Founders of Gloomhaven

B-Side Map: Post-Kickstarter Week 15
over 6 years ago – Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 12:35:08 AM

Hey founders of Gloomhaven!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, if you live in a country that celebrates Thanksgiving and all that. I had a good time. I made myself a vegan feast and then attempted to eat it all with great futility. There is still a lot of food left.

But anyway, let's talk about Founders of Gloomhaven. I'm nearly done with the tie-in events for Gloomhaven, which is the last thing I have to do. We almost have a rule book to show you. We don't quite yet because I just now got some corrections back to Josh from the files he sent me earlier in the week. I blame Thanksgiving.

What we do have to show you, though, is the other side of the map board. You won't really get the full glory until it's on a big piece of cardboard right in front of you, but hopefully this image gives you some idea.

This board also doesn't have any graphic design elements on it, so don't judge it too harshly.

Another item we should probably discuss is the fact that I likely won't be delivering the game to you until February. I listed January during the Kickstarter campaign, but we're about a month behind on getting these files to the printer, unfortunately, so that is taking a toll. Progress continues, though, which I hope you can see, so getting those files to the printer should be happening soon!

The other thing to briefly touch upon is when the pledge manager will close. I have previously been saying that the pledge manager will close once we get files to the printer, but, given that we are only producing one product, and I am making plenty extra for retail, I don't really need exact numbers to begin production. This means that the pledge manager can remain open until we need to determine how many copies should be loaded on each boat out of the factory, which should happen in January.

So, yeah, the pledge manager will stay open until January. I do want to get that $1 "Build a Building" video done next month, though, so rewards for that will probably lock in a couple weeks. If you don't know what I am talking about, look at the main Kickstarter page.

Okay, great! That is everything I wanted to cover. No craziness going on next week, so I'll have another update for you on Friday with the rule book PDF. Until then!

Almost There: Post-Kickstarter Week 14
over 6 years ago – Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 12:21:37 AM

Hello founders of Gloomhaven!

I am back from BGG Con with a small update. Basically, things are still progressing! I was hoping to have the other side of the board ready to show you by now, but BGG Con got in the way of my communication with Alexandr, so he's still putting some final touches on it after finally getting some answers to his outstanding questions. There should be something to show you on Friday. After that, the only thing he has to do is some variations of the road artwork.

Josh is also very close to having the rule book in a presentable format. Once again, it's not quite ready to show you, but I am hoping we'll have something by Friday.

One thing I did want to talk about, before we did share the rule book, was that I've decided to cut out the introductory version of the game. For those unaware, during the Kickstarter campaign, the rules had provisions for basically starting the game in the middle, with limited resources so that there were much fewer decisions to make. I was on the fence for a while about how well it worked and ultimately decided that it didn't.

It accomplished the goal of fewer open-ended decisions, but it didn't necessarily make the game easier to comprehend. And it created a huge information dump onto the player right at the beginning of the game. There may have only been a few optimal moves for a player at the beginning of the game, but it was not obvious to new players what those moves were because of the large amount of stuff already strewn across the board.

It didn't work, so I removed it. I'm sorry if there were people looking forward to that, but I've settled on the truth that this is a more open-ended game, and trying to shoe-horn it into something else wasn't what I wanted to do.

But anyway, I am sure I will have at least the new board or a new rule book to show you on Friday, if not both. Well, except that with the Thanksgiving holiday and everything, it's possible I may not get the update out until Saturday. We'll see. At least there aren't anymore upcoming conventions that will disrupt the schedule!

Later!

Tie-In Events and Vote Tokens: Post-Kickstarter Week 13
over 6 years ago – Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 12:19:35 AM

Hello founders of Gloomhaven!

Relatively short update this week. All that stuff I said we'd be working on last week? Yeah, still working on it.

Josh has made significant progress on the rule book, but we're still a little ways off from showing that to you. What I can show you instead are the sweet vote tokens he designed.

These will be cardboard tokens that each player receives. For a while we were talking about making them big acrylic gems, but the shapes weren't right, so we would have had to make special molds and it would have slowed down production a lot. I think cardboard tokens should work well, though.

I've made a lot of progress on getting the tie-in events finished, which I'm pretty excited about. I'm not sure how much I want to give away at this point, but, well, in order to add more story to the events, I've decided to not have them be choices, but just have them be a single narrative on the front and back. In order to make them more personalized, though, you'll actually be asked to write on the card, MadLibs-style, filling in pertinent information from your game. There will still be nine separate cards - one for each race - but the personalization will go beyond which race won.

There's some other cool stuff about these cards, but I will leave that to be discovered.

