Diving into 2020

Holy moly. Last time we talked I asked for your feedback without pulling any punches, and it was both extremely helpful and extremely eye opening (and somewhat painful too! But I asked for it). I learned a lot that was implemented immediately, some that will take a little longer to get in place and some that we;re still unpacking.

Here are the few immediate takeaways:
1) Getting things out on time is very important to a large amount of Patrons.
This is something we've always struggled with (mostly because it's a straight up ridiculous self imposed schedule), but every time we talk to Patrons in person they say they don't mind and they "know it'll eventually come". And it does, but I know that's much harder for new supporters that have the big initial wait and don't see anything.

How to fix?

We hired Jason Greeno as a part time graphic designer to focus on BGOTMC and our supporting projects. He's helped us get the first quarter of the year in order very nicely, and we're onto more and more projects, much earlier than I've been able to do myself. 

We also are sending out 2020 starter packs on their own, instead of with the first package. For this first batch, they will be arriving together, but for anyone else that joins in 2020, they'll get a starter pack sent on/around the first of the month after they join. This isn't entirely in our budget, but I hope the goodwill goes both ways.

With this all in mind, we have November and December going out starting this Thursday. January is still being wrangled here. I said that we'd have it out in January, but it's looking like it'll still wind up arrive here in February due to all of the new games included. Personal Space and Trolling For Trouble are both year long games and the setup took longer than planned. The good news is, we ordered Jan, Feb and March all at the same time, so there will be no further delays based on those games. I'm very disappointed in myself for not hitting January in January, and should have been less optimistic with it being the launch of the new games. It's the hardest month of the year to assemble and the one that I insisted we start with, but we're the closest we've been yet. I'm going to keep pushing forward and if things are delayed, our level of communication needs to go up. That's a goal on my end that didn't emerge on the surveys. We should have weekly updates here, at a minumum. 

2) Not everyone loves getting multiple expansions for the same game. 

In 2019 and carrying over to 2020 we released a few ongoing expansions. Games like Anthelion and The Perfect Moment were heavy in the $10+ packages. Some of that was planned from the start, and others were situational based on the printer's schedule, artists, etc. Now if you were a fan of those games (or any similar ones that were heavily expanded), it was great. But if you didn't have them or want them, it was a lot of content that you may not use.

How to fix?

Going forward, we are going to try and make the most of each month. So if there's a 6 card expansion for a game that's ongoing (for example: SpaceShipped will have 3-4 expansions in 2020), we will try to get another small playable into the package. Ideally the $10 slot is a mix of expansions, new games, and small standalone stuff. But it's also our only way to expand games after release, and making / signing brand new $3-9 card games every month and arranging the art in a timely way is not as easily done as I'd hope. So we will continue to release expansions, but we will be aware that if a game is being heavily expanded, that we should pair it up with something small for those that aren't interested. This is where games like MechAge come into play. It's a 3 card standalone game that was to be paired with Anthelion, but that game had some delays and we didn't hold the schedule for it. 

In the next few packages, you'll see the last of Anthelion and The Perfect Moment, and by the February package you should be seeing all new stuff in the $10 slot. There's a little bit of everything, so I hope that it answers the issue of heavy expansions for those not interested.

I think those were the two big ones. I'm still diving into the comments and discussing them here.

So while we're here, let's take a peek at the February featured wallet game, Royale.

Royale was a submission to our recent contest: Design an 18 card game that doesn't use a table or surface. It's one that caught our attention early in the contest and ended up in the top 3 (each of which is scheduled to come out in our 2020 lineup!). 

Trouble is brewing in the Kingdom… The greedy Queen shall be tolerated no more!

ROYALE is an asymmetrical bluffing game for five players: One Queen and four citizens.

Will the citizens rise up, or will the Queen drive them to her knees?

This is our first one vs. many game? At least in the wallet line, I believe. While it says 5 players up there, I can assure you that Mike Mullins is working his magic for other player counts. He's already proposed a 3 and 4 player variant for me, and we've even played it at 2. Solo is definitely out of the picture, unless anyone in the community wants to tackle it. (The community solo variant for Seasons of Rice has been getting a lot of action lately: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2339839/solo-mode-ai-opponent).

This is our first game with Miller Hollinger on design and our second with Milan Zivcovik on art.

Also, if you want to see the original pitch video, here it is: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9neNlFlMbg

There's so much more to tease, so we'll break it up into more posts. We want to do this weekly at a minimum, so expect more very soon!

if anyone has any questions or is missing anything, please let us know! Sept/Oct have shipped, so if you don't have those please contact Matthew at buttonshyhelp@gmail.com. T-Shirts wave one went out and wave 2 and 3 are going out with Nov/Dec packages. We'll be reaching out to $20+ Patrons next for their choice on Nov/Dec wallet games.

Thanks everyone! And Happy New Year! (I know it's late, but if anyone saw last night's Curb Your Enthusiasm premier, that was directly for you).