Spinshuffling into a new tomorrow!
Hey, Everyone!
I know 2020 has been not exactly the best time for people. Some things are pretty messed up and we would like to add our voices in saying Black Lives Matter. I’ve been lucky and privileged in life to have a roof over my head, healthy food to eat, and not be treated horribly or killed because of my physical appearance. Some of us are dealing with real problems right now, so I’m definitely not going to complain about how COVID-19 has slowed down production for After the Empire. I am glad we finally seem to be moving forward, though.
With the shelter in place orders over the last few months, not surprisingly, Ryan and I haven’t gotten much play-testing done. He’s been diving into his new day-job, and I’ve been spending most of my time taking care of a tiny human. My free time (after the ladies go to bed) has been spent mostly working on the solo mode for ATE and trying to learn and script an ATE mod for Tabletop Simulator. It’s not exactly professional looking, but it’s currently 70% fully-functional. The mod will be very handy for play-testing in a world where we’re not supposed to physically share space around a table. Hopefully, ATE will do well enough in the near future to require lots of playtesting for the expansion material Ryan and I are excited to dive into!
Lots of folks are fans of sleeving cards in their board games. I totally get it, as I am one of those people. The idea of spin-shuffling the Invader and Siege decks has caused some concern for the ability to do this with sleeves on, since the openings would be facing different directions and may insert into and rip open other sleeves. You could always keep the sleeve openings uni-directional and sleeve the cards randomly rotated, but this would never truly be random if the sleeve opening is always up. You could also rotate them randomly as you put them out, which works as long as you fix the opening direction as you clean up the piles. My preference is to randomly rotate and sleeve the cards initially, then simply spin-shuffle gently. You have to use a little finesse, but it’s really not very difficult. I have thus far ripped 1 sleeve in the hundreds (thousands?) of times this deck has been spin-shuffled. I swear it’s not designed as a dexterity game (although, you do have to balance the little troops on your walls)!
Here’s a video of how I do it. I hope it allays any concerns. And, of course, I’m happy to answer any questions if I make it look too easy and you have trouble once you actually try it yourself (like those fairground light-blocking metal discs…they make it look so easy!).
In other news, Tim Eisner and I (Evan) have been working on a party game together and I’m really excited about it. It’s actually fairly enjoyable when play-testing over Zoom meetings, which I think is a pretty tough bar to cross. So, hopefully you’ll be hearing more about that in the future.
Speaking of Tim Eisner (creator of games like March of the Ants, Grimm Forest, Tidal Blades, and more), he’s got a new game called Canopy on kickstarter right now! Go check it out! I got the chance to do some playtesting for Canopy and really enjoyed it!
If you’ve been following any of our other projects, then rest-assured that Ryan and I will be getting back on the game-design train as soon as we’re able to do so. Talking about it over the internet just isn’t quite the same as sitting at the table together. We’re still very excited for the tentative (still awaiting final contract) 2021 Origins release for Mountain God’s Revenge. And, we’ve had some promising conversations with publishers about a few of our other designs.
I hope this finds most of you well, safe, and with some happiness!