Sorry I haven't been getting these updates out on time, and I'm afraid next week will be no different, because I am going to BGG Con. I expect to get an update out next Monday then, after I get back.

Are you going to BGG Con? We should play games. BGG Con is my favorite convention to just hang out and play games all weekend. I'll be with my wife, as well, so time to demo Founders will be limited, but if you want to hang out and play Bunny Kingdom, Unlock, or one of the new T.I.M.E. Stories expansions with us, that would be pretty great.

Or a new Essen release like Rajas of the Ganges or Nusfjord. Anyway, until next week!

Getting over Essen: Post-Kickstarter Week 12
over 6 years ago – Sun, Nov 05, 2017 at 12:33:54 AM

Hi there, founders of Gloomhaven!

It time for an update! Well, actually, it's way past time for an update. I told you I'd get you one on the 31st, after I got back from Essen, but being in Essen for a week got me so backed up on everything, I just wasn't able to make it happen. And so I decided to just wait until Friday to do an update, but that was before I remembered that I had to spend all Friday at another conference.

So, anyway, it's Saturday now, and I really owe you an update. And, unfortunately, a large part of the update is that I've been at Essen for a week, and then spent the next week trying to get caught up on all the stuff I neglected while at Essen.

We did get a lot of plays of Founders in at Essen, though, which was great. Everyone really seemed to enjoy it, and I tried out the new point representation on the prestige buildings, which shows the total points gained for the delivery and then, in parentheses, the points gained for the delivery after scoring the delivered resource's prerequisites. This gives people the option to score subtractive or additive, depending on their preference.

Overall, I think this went over well. Most people latch onto the subtractive scoring very easily, but for others, the additive method works better for them, so I think it is helpful to have both, as long as it is clear in the rules what the numbers mean.

So, yeah, like I said, super-positive reception at Essen, which has me pretty excited.

And, of course, while I was doing that, Josh and Alexandr continued to work on art and design. At this point, we are largely done except for the major hurdles of the rule book for Josh and the second map board for Alexandr.

Admittedly, I was hoping and planning for everything to be done by now so we could start getting everything ready for the printers, but it shouldn't impact the delivery date, since I accounted for some buffer time for situations like these.

The important thing is that, with Essen now in the rear view, I will dedicate this next week to pushing this project along to completion as much as I can. We'll get those files sent out soon!

And speaking of printers, there has been some concern about me using the same printers that have just made a lot of mistakes doing the second printing of Gloomhaven, so let's talk about that. First of all Gloomhaven is a massive game, and the second printing was a massive order. They ended up rushing a lot of things after over-promising a delivery date, and that's how we ended up in the situation we're in now with that project.

That certainly doesn't absolve them of any guilt, and they have a lot to make up for, but I am confident that those same mistakes can be avoided in the future. Making sure these mistakes don't happen again is one of the things I will be focusing on next week, and if we can't arrive at a satisfactory conclusion, I am open to moving this project to a different printer (though - fair warning - that would cause some extra delays).

Also, one last thing I want to mention is that Cephalofair Games has hired someone to help with customer support and community management! I've been falling down on that a little recently, especially with the Essen trip, and so I wanted to remedy the situation. I'm sorry if you've messaged me recently and I haven't gotten back to you yet. If you have any questions in the future, please send an email to [email protected].

All right, I'll see you next week!

The Finish Line in Sight: Post-Kickstarter Week 10
over 6 years ago – Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 01:40:40 AM

Good day, founders of Gloomhaven!

I hope everyone is doing well today! This last week has been a bit busy for me with the fulfillment of the second printing of Gloomhaven, but we are not here to talk about that!

We are here to talk about progress made toward getting Founders of Gloomhaven to the printer, and that has been pretty good! I mean, like I said, I haven't gotten much done, but Josh and Alexandr are hard at work.

Alexandr has finished all the personal buildings for each race and is well on his way to getting through all of the prestige buildings as well. Here are some samples:

Once that's done, the only big thing left is the second board, which I am hoping won't take too much extra time.

Josh, meanwhile, is in the process of getting all cards and tiles prepared with Alexandr's art and the proper icons. He's also come up with a final design for the achievement cards:

And, after some back-and-worth with the factory about the pointy bits of some of the meeples, we are very close to getting final designs for those, including the proper player colors. I should be able to show you those next week.

And speaking of next week, I will be at Essen (booth 7-J108) until the evening of Monday, Oct. 30, so you can expect the next update to show up the following day on the 31st instead of its usual time.

In fact, at that time, I hope we'll be at a point where we can start wrapping everything up and start sending files off to the printer. Talk to you then!