Tuesday, November 04, 2025

The List - November 2025

Once again I find myself having neglected The List!  I think it's been about a year since I've checked in, and I probably have some updates to make!

Published Games:

- Terra Prime (BGG)
- Eminent Domain (BGG) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Escalation (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Exotica (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Oblivion (BGG) (expansion) [new edition coming 2024 or 2025 from a new publisher!]
- Eminent Domain: Microcosm (BGG) [theoretically signed by a publisher!]
- Isle of Trains (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) (BGG)
- Isle of Trains: All Aboard (Co-Design with Dan Keltner) [New edition from Dranda Games with included expansion]
- Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done (BGG) [now available from Renegade!]
- Crusaders: Divine Influence (BGG) (expansion) [now available from Renegade!]
- Dungeon Roll: Winter Heroes (BGG)
- Gold West: Bandits promo (BGG)
- Gold West: Trading Post promo (BGG)
[- The Sixth Realm (FKA Deities & Demigods) (BGG) (Co-Design with Matthew Dunstan) [Final Frontier Games]]
- Yokohama: Achievements & Free Agents promo (BGG)
- Brainfreeze

Not much change here, with one notable exception... Sadly, though it raised $400k on Kickstarter, The Sixth Realm has still not seen the light of day. It turns out that Final Frontier games had to close up shop before they got the game printed -- apparently the money it raised on KS went toward finishing fulfillment of a previous project, and evidently their outstanding debts caught up with them or something. Fortunately, I did get a portion (I think it was about half, but I'm not sure) of the royatlies from kickstarter funding, as opposed to zero, but I don't have high hopes of ever seeing the rest. I hope that someday, somehow, an angel investor or somebody will come along and breath new life into the project, but until then I should probably just assume this game is dead on the vine :/

Development projects - Games I've done freelance development on
- Amun-Re expansion [Alley Cat Games 20th Anniversary edition] - Heavy Development
- Harvest (BGG) [by Trey Chambers from Keymaster Games] - Heavy Development
- Holiday In Rome (add BGG link) [by Cory Andalora from Pandasaurus Games - coming soon!] - Heavy Development
- Expeditions (BGG) [by Jamey Stegmaier from Stonemaier Games] - Consultation
- Fled (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2024 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation
- Forelords (BGG) [by Mark Swanson, coming 2025 from Odd Bird Games] - Consultation

Again, nothing to see here. I haven't been doing any consulting or development lately, the last few leads I had all dried up at the beginning of the year -- possibly related to tariffs and other political nonsense, which started really causing problems in the industry (and the world) in early 2025.

Finished But Unpublished Games - in line to be published:
- Apotheosis (Co-Design with Rick Holzgrafe) [signed by a publisher!]
- Taiko Kiri (co-design with Steve Carleson) [signed by a publisher!]

Some good news and some bad news in this category... The good news is that Taiko Kiri, a co-design with my friend Steve, has been signed by a publisher! Not sure if it's OK to say which one, but I will note that they are going to go with an underwater steampunk setting, and I think the title will be Steam Kingdom. So that's cool. On the down-side, I moved several games from this category to "Finished" But Unpublished because (a) Renegade said that Crusaders hasn't been performing well enough to justify printing the 5/6p expansion, and (b) while I had signed Eminent Domain with Rio Grande a few years ago, and they were planning on doing the ancillary products (Eminent Domain Origins, Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory) as well, but all that fell through. I'm looking for another publisher interested in picking up the EmDo line, or at least reprinting the base game and expansions (maybe in a Big Box product)

Currently Pitching Games - "actively" looking for a publisher (though I haven't actively been doing much of anything lately!):
- Sails & Sorcery (Co-Design with Michael Mindes) [pitching to publishers]
- Riders of the Pony Express (BGG) [pitching to publishers]
- Exhibit (BGG) [pitching to publishers]
- Keeping Up with the Joneses [pitching to publishers]
- All For One (BGG) (Co-Design with David Brain) [pitching to publishers]
- Alter Ego (BGG) [pitching to publishers]
- Dice Works (BGG) [pitching to publishers]
- Suburban Sprawl [pitching to publishers]
- Let's Go Balloon Racing [pitching to publishers]
- Press-Your-Luck Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam entry, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]
- Politica Galactica (FKA "Revampsterdam")
- Division of Labor (FKA I-Cut-You-Choose Worker Placement)

