Preparing for the End of May

1. Expansion box art

2. Painted miniatures

3. Rulebook access

4. Gameplay rule test

5. Gamefound structure

6. Shipping and tariffs

This time I want to talk about a list of things. First, about the expansion box and a bit about the content of that box. Next, if you haven't seen them on social media, you certainly want to check out the miniatures painted! Then, the edited online rulebook is finally accessible. A rule tweak has been added for testing groups. Finally, I wanted to discuss the structure of the rewards and add-ons for the upcoming campaign.

1. Expansion box art

For the expansion, we still needed a new cover art. For the title art we were struggling a bit as you can see in the overview, but I am probably going for the last one Diego designed with the quill pen. I wanted to avoid the first draft Nasalization font, because of Arman Piñata's background story of the old observatory and references to 18 and 19th century astronomy, when Newtonian physics was thriving. Physics that spacecrafts to the moon are still relying on.

Expansion box concept art by Diego Sanchez (Armillary Games)

2. Painted miniatures

Last time I showed you the print run for rescaled miniatures with their real size for the project. The second print run for this variant was done for painting, and witness the awesome results in the following pictures. These miniatures are painted by Javier González from Aries Studio.

Base game box art by Diego Sanchez with painted miniatures by Javier González. Following pictures by Arsies Studio.

The project will have miniature stretchgoals and unlockable add-ons, but no painted miniatures. These painted pictures are showing painters what the result could be and are meant to inspire those who want to paint them. Unless the project is so massively successful and there is a demand for prepainted miniatures, there are no plans to provide prepainted miniatures.

3. Rulebook access

The editing of the rulebook nearly took a month, but was essensial for those having the latest prototype with my horrible draft of a rebooted version rulebook. My excuses are: haste for prototype printing, fed up with all the previous rules writing and just inexperienced in professional rules writing. Luckily I managed to chase down Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules, a couple of years before to learn he was quitting that line of work. Nevertheless, he managed to refer me to another great rules editor, Miguel Conceição. He was interested in the theme of the game and nearly immediately was interested to work on the project.

One of the main suggestions I have gotten out of working with proficient rules editors, is to work with a living online rulebook which is open to anyone for commenting and consecutively clarify with updated explanations.

If you already have a prototype copy and are struggling with the rules, this living rulebook gives you a time to shine and help us better understand how to explain parts of the game to a big audience. Next week I will have draft images to complement some section. Those will be replaced by Aleksandr from Dina Said So with professional ones once the concept images prove to be good enough.

Here is the link to the rulebook: Online Living Rulebook

4. Gameplay rule test

I want to present to you a rule tweak I developed after chatting with Paul Grogan from Gaming Rules. It has come to my attention that some test groups experienced a lack of agency when acting as the 3rd and 4th player in a round, especially when it comes to the astronomer game versions.

This rule has been briefly tested and proves to give players very interesting choice combinations. It has to be further tested, that is also why it is not yet incorporated in the current rules. It could act as a module variant, since it does add some complexity to the game. Nevertheless, if this rule greatly improves player experience, this might become part of the basic rule.

3 two-sided tokens to be printed, cut out, folded and glued for testing (Armillary Games)

Three two-sided punch board tokens will be added to the game with the following action and bonus tokens:

• Direct Observation / Travelling (action)

• Planned Observation / Scheduling (action)

• Car +1 / Train +1 (bonus)

  
  

A board to place the action tokens on availability areas will be provided. In a 3-player game, the first chosen action will be locked for one turn. In a 2-player game, two will be locked in the order they were chosen.

At the start of each turn, every player in Astronomer status (not Astronaut) chooses an action or bonus token, starting with the last of those players in turn order and proceeding anticlockwise. 

The first player in turn order can only take the first player token and is not allowed to take an action or bonus token.

During the action selection, a second consecutive action can be selected. The two actions must be different and in the same Week.

5. Gamefound structure

Excerpt stretch goal draft (Gamefound)

We are working on the structure of the project on Gamefound. this time I will present the base game and the expansion "Philosopher's Orrery". The latter was first included into the base game, but for some this was too much. Then again, for others it was essensial. Although the base has lost a module, it will have a stretchgoal with a Sphinx module with humanoid upgraded abilities. The expansion will have some extra stuff as well, but all within the scope of the solar system theme.

Except for the basic astronomer characters and CSM Apollo spacecrafts, those are part of pure included stretch goals, the other miniatures will be unlockable stretch goals. Once unlocked, you will have to add them as an add-on. The image only shows a part of the stretchgoal draft. So it is just an impression.

One of the reasons for this strategy is to ensure the basic game print if the amount of backers isn't enough to cover the moulds for all the miniatures. To keep the price down for the base game, it is imperative to concentrate on the affordability for a bigger audience. This is why the tiers availability must be implemented in an incremental fashion with the funding count.

6. Shipping and tariffs

I am looking at the fulfilment prices and inpending tariffs. For the latter, Gamefound is working on a calculation application that would help you estimate what the total cost will be after any regular VAT and shipping costs. I guess this is going to be more of a problem for US customers, but it nevertheless important to mention it, since the game also has a lot of followers there.

For the fulfilment I am thinking to even out shipping costs for Non-EU countries in Europe. I have learnt that the small number of followers in those countries were discriminated by high shipping prices compared to their neighbouring country. As an example, the latest quote for the basegame box of 2.5 kg for Europe is going to be around 20 EUR. There seems to be a light increase in price compared to two years back.

I don't really understand yet what effect those tariffs are going to have or if there is a way to bring that down in the overall project. I will inform myself on the matter with my contacts at Games Quest and Gamefound.

I wish you all a great Easter weekend and don't hesitate to comment on this blog or read older blogs to look up background stories or to discover scientific and historical references in the characters.

As always, ad astra!