Monday, November 29, 2010

Kickstarter campaign a resounding success!

I guess this news is almost a week old by now, but I thought I ought to post about it. Tasty Minstrel (Mike and I) put on a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to publish my latest game, Eminent Domain. It went much better than I ever imagined it would! Within 2 weeks we'd reached our funding goal, and when all was said and done we'd raised $48,378!

I wanted to thank all of my friends, family and fans for supporting Eminent Domain, we obviously wouldn't be enjoying this success without you! I hope to impress everyone come April when the game should be available. :)

Monday, November 08, 2010

Holy crap! 100%+ funded, and 2 weeks to go!

Last night we officially funded Eminent Domain! Our kickstarter campaign hit $20,000 on day 14, just under 1/2 way through our 30 day window! I was skeptical at first that we'd raise that much, then optimistic that we would make it by the end of the 30 days... I never thought we would hit our goal so early! Now Mike and I are debating whether in the end we'll have raised only $30,000, or as much as $50,000! I still say Mike is overly optimistic about his $50,000 prediction, but so far I've really underestimate things!

What have I been wrong about so far?

* Number of $200 Platinum Supporter pledges - I underestimated by a factor of 10... so far.

* Amount of money total that would be pledged - I clearly underestimated that as well.

What's left for me to be wrong about?

* I thought (and still think) that nobody will go for the $2500 "TMG UberFan" pledge.

GO AHEAD, PROVE ME WRONG ON THAT COUNT, I DARE YOU! :)

I'm seriously amazed at how well this fund raising has gone for us, and I can't thank our supporters enough! The reaction to our invitation to print and play the game has been overwhelming as well. Literally - I'm overwhelmed with email requests! At least I've gotten 8 more gigs of free space on DropBox from people joining up to see the files :) Evidently that's the maximum I can get from referrals.

I'll tell you what touches me the most though. It's the positive reviews and comments all over BoardGameGeek, from people I've never met or heard of, who not only pledged money for a copy of the game (or several copies), but have also gone ahead and printed out a copy to play it, and have decided that they love the game!

This is truly better than I ever hoped, especially after the manufacturing issues with Terra Prime and Homesteaders were such a joy-kill. I've actually had several people writing me about Eminent Domain and mentioning how much they love Terra Prime, so either they're just stroking my ego, or TP was better received than I thought!

Thanks guys, for supporting me, my game, and Tasty Minstrel Games. You've got 2 more weeks to get your pre-orders in, and to get ahold of a Limited Edition version of the game, and a copy of the Prestige planets (which I maintain WILL be available in a future expansion, but you can get them NOW if you pledge via Kickstarter).

So, what are you waiting for? Go pledge! :)

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Living on a Prayer



This morning the Eminent Domain kickstarter campaign hit 50% funding!  Oooooooh... we're half way there...

 

But there's a long way to go, so keep spreading the word! Here are a few notes about pledging, by the way:

1. You can change your pledge at any time, so  if you get someone to go in with you, you can upgrade your $35 pledge to a $60 pledge. Better yet, if you get 1 more taker, then you can make it $90 and get Limited Edition copies!

2. If you are overseas (or in Canada), you should include the $40 (or $20) shipping premium in your pledge (i.e. if you are in the UK and you want 6 copies of Eminent Domain, you should pledge $190, not $150)

There have been a couple questions or concerns, understandably, about the production quality of Eminent Domain based on some bum copies of Terra Prime and Homesteaders. I assure you, the quality of Eminent Domain will be top notch - we plan to use Panda Game Manufacturing, a high quality and well respected manufacturer which we've also used for Train of Thought, Jab, and Belfort. We expect high quality production from here on out!

So pledge with confidence!

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Additional Eminent Domain possible expansion thoughts - Fighting with other players!

I'd considered once that maybe Warfare, since it was allegedly 'easier' than the Colonize, could be a sort of Scorched Earth thing - when spending armies to attack a planet, you leave one of them on the resource slot, blocking it up so it cannot produce. Rules-wise this means when you flip a planet via Warfare, it gets -1 resource slot. I decided against this because there aren't a whole lot of resource slots, and I wanted Warfare + Trade/Harvest to be viable.

However, today it occurred to me that there could be a Technology ("Scorched Earth Policy" perhaps) that says "Warfare costs are reduced by 1. When attacking a planet, leave an Army token on it."

The standing rule could be that armies on planets reduce the storage capacity by 1. I tossed around the idea that an army token could reduce capacity, but be worth 1 VP... I didn't like that at first because thematically it should be bad to have scorched earth policy, not good (for scoring).

But then I had another thought. Suppose you were allowed to attack other people's planets. people always want to do this at first, and some complain in games like this and Race for the Galaxy that you cannot attack an opponent. So I thought, what if you could - what if an ATTACK action allowed you to attack YOUR face down planets, or ANY face up planet in play. The "cost" to attack a face up planet would be the VP value of the planet (maybe), and the effect would be to leave an army on it, which as has been discussed, would keep it from producing as many resources. That could be enough right there - your opponent is trading like crazy, maybe you want to go blow up his Silicon silo and reduce the amount of VP he's getting.

With that in mind, it might be neat if the Armies on planets WERE worth 1vp, because then you could attack your own face up planets for a benefit (if you're not planning on harvesting anyway), and it would be a deterrent to attacking other people's planets - you could take away their production capacity, but it would give them a VP. I'm not really sure this is necessary though, just spending your turn hurting someone else and not helping yourself might be a good enough cost (those Armies could have flipped a planet for you). Also, it doesn't hurt your opponent's score if you attack their face up planet, it just hinders their trading ability. Perhaps if you get another army on there the Icon could be disabled or something.

Anyway, I like the way the game works without attacking each other, but I think I might add this in, maybe as an optional rule, for the expansion - that is to say if I test it out and like how it works.

Summary:
Rule: An army token on a planet card reduces the storage of that planet by 1
Attack: You can attack a face-down planet in YOUR empire, or ANY face-up planet in play. Attacking a face-up planet costs 1 Army per VP that the planet is worth. When you Attack a face-up planet, put an Army token on it.
Tech card: Scorched Earth Policy - Warfare costs are reduced by 1. After Attacking a planet, place an Army token on it from the supply. (Planets have -1 Storage per Army token)