 So, the good news here is that I promoted Taiko Kiri, since it was signed by a publisher! Other than that, while I've had a few pitch meetings here and there, and gotten a little publisher interest in a few of these games, so far nothing more has come of it. I have added Division of Labor and Politica Galactica to this category -- I had a couple promising meetings about Division of Labor, but ultimately they led nowhere (though they did inspire some improvements to the game). I really messed up with "Revampsterdam" -- did not provide what the publisher was looking for at all. I felt a little bad that they didn't sort of just say that and give me a chance to fix it, but I don't really blame them for finding someone else to get them what they were really after. But now I have this design that's very much not Merchants of Amsterdam, which I can pitch to my heart's content. 

"Finished" But Unpublished Games - abandoned or backburnered designs that are "done":
- Crusaders: Crimson Knight (expansion) [not coming soon from Renegade :(]
- Crusaders: Amber Knight (expansion) [not coming soon from Renegade :(]
- Eminent Domain Origins [Ready to print] [trying to find a home]
- Eminent Domain: Chaos Theory (dice game) [Ready for art] [trying to find a home]
- Worker Placement Microgame (KBGames 18 card game jam idea, July 2022) [pitching to publishers]
- Wizard's Tower (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Watch It Played [Abandoned]
- Now Boarding [Abandoned]
- Rolling Realms: Jaffee Realms (for Jamey Stegmaier's Rolling Realms)

It hurt a little bit to demote the Crusaders expansions and EmDo games to this category. I also moved the Worker Placement Microgame here as well, I just don't think it's very good -- it's nice to have done it, but I don't really think it's worth pitching as it's not very publishable.

Current Active Designs - these are the games I'm actively testing or working on:
- Peanuts & Crackerjacks
- Truck, Boat, Plane

The only games I've been testing or working on lately have been Henge and Forbidden Arts, each by one of my two biggest playtesters, and two new game of my own. Peanuts & Crackerjacks was meant to be a sort of Press-Your-Luck rondel game about managing a baseball team where your personal rondel is a baseball diamond. I'm not sure it really counts as a rondel though, now it's got Yahtzee as it's driving mechanism. It's coming along I guess, though I'm not super thrilled with it. Truck, Boat, Plane is a cute little project - a game I designed with my 7yo son! And it seems not-terrible! It's got dome roll and move / dice drafting, and pick-up/deliver dynamics.

Everything else in this category either got bumped up to Currently Pitching, or demoted to the back burner. 

Backburnered Designs - I kid myself into thinking that I'm still working on these:
- Eminent Domain: Coalition [solo mode]
- Isle Of Trains: The Board Game (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)
- Kingdom Realms (KBGames 3-lane game jam entry, Nov 2022)
- 18-card Point Salad (KBGames 18-card game jam entry, July 2024)
- Isle of Adventure (Co-Design with Dan Keltner)

Promising Recent ideas:
- Worker-ception [with David Short]
- False Prophet [Mancala/Worker Placement]
- Come And Play [Sesame Street memory/rondel game]
- Candyland Game [Candyland/No Thanks mashup]
- Press Your Luck Candyland [Candyland variant]
- Hanabi Wonders [Hanabi/7 Wonders mashup]
- Stable Genius ["Wingspan of Horses"]
- Eminent Domain: Legacy [campaign mode]

Old Standbys - games which have been around, 1/2 done and untouched, for years:
- 8/7 Central [Abandoned]
- Hot & Fresh [Abandoned]
- Odysseus: Winds of Fate (BGG) [Abandoned]
- Reading Railroad [Abandoned]
- Moctezuma's Revenge [Abandoned]
- Kilauea [a designer showed interest in co-designing, but that didn't go anywhere] [Abandoned]
- Automatown [with Michael Brown] [Abandoned]
- Dynasty [I still think this one has potential] [Abandoned]

Misc and Really Old Stuff - most of this I'll probably never get back to, but I like keeping it around just in case:
- 9-Ball
- Blockade Runner
- Roman Emperors (my version of someone else's game)
- Admirals of the Spanish Main (my version of someone else's game)
- Scourge of the High Seas [deckbuilding game with 2 center rows]

So sayeth Seth Jaffee around 4:14 PM

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