorscape blog really had me interested, I wanted to use the system they were showing. I signed up, toyed around with it and gave up because a) I couldn’t get it to do almost anything and b) no-one showed uphere on Paizo to say…anything. I’m just not sure what the thought process is or the angle for Paizo - clearly they want to grow their fanbase and give their fans multiple avenues in which to enjoy their system and IP, and there’s a whole lot of hype, but…nothing follows. Really weird. And I’m definitely looking for a VTT I can use on my tablet…

Hi! Yes. Sorry for my late reply! I totally get what you are saying. Investing in a platform is about trust.

Let me know, if there is anything more I can help you with.

I really want to be honest here. Ours is just another "Early Access release". NO question about it.

But, if we can build a community around Natural Pengu VTT that is willing to give us honest feedback, patient real life testing, and small means to keep the lights on at our studio, we will succeed in building something great. I am sure of it.

Anyways, hope to chat with you soon.
( Discord invite: https://discord.gg/Tt9cgJmzEG )

Markku Lorentz
Founder CEO - Pengu Studios & Natural Pengu

It certainly seems... quite new. I assume there must have been a lot of testing and such, but without any visible forums on their site to see the feedback from all of that (at least without signing up to give them my information there doesn't appear to be), or offer such (along with feature requests, bug tracking, issue resolution, etc etc) it seems like a tough call to drop money on based on that video (unless you really like walking animations I guess?)

Hi Richard!

Thanks for the comment! And yes. Certainly we are new. :)

I will reflect on your feedback, so we can build more accessible & visible structures and workflows. I see that our efforts for building the Natural Pengu VTT need to become more transparent to the wider public.

Yes, giving money to someone needs a level of trust. We need to earn that.

If you are interested, come and talk with us on discord
( invite: https://discord.gg/Tt9cgJmzEG )

Or come hang out on Twitch (link on the blog post).

Otherwise, your feedback has been very helpful. Thanks again!

Markku
Natural Pengu

With all Paizo partnerships to date, "if you own the book" means "if you bought or got the PDF through the Paizo store". Here should ne be different.

The subscription part is... confusing. Is it to USE the VTT? Does it includes systems? It's... not explained.

... but, yeah... The UI and most of the visuals, and the way they present/explain stuff is... outdated? Amateurish? Hard to explain exactly. It's very far from what we're used for VTTs and TTRPG tools in general.

Many of the assets/fonts and stuff reminds me of amateur games that use lots of free assets on itch.io or Patreon.

Hi Elfteiroh!

Thanks very much for the feedback! Much appreciated.

Natural Pengu VTT will be opened to the public in three phases. The first one out is the Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit.

The subscription now ($0.99/month if you join the mailing list) is for the Pathfinder Core Toolkit. In the future, you will get an option to upgrade to include the functionality of the following releases to your subscription plan, if you so choose.

When it comes to the UI, visuals, presentation etc. YES! We are not ashamed to say we are "level 1".

Our adventure is the extremely challenging task of creating an easy, fast and fun VTT for playing TTRPGs. We have chosen to open up our efforts for the public as an Early Access product. It is far from perfect. "Levelling up" will take a lot of work.

But we want to invite people to join our adventure as close to the beginning as possible. With your feedback we can develop the VTT to a place where you actually think it is good. Without early user feedback we are just guessing, and might end up totally off course...

Perhaps that makes sense?

Thanks again for your honest comments! Very helpful!

Gah. I can’t make heads nor tails of this.

Listen carefully as I am a simpleton and have trouble with complex answers. Here is my very simple question:

What if I buy the Player Core and GM Core in a physical form to learn the rules. And then want to play with my international friends on the interwebs using Natural Pengu.

Do I subscribe for @$2 a month and have access to all the rules of PF2 Remastered to use with/on Natural Pengu?

Does everybody at my virtual table also have to subscribe at @$2 a month?

Hi OceanshieldwolPF 2.5! (loving the username!)

I'll try and give you good and honest answers.

The physical book purchase vs PDF purchase from pazio.com is the thing I need to do some more research on before I give you a complete answer.

However, we are selling two types of products in the near future:
1) Subscriptions to the platform
2) Paizo Rules and adventure books (one time fee)

If you sign up to our mailing list before November 15th, you get a chance to Early Access subscribe to our Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit for only $0.99 per month.
This will give you:
+ unlimited character creation
+ automated rolling from the character sheet
+ access to preset characters

Also, joining the mailing list gives you the option to buy the Pathfinder Player Core from us for $21.99. You can then download the PDF from paizo.com and have access to the rules inside our platform as well.
This will give you:
+ access to the Pathfinder Player Core rules inside our platform

Do these two things, and you have access to everything the Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit has to offer.

So playing with your friends via the interwebs will work (and will get better and better as we open up more of our VTT for the public to try) The Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit is the first of three phases for releasing the full fledged Natural Pengu VTT.

My answer turned out quite long, but I tried to keep it simple. I hope this helps... I'll do some more research on the "buying a physical book" from pazio.com topic.

Cheers!

How does one prove ownership of the book to get the reduced price?

Can I buy the book on amazon or my FLGS and get the discount?
How about if I buy the physical book on from the Paizo store, but don't acquire the PDF? Or vice versa?

What does "subscribing to the Player Core Toolkit" get me?
Are players/GMs required to subscribe to Pengu to play at all or is there a free to play option?

Great questions @Ectar ! Thanks so much for commenting & asking! And very sorry for my late reply...

Proving Ownership
Our platform connects to paizo.com marketplace through an API. That way we get to know if you own the book already, and then all you need to pay for are the integrations with our platform.

The Paizo API is how we know. I confess, I do not know if you can register purchases made through Amazon or FLGS here at paizo.com, so that we could access that information through the API.

I'll do some research.

Physical vs. PDF
I now realize will have to do some more research on this physical book vs. PDF question as well.

"To subscribe, or not to subscribe..?"
FREE (and logged in)
+ create up to three characters
- no automated dice rolls with added modifiers from the character sheet
- no access to character presets

PLAYER CORE TOOLKIT SUBSCRIPTION ($1.99/month - but with Early Access launch "Founder" discount only $0.99/month)
+ unlimited characters
+ automated dice rolls with added modifiers from the character sheet
+ character presets

So yes, you can play for free (three free characters).

The Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit is the first of three phases of our full VTT release.

Please ask, if you have any more questions. Cheers!

Markku
Natural Pengu

Ok does anyone else find the 3d models on their website a little disturbing?

HAHAHA! I know one or two people in the team who get some serious "uncanny valley" vibes from those characters. The problem is, I like them! (so I am the problem ;)

Thanks for the feedback though. I'll evaluate what can be done to reduce the "disturbing" factor.

Cheers & have a good one!

Markku
Natural Pengu

So is this... Buy a subscription, or if you own a book get it forever on the platform for tge price of a month subscription? Am I reading that correctly?

Hello! Thanks for the comment & sorry for the late reply (time zone is my excuse... :)

So to clarify, and to add additional info, let me explain a bit more about the current options available to use Natural Pengu - Pathfinder Player Core Toolkit.

First, "To subscribe, or not to subscribe..?"
FREE (and logged in)
+ create up to three characters
- no automated dice rolls with added modifiers from the character sheet
- no access to character presets

PLAYER CORE TOOLKIT SUBSCRIPTION ($1.99/month - but with Early Access launch "Founder" discount only $0.99/month)
+ unlimited characters
+ automated dice rolls with added modifiers from the character sheet
+ character presets

Second, "To buy Pathfinder Player Core book from us, or... not?"
NO PATHFINDER PLAYER CORE BOOK OWNED
- no access to full Pathfinder Player Core rules inside the Natural Pengu Player Core Toolkit

PATHFINDER PLAYER CORE BOOK OWNED (either you buy it from us with Early Access launch "Founder" deal $21.99, or you buy the book from Paizo.com and you get the Natural Pengu Player Core Toolkit integration for only $2.00)
+ (you guessed it! ;) access Pathfinder Player Core rules inside the Natural Pengu Player Core Toolkit

I hope this helps to at least understand our pricing model a bit more. Don't hesitate to ask, if you have any more questions.

Thanks again for engaging with this blog post! I really appreciate it!

Markku
Natural Pengu