PDXAGE and our big announcement!
We really enjoyed our time this weekend at PDXAGE (sadly, the last). We had the pleasure of playing After the Empire with so many wonderful folks! It was great to catch up with our old friends and meet so many new ones to help us work out a few more kinks!
The folks at Blue Heron were kind enough to loan us one of their wonderful plastic dice and bits trays (see below) to help keep our play space organized!
A couple of the great folks helping us to put the finishing touches on our game before we launch our Kickstarter! Check out those stone walls! Impenetrable...well, at least until the Trebuchet shows up.
And the wonderfully supportive folks from Daily Magic Games came and gave me a run for my money in a 4 player game! If you don't already know, they are very active and generous in building and growing our entire gaming industry as well as the local gaming community in Seattle and Portland. Oh, plus they make awesome games! You should check out their live Kickstarter for their newest project, Sailing Toward Osiris, here!
Okay, so what's the big announcement? We've finally chosen our official Kickstarter launch date: August 16th, 2017!
A few of you in the know may be thinking "wait a minute, you said JUNE!" It's true, we had been shooting for mid to late June up till this point. And, it served us very well as a goal-post to help drive progress forward at a strong pace. We sat down for our Monday meeting determined to finalize our launch date. We considered many factors. There were of course a few non-game-related ones, including my upcoming honeymoon trip to Scotland. Scotland!? Awesome, right!? Except Evan would've been gone for 10 days smack dab in the middle of our previously estimated campaign time. And, of course, there was finals week for Ryan (good luck!), as well as various other of life's many important non-game-related things. But, with proper planning, those were all surmountable challenges to a successful Kickstarter in and of themselves.
The real reason is: we were rushing to get everything done. Don't get us wrong, we're not slowing down one bit as we finish up all our remaining graphic design and information presentation challenges. But, we are going to make sure everything is in place and ready to not only make a successful Kickstarter (with your help!), but most importantly, to make the best darn game we can for ourselves and for you all. We'll get in those last few playtests of that one little rule tweak, double check the placement of that one little icon, make sure the stone wall pieces fit together all nice and cuddly, and triple check that our rulebook can be read and understood by people who didn't make the game.
We believe After the Empire is already a great game as it currently sits on the table. And, it's only going to get better with the proper time to smooth the last rough edges. We strive to make the best game we can, a game we're proud of and stand behind in the years to come. Thank you all so much for your time, your enthusiasm, and your support! Let's make After the Empire known across tables everywhere!