A Changing and Shifting World

Published: Mon, 04/20/15

Hey !

It feels as though it has been too long since my last letter – as though the entire world has changed and shifted in the intervening time. There I was, a young lad of a month or so ago, proudly announcing the new game I was working on and eagerly anticipating the fulfillment and release of my first project.

Where is that guy now?

Forge War!

Well, we broke on through to the other side with Forge War. After waiting countless days and months, the US shipment of game finally made it through the congestion at the Los Angeles port. I was able to finish up Kickstarter fulfillment last week and send 1000 extra copies to my distribution broker for retail release.

And that retail release was actually today of all days, which is pretty exciting. More exciting, though, is that 900 of those retail copies have already been sold to distributors! That doesn’t mean that those 900 copies are necessarily in board gamers’ hands, but enough distributors thought highly of the game to almost completely buy out the stock.

It was, of course, my late great fear that the retail copies would not sell and I’d be left sitting in a money-shaped hole. So that’s a great weight off my back, but now I do have to start thinking about a second printing, which is equally scary because what if the second printing doesn’t sell? It’s just a never-ending cycle of anxiety, I guess.

But anyway, people are playing Forge War, and the response has been pretty overwhelmingly positive. It has over 200 ratings on BGG and has been maintaining an 8+ average, which is fantastic. There have been a few detractors because, hey, the game isn't for everyone, but that's nothing to lose sleep over.

Gloomhaven!

What I am losing sleep over is the development of Gloomhaven, which is coming along very well, in a slightly overwhelming fashion.

First of all, WOW. What a huge response to the play testing survey! So many people were interested in helping out that I’m having trouble keeping up with everyone. Well, actually I’m not keeping up with everyone. If you filled out the survey, and I haven’t emailed you yet, I apologize. You’re on the list, and I promise I’ll get to you eventually.

Those play testers that I have been working with, though, have been tremendously helpful in improving the game in ways I didn’t even realize needed improvement. There’s a lot more to be done, but we’ve already made great strides in making the game more accessible and fun to play.

However pumped I am about the game play, though, I must say I am equally pumped about the character art I’ve been receiving over the last month. I know there’s been some mixed feelings about the art in Forge War, but this new artist, Alexandr Elichev, is just hands-down amazing. His work is simply beautiful, and I can’t wait to show more of it off.

In fact, in the next week or so I’ll be sending out another letter titled “The Races of Gloomhaven” so that you can get a better feel for the game world and get a look at some more of Alexandr’s wonderful art.

I’ve also hired a sculptor to start working on miniatures for the game based off of Alexandr’s art. I had been on the fence about including miniatures in Gloomhaven for a while, but decided to just take the plunge and see what happens. I’m pretty confident it will work out well.

I think that’s about all going on on my end. I hope you had a good International Tabletop Day last week. I got to play some Camel Up, Glass Road, Mage Knight, Cash & Guns and One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and I thoroughly enjoyed…most of it.

Until next